Volume 15, Tome IV: Kierkegaard's Concepts: Individual to Novel (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources) [1 ed.] 9781472444639, 1472444639

Citation preview

KierKegaard’s ConCepts tome iV: indiVidual to noVel

Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources Volume 15, 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’s Concepts tome iV: individual to novel

Edited by steVen m. emmanuel, william mcdonald and Jon stewart

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA

Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © steven m. emmanuel, william mcdonald, Jon stewart and the contributors 2014 steven m. emmanuel, william mcdonald and Jon stewart have asserted their right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the editors of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice .. Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data a catalogue record for this book is available from the british library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: library of Congress Control number: 2014939319 isbn 9781472444639 (hbk) Cover design by Katalin nun

Contents

List of Contributors List of Abbreviations

ix xiii

individual Lydia B. Amir

1

inner/outer Philipp Schwab

9

intensity/extensity Noreen Khawaja

17

the interesting K. Brian Söderquist

25

inwardness/inward deepening Christian Fink Tolstrup

33

irony Nassim Bravo Jordán

39

irrational Sean Anthony Turchin

45

Joy Benjamin Miguel Olivares Bøgeskov

49

Judaism Tamar Aylat-Yaguri

55

language Steven Shakespeare

59

law David Coe

67

vi

Kierkegaard’s Concepts

leap Gerhard Schreiber

71

legends Matthew Brake

79

leveling Leo Stan

85

life-View Lee C. Barrett

89

logic Gabriel Ferreira da Silva

97

love William McDonald

105

lyric Nassim Bravo Jordán

111

marriage Deidre Nicole Green

115

martyrdom/persecution Jack Mulder, Jr.

123

mediation/sublation Jamie Turnbull

131

melancholy Steven M. Emmanuel

137

metaphor Frances Maughan-Brown

143

metaphysics Corey Benjamin Tutewiler

151

middle ages Diego Giordano

159

miracles Heiko Schulz

163

Contents

vii

mohammedanism Diego Giordano

169

moment William McDonald

173

monasticism Curtis L. Thompson

181

money Gabriel Guedes Rossatti

189

mood/emotion/Feeling Sara Carvalhais de Oliveira

197

movement/motion Shannon M. Nason

205

music William McDonald

213

myth Diego Giordano and William McDonald

223

nature/natural science Thomas Posch

227

necessity Gabriel Ferreira da Silva

231

negation Archie Graham

237

novel Gabriel Guedes Rossatti

245

list of Contributors Lydia B. Amir, school of media studies, College of management academic studies, 7 Yitzhak rabin blvd., 7502501 rishon lezion, israel. Tamar Aylat-Yaguri, department of philosophy, tel-aviv university, ramat-aviv, p.o.b 39040, tel-aviv 61390, israel. Lee C. Barrett, lancaster theological seminary, 555 w. James st., lancaster, pa 17603, usa. Matthew Brake, george mason university, 4400 university dr., Fairfax, Va 22030, usa. Nassim Bravo Jordán, universidad iberoamericana, prolongción paseo de la reforma 880, lomas de santa Fe, 01210, mexico City, mexico. Sara Carvalhais de Oliveira, Unidade I&D Linguagem, Interpretação e Filosofia, universidade de Coimbra, Faculdade de letras, praça da porta Férrea, 3004-530 Coimbra, portugal. David Coe, Concordia seminary, 801 seminary place, st. louis, mo 63105, usa. Steven M. Emmanuel, department of philosophy, Virginia wesleyan College, norfolk, Va 23502, usa. Gabriel Ferreira da Silva, universidade do Vale do rio dos sinos—unisinos, PPG—Filosofia, Av. Unisinos, 950, Bairro Cristo Rei, São Leopoldo/RS—Brazil, Cep: 93.022-000. Christian Fink Tolstrup, Holte Kirke, skovlodden 17, 2840 Holte, denmark. Diego Giordano, Dipartimento di Scienze Economico-Quantitative e Filosoficoeducative, università di Chieti, Campus universitario, Via pescara, 66013 Chieti scalo, italy. Archie Graham, Faculty of liberal arts and sciences, ontario College of art and design university, 100 mcCaul street, toronto, ontario, m5t 1w1, Canada.

x

Kierkegaard’s Concepts

Deidre Nicole Green, c/o søren Kierkegaard research Centre, Farvergade 27 d, 1463 Copenhagen K, denmark. Gabriel Guedes Rossatti, universidade Federal de santa Catarina—uFsC, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Filosofia, Campus Universitário—Trindade—CEP 88.040-970—Florianópolis, santa Catarina, brazil. Noreen Khawaja, department of religious studies, Yale university, 451 College st., new Haven, Ct 06511, usa. Frances Maughan-Brown, philosophy department, stokes Hall north, boston College, Chestnut Hill, ma 02467, usa. William McDonald, school of Humanities, university of new england, armidale, nsw, 2351, australia. Jack Mulder, Jr., department of philosophy, Hope College, 126 e. 10th street, Holland, michigan 49423, usa. Shannon M. Nason, department of philosophy, university Hall, suite 3600, loyola marymount university, one lmu drive, los angeles, Ca 90045, usa. Benjamin Miguel Olivares Bøgeskov, sygeplejerskeuddannelsen, nordsjælland, university College uCC, denmark. Thomas Posch, department of astrophysics, university of Vienna, türkenschanzstraße 17, 1180 Vienna, austria. Steven Shakespeare, department of theology, philosophy and religious studies, liverpool Hope university, Hope park, liverpool, l16 9Jd, united Kingdom. Gerhard Schreiber, goethe-universität Frankfurt am main, Fachbereich 6—ev. theologie, grüneburgplatz 1, 60629 Frankfurt am main, germany. Heiko Schulz, goethe-universität Frankfurt am main, Fachbereich 6—ev. theologie, grüneburgplatz 1, 60629 Frankfurt am main, germany. Philipp Schwab, Committee on social thought, university of Chicago, 1130 east 59th street, Chicago, illinois 60637, usa. K. Brian Söderquist, søren Kierkegaard research Centre, Farvergade 27 d, 1463 Copenhagen K, denmark. Leo Stan, department of Humanities, York university, 262 Vanier College, 4700 Keele st., toronto on, m3J 1p3, Canada.

List of Contributors

xi

Curtis L. Thompson, thiel College, 75 College avenue, greenville, pa 16125, usa. Sean Anthony Turchin, c/o søren Kierkegaard research Centre, Farvergade 27 d, 1463 Copenhagen K, denmark. Jamie Turnbull, Hong Kierkegaard library, st. olaf College, 1510 st. olaf ave., Northfield, MN 55056, USA. Corey Benjamin Tutewiler, department of theology and religious studies, university of nottingham, university park, nottingham, ng7 2rd, united Kingdom.

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.

xiv

Kierkegaard’s Concepts

BA

The Book on Adler, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

C

The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

CA

The Concept of Anxiety, trans. by reidar thomte in collaboration with albert b. anderson, princeton: princeton university press 1980.

CD

Christian Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

CI

The Concept of Irony, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1989.

CIC

The Concept of Irony, trans. with an introduction and notes by lee m. Capel, london: Collins 1966.

COR

The Corsair Affair; Articles Related to the Writings, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.

CUP1

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 1, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.

CUP2

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, vol. 2, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1982.

CUPH Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by alastair Hannay, Cambridge and new York: Cambridge university press 2009. EO1

Either/Or, part i, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1987.

EO2

Either/Or, part ii, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1987.

EOP

Either/Or, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin books 1992.

EPW

Early Polemical Writings, among others: From the Papers of One Still Living; Articles from Student Days; The Battle Between the Old and the New Soap-Cellars, trans. by Julia watkin, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

EUD

Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

List of Abbreviations

xv

FSE

For Self-Examination, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

FT

Fear and Trembling, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1983.

FTP

Fear and Trembling, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin books 1985.

JC

Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1985.

JFY

Judge for Yourself!, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1990.

JP

Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers, vols. 1–6, ed. and trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, assisted by gregor malantschuk (vol. 7, index and Composite Collation), bloomington and london: indiana university press 1967–78.

KAC

Kierkegaard’s Attack upon “Christendom,” 1854–1855, trans. by walter lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1944.

KJN

Kierkegaard’s Journals and Notebooks, vols. 1–11, ed. by niels Jørgen Cappelørn, alastair Hannay, david Kangas, bruce H. Kirmmse, george pattison, Vanessa rumble, and K. brian söderquist, princeton and oxford: princeton university press 2007ff.

LD

Letters and Documents, trans. by Henrik rosenmeier, princeton: princeton university press 1978.

LR

A Literary Review, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin books 2001.

M

The Moment and Late Writings, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

P

Prefaces / Writing Sampler, trans. by todd w. nichol, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

PC

Practice in Christianity, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1991.

PF

Philosophical Fragments, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1985.

xvi

Kierkegaard’s Concepts

PJ

Papers and Journals: A Selection, trans. by alastair Hannay, Harmondsworth: penguin books 1996.

PLR

Prefaces: Light Reading for Certain Classes as the Occasion May Require, trans. by william mcdonald, tallahassee: Florida state university press 1989.

PLS

Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. by david F. swenson and walter lowrie, princeton: princeton university press 1941.

PV

The Point of View including On My Work as an Author, The Point of View for My Work as an Author, and Armed Neutrality, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1998.

PVL

The Point of View for My Work as an Author including On My Work as an Author, trans. by walter lowrie, new York and london: oxford university press 1939.

R

Repetition, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1983.

SBL

Notes of Schelling’s Berlin Lectures, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1989.

SLW

Stages on Life’s Way, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1988.

SUD

The Sickness unto Death, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1980.

SUDP

The Sickness unto Death, trans. by alastair Hannay, london and new York: penguin books 1989.

TA

Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age. A Literary Review, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1978.

TD

Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1993.

UD

Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1993.

WA

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

List of Abbreviations

xvii

on Fridays, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1997. WL

Works of Love, trans. by Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, princeton: princeton university press 1995.

WS

Writing Sampler, trans. by todd w. nichol, princeton: princeton university press 1997.

individual lydia b. amir

Individual (enkelt—adjective; en Enkelt or den Enkelte—noun) the danish noun Enkelt comes from the adjective enkelt, which means single, simple, or individual.1 it is more or less synonymous with the word Individ, which is derived from the latin individuum, but Kierkegaard clearly prefers the more danish term. the noun Enkelt can be found in the common gender with en or den as the article. In this case it refers to a single specific person or individual, but it can also be found in the neuter gender with et or det as the article. in these cases it refers to an individual thing or object. Kierkegaard clearly makes use of the term mostly in the former sense to refer to people. to be an individual is to be so constituted as to be able to act and feel with a high degree of social independence. an individual is not so subject to the approval and disapproval of his significant peers as to be emotionally enslaved by them.2 His constitution is largely a matter of passionate commitment to an “idea,” a goal, or lifeideal, and is thus exemplified in emotional response as well as in action. Kierkegaard frequently uses “individual” and “the single individual” interchangeably.3 the latter is principally a Christian concept: the relationship of faith in god does not unite human beings, but separates them as single individuals. the single individual is in relation to god, and to stand in relation to god is synonymous with becoming spirit;4 thus, the single individual is synonymous with being a Christian.5 Kierkegaard’s use of terms is not clearly delineated. at times he also employs the term “the i” (Jeg’et) in place of the single individual.6 as late as 1854, he still writes of the single individual (den Enkelte), but calls him the individual (Individet).7 at one point he considers a possible gradation: the single individual can be more than the individual because the single individual is a human being with faith in god.8 the progression proceeds from the general to “the extraordinary single individual” (den Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 4, columns 440–2. 2 Cf. SKS 13, 61 / PV, 81 and SKS 13, 26 / PV, 17–18. 3 Cf. SKS 25, 285–6, nb28:96 / JP 2, 2048 and SKS 25, 302–3, nb29:11 / JP 2, 2049. the same words are employed about the single individual at SKS 13, 162 / M, 120. 4 Cf. SKS 26, 111, nb31:151 / JP 4, 4350; SKS 26, 129–30, nb32:17 / JP 2, 2074. 5 Cf. SKS 25, 346, nb29:86 / JP 2, 2081. 6 SKS 26, 138–9, nb32:31 / JP 2, 2075. 7 Cf. SKS 25, 489, nb30:132 / JP 2, 2061 and SKS 26, 188–90, nb32:102 / JP 6, 6917. 8 Cf. SKS 16, 91ff. / PV, 109ff. 1

2

Lydia B. Amir

ekstraordinære Enkelte) or “the particular single individual” (den særlige Enkelte),9 which Kierkegaard refers to in Fear and Trembling and elsewhere. the “particular individual” or simply the single individual becomes a religious category and serves exclusively to designate the human being’s most intimate and personal relationship to god. However, Kierkegaard frequently uses “the individual” and “the single individual” synonymously. Had he been consistent in his terminology, he would have used “individual” in opposition to “the race” and “the crowd,” and “the single individual” only in relation to god. there is little doubt as to the importance of the individual in Kierkegaard’s work. in “a word on the relation of my work as an author to “the single individual,” he singles it out as a guiding principle in his authorship.10 He regrets, however, that his readers noted the “individual,” which is emphasized in the aesthetic writings, at the expense of the “single individual.”11 the “individual” or “single individual” is intricately linked to Kierkegaard’s views of self, existence, and purpose of the human being. the human being is a synthesis of the eternal and the temporal, the finite and the infinite, freedom and necessity.12 the spiritual human being’s Christian life is expressed as a committed subjectivity. active and always striving, the human being faces various possibilities in a constant process of becoming. as he is sinful, he must exercise choice by choosing himself and choosing god. the purpose of the individual human being is to be a spiritual being, and this entails fulfillment of one’s unique individuality. in A Literary Review of Two Ages, however, Kierkegaard characterizes the present age as plagued by too much reflection and a lack of passion. It is an age that soars into enthusiasm for a moment only to descend into indolence. the present age “levels,” that is, reduces everything to the lowest common denominator. For Kierkegaard, leveling is the process of suppressing individuality to a point where the individual’s uniqueness is non-existent and nothing meaningful in his existence can be affirmed. Yet, as The Concept of Anxiety and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript establish, the individual is higher than the species. Kierkegaard emphasizes at various places the individual’s personal responsibility before god and condemns anything that tends to point him in the opposite direction. in particular, Kierkegaard condemns the philistine (Spidsborger) as one who goes unthinkingly along with his or her social group and defines the “individual” in polemical contrast to a life oriented to and by the “crowd” (Mængden) or the “public” (Publikum). in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Climacus argues that individual subjectivity is the truth;13 it follows that “the crowd,” “the numerical,” and the group are untruths. in “the single individual,”14 Kierkegaard identifies the immorality of Cf. Pap. X–6 b 52,1 / JP 2, 2020. SKS 16, 94 / PV, 114. 11 SKS 16, 95 / PV, 115. 12 SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13. 13 Cf. SKS 7, 186 / CUP1, 203. 14 SKS 16, 79–106 / PV, 101–26. “the single individual” was meant to accompany the dedication to “that individual,” which is found in Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits. begun in 1846, it was heavily revised in 1847. a very brief postscript was added in 1849 with footnotes to the text. A second postscript was added in 1855, the final year of Kierkegaard’s life. 9

10

Individual

3

his age as the contempt for individual human beings. individuals cling to each other because of the horror that a godforsaken existence creates in them. living in herds in order to be at least something, they can only be drivellers swallowed up in social life who forgo passion because of the solitude it entails.15 in the crowd people are mere physical numbers, and the group is formed by the unthinking and the irresponsible. thus, the thoughtlessness of the crowd guarantees the group’s status as an inauthentic community. the crowd is untruth because it is anonymous: it cannot be subjective nor be assigned responsibility for “the eternal truth.”16 nor does a crowd hanker with infinite passion for each individual’s eternal salvation. although Kierkegaard denounces the crowd, he is supportive of communities in which individuals keep their diversity and uniqueness. in his journals of 1850, he characterizes a community as a group of individuals in which each member attempts to live according to an ethical-religious ideality. the individuals guarantee the group’s status as an authentic community.17 For Kierkegaard, however, the church in Christendom is not a community, but a crowd standing in contradiction to the single individual. that which renders a human being a single individual or spirit disappears in the crowd, because the crowd is understood only numerically and not in terms of value. “everything that is mass is eo ipso perdition,” Kierkegaard notes in the journals,18 because the crowd tends to erase individuality. to exemplify the behavior of the herd, he recalls in “the single individual” the crowd’s attitude toward Christ: “think the highest, think of Christ…as single individual, in solitude, alone with Him, as individual to approach Him and spit on Him; such a man has never been born…who had the courage or the impertinence to do that….but when they become a crowd, then they had courage to do so.”19 if Christians behave like the crowd, Christianity degenerates into Christendom (Christenhed): the former is an individual and spiritual matter, whereas the latter is impersonal and non-spiritual. in Practice in Christianity, Kierkegaard uses Christ to represent the single individual in opposition to the herd. the model of the single individual is Christ as he was in his own time, that is, as a constant contradiction to the official common practice of the Hebrew religion, which was petrified and thus profane.20 as the human being in principle is a synthesis of the eternal and the temporal, the crowd must be inferior to the single individual; the crowd adheres to a definition of the animal while Christianity adheres to a definition of the spiritual.21 moreover, a union of several single individuals carries no more meaning than each individual separately.22 in The Moment, no. 7, Kierkegaard explains that to “become a Christian in the new testament sense is designed to work the individual loose…from the context to which 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

Cf. SKS 16, 91–2 / PV, 111–12. Cf. SKS 16, 90–1 / PV, 109–10. Cf. SKS 23, 40, nb15:60 / JP 3, 2952. SKS 25, 424, nb30:50 / JP 3, 2970. SKS 16, 88–9 / PV, 107–8. Cf. SKS 12, 100–1 / PC, 91–2. Cf. SKS 26, 30, nb31:41 / JP 2, 2065. Cf. SKS 12, 217–18 / PC, 222–3 and SKS 26, 316–17, nb34:4.

4

Lydia B. Amir

he clings in immediate passion, and which clings in immediate passion to him.”23 However, he adds that the new testament does not anticipate “these incalculable battalions of millions of Christians,” but only individual Christians.24 “the age” or “the crowd” is irrelevant to the demand to imitate Christ. “to be a Christian…means a qualitative difference from being man, yet within the category of being man.”25 the Christian receives his qualitative difference by virtue of relating with subjective passion to Christ as the incarnation of the eternal truth.26 “the single individual” is necessarily a self, which manifests itself by exercising choice. Judge william in Either/Or, part two, describes the choice of despair, which is made in perfect isolation, because “in choosing myself, i separate myself from my relations to the whole world.”27 the isolation one experiences at the moment of choice is absolute solitude. the choice of oneself in despair28 is developed in Kierkegaard’s later writings and is best expressed in The Sickness unto Death. dialectically, despair is both an excellence and a defect, since it marks the presence of spirit but needs to be overcome.29 The right path to find oneself and banish despair is to choose faith in god; the self rests transparently only in the power that establishes it.30 in the journals, solitude and isolation are always mentioned in connection with a sinner’s relation to god and are therefore characteristic of the situation of the single individual: “that Christianity relates unconditionally to isolation (the single individual) is evident also in the fact that Christianity’s presupposition is always the consciousness of sin….but the consciousness of sin is the unconditionally isolating….my sin concerns not one single human being except me.”31 thus, the single individual is defined as a sinful human being before God—one who chooses himself positively, in isolation and solitude, in relation to god.32 being before god, however, entails fear of god, whereas most people primarily fear other people. they therefore fear being a single individual and prefer to hide under “one abstraction or another,” such as the editorial “we.”33 “envy fosters pure abstractions” in order to render eminent individuals insignificant and thereby undermines the choice to be a single individual.34 Yet for Kierkegaard, solitude always bears an inward, spiritual quality. in order to be Christian, one must become “so introverted, that one is, quite literally, entirely alone in the world, alone before god, alone with the scripture as guidance, alone with the ideal before one’s eyes.”35 this “unconditional” or “eternal” introversion is the kind of solitude that is the qualifying attribute for the individual 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35

SKS 13, 304–5 / M, 248–9. SKS 13, 161 / M, 119. SKS 26, 290, nb33:50 / JP 2, 2080. ibid. SKS 3, 229 / EO2, 240. SKS 3, 214 / EO2, 223–4. SKS 11, 129–30 / SUD, 13–14. SKS 11, 242 / SUD, 131. SKS 26, 186, nb32:97 / JP 4, 4050. Cf. SKS 20, 179, nb2:97 / KJN 4, 178. SKS 23, 402–3, nb20:22 / JP 2, 2166. ibid. Cf. SKS 12, 219 / PC, 225.

Individual

5

Christian; it prepares the way for the extreme expression of the kind of solitude that is martyrdom. the single individual may also be persecuted, as the ancient hermits, the mystics, and Kierkegaard himself knew. to stand alone and solitary before god is the decisive and fundamental similarity between Kierkegaard’s single individual and the ancient monk. the hermits of the primitive church lived in isolation until they gathered together in koinobia and later in monasteries. their solitude was both physical and spiritual. Kierkegaard, however, would only go so far as to endorse the ideal of spiritual solitude. internal solitude, according to Kierkegaard, is an absolute condition for the single individual Christian; but while remaining in inward solitude, he must also live in the world.36 His life should unfold with its suffering and self-denial in the public arena. although the spiritual life is elevated to a higher plane and although all concepts are transformed in accordance with it, they are brought down to earth again and manifest themselves in confrontation with secularization. it is this situation which necessarily occasions suffering. as opposed to the hermit of old, the single individual Christian must live, in accordance with the word, “in the world, but not of the world.”37 the single individual is exceptional, unique. However, this does not imply that only a few people can possess this privilege; on the contrary, each person ought to become the single individual,38 because everyone is intended to have a relation to god. “every man…before god must address himself to the scripture….He who thus abides by god, such an individual becomes an authentic single individual.”39 an “authentic single individual” both stands alone and is exceptional. He is the authentic Christian40 who stands alone before god and is thus eminent in the sense of exceptional.41 He is also alone in the more general sense, that is, alone and lonely because he cannot express his relation to god for fear of rendering god’s power profane.42 the single individual, in the process of becoming so, also becomes the extraordinary or the uncommon one, who attends to Christ and his counsels about obedience, chastity, and poverty. there can be several “single individual” Christians.43 They have a great task to fulfill, as it is only through them and not through the age or the community of the church44 that god comes in contact with creation. Christianity is directly dependent upon the single individual’s relation to god, for “as soon as the category ‘the single individual’ goes out, Christianity is abolished.”45 if the individual relates “to god through the race, through an abstraction, through a third party…then Christianity is eo ipso abolished. if this happens, then the god-man is a 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45

Cf. SKS 20, 179, nb2:97 / KJN 4, 178. John 15:19. SKS 16, 91 / PV, 109–10. SKS 24, 41, nb21:55 / JP 3, 3019. SKS 13, 162 / M, 120. SKS 25, 318, nb29:33 / JP 2, 2051. Cf. SKS 24, 41, nb21:55 / JP 3, 3019; SKS 24, 70, nb21:117 / JP 3, 3826. Cf. SKS 25, 361, nb29:98; SKS 25, 377–8, nb29:117 / JP 2, 2054. Cf. SKS 23, 107–8, nb16:21 / JP 2, 2024; SKS 24, 57, nb21:87 / JP 2, 4186. SKS 22, 103, nb12:103 / JP 2, 1781.

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phantom instead of an actual prototype.”46 thus, the extraordinary is to be found in its direct relationship to god. before emphasizing the unique quality of the single individual, which is given by means of his direct relation to god, Kierkegaard criticizes the medieval monastic movement precisely because the monks regarded themselves as being extraordinary Christians.47 in this case, as in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, the word “extraordinary” has a different meaning: it refers to a self-appraisal based on worldly criteria and not, as later, to an exception in the spiritual sense. this exception, the extraordinary, single individual Christian, who has a direct relation to god,48 now comes to figure as a goal for all human beings. “No one is born as the true extraordinary, but becomes so.”49 the single individual’s relation to god is often described as immediate.50 the term “immediacy” means here a spontaneous naturalness that is given, innate, and neither aimed for nor reflected upon. When Kierkegaard later speaks of an immediate relation to God, the expression signifies a contact that is intentionally initiated and desired. in his last years, Kierkegaard draws a distinction between people: “ordinarily we human beings do not have an immediate relation to god. His will is proclaimed to us in abstracto in his word and the like, but i, this concrete i, am not told: in these concrete circumstances you are to do this and this. no, every single individual must, so to speak, translate god’s commands in concreto.”51 this can be accomplished with the help of reason, yet depends on how reason is employed. For the ordinary person reason is used to pursue prudence: “the ordinary person cannot, dares not, yes, must not venture in the same way as the one who has an immediate god-relationship, for the one who has an immediate god-relationship is freed from all responsibility, simply has to obey the order.”52 the single individual is qualitatively transformed as a consequence of his direct relation of obedience to god. Kierkegaard’s conviction on this point appears in a note in the journals under the heading “nonsense” (Galimathias), where he criticizes the pope for acknowledging that the mystic Hildegard had divine revelations, but without recognizing the authority that accompanies revelation or that “this puts her a whole quality higher than he is.”53 but Kierkegaard deduces nothing further from this statement; the reader may conclude that the single individual before god, who has a direct, if otherwise undefined relation to God, attains a higher quality than those who have no such relation to god. the single individual here is related to the mystic. However, Kierkegaard does not draw such a parallel, and in the final stages of his writing the “extraordinary Christian” is represented not as a mystic but as a victim, a martyr. the extraordinary Christian is alone, solitary, and separated from other 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

ibid. Cf. SKS 24, 513–14, nb25:100 / JP 2, 2760. Cf. SKS 24, 449–50, nb25:18 / JP 2, 2044. SKS 26, 56, nb31:74 / JP 1, 1091. Cf. SKS 25, 18–19, nb26:10 / JP 2, 1914. SKS 25, 217, nb28:6 / JP 4, 4479. ibid. SKS 25, 250, nb28:44 / JP 3, 2899.

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human beings, but no longer by his own choice. now it is the world that responds to his choice of the relation to god and that renders him alone and exceptional. the single individual is also faced with the confusions of the age and must address them with clarity and primitivity—which marks him out as the single individual. the age’s confusion of the genius with the apostle, for example, is addressed by Kierkegaard in Two Ethical-Religious Essays: “a genius is evaluated purely esthetically…an apostle is what he is by having divine authority. The divine authority is what is qualitatively decisive.”54 the single individual is clear-sighted enough to recognize this qualitative difference. the present age also raises the sophistical question “what is the use of one individual’s trying? what can one person do? … this sophism is so entrenched at present that without the slightest exaggeration it is the same as madness under these circumstances to want to believe in god and primitivity, and yet it is this very primitivity which is needed, consequently the single individual.”55 Primitivity here is to be understood as spirit, which is “first of all, first, first to identify one’s life with the kingdom of God. The more literally a man is able to do this, acting, the more primitivity.”56 thus, the single individual lives in a state of primitivity. Finally, the single individual bears witness to Christ: the truth about the essentially Christian ideal is that it has existed; Christ has indeed lived, and the prototype has been portrayed. and this ideal relates to the single individual; only as a single individual can there be any question of striving toward it; and if the single individual is going to strive toward it he must, of course, turn in the direction of the ideal that has existed, turn back toward it—if he is actually to strive toward it.57

only a single individual can bear witness by striving to live in imitation of Christ. to bear witness is to enact the Christian precepts, not merely to mouth its words or occupy the ecclesiastical offices of Christendom. see also anxiety; apostle; appropriation; authority; Christendom; Common man; Crowd/public; despair; exception/universal; existence/existential; Faith; god; leveling; martyrdom/persecution; monasticism; passion/pathos; personality; press/ Journalism; Qualitative difference; race/universally Human; revelation; salvation/ eternal Happiness; self; society; spirit; understanding/Comprehension/Confusion; worldliness/secularism.

54 55 56 57

Cf. SKS 11, 95–111 / WA, 91–108. SKS 27, 421, papir 370 / JP 1, 655. SKS 26, 40, nb31:55b / JP 1, 85. Pap. Xi-3 b 197 / JP 3, 3188.

inner/outer philipp schwab

Inner/Outer (Indvortes/Udvortes—noun; indvortes/udvortes—adjective, adverb) From the middle low german inwordes, inwerdes/utwordes, utwerdes and the old danish indwort(h)es, indwærtes/udvortes, udværtes, the modern danish words literally mean “that which turns towards the inside/outside” or “inward/outward.” in their lexical meaning, they refer to what is to be found on or belongs to the inner/ outer part of something (especially the body). analogically, indvortes may refer to the life of the soul, udvortes to appearance, also to sham and seeming.1 in some instances, Kierkegaard employs the “simpler” terms Indre/Ydre and indre/ydre (inner/outer, noun and adjective respectively). the inner/outer motif is used in a wide variety of contexts throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship, in pseudonymous and non-pseudonymous works, in published writings as well as the Nachlass. Yet the motif appears most frequently in the “early” period (including the dissertation) from 1841–46, culminating in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, which contains the most passages on the motif, followed by Either/Or and then Stages on Life’s Way. In its specific applications, the motif establishes a contrast—or even incommensurability—between existential inwardness and any outer, especially conceptual, representation; or it opposes spiritual inwardness to a (worldly) sphere of the outer. it is important to acknowledge two major sources that Kierkegaard thereby (explicitly and inexplicitly) draws on. these sources are explicitly combined only in a single journal entry, presumably from late 1846. In reflecting upon physiology, Kierkegaard writes: “good lord, what is all this? a bit of triviality and at most a bit of paganism (das Innere ist das Aussere, das Aussere das Innere). paul does not speak of becoming beautiful by praying and preaching, etc. Just let the outward man decay, the inward man increases in glory.”2 the first source—referred to implicitly in german in this instance—is the Hegelian notion of a unity of inner and outer; in comparable passages, georg wilhelm Friedrich Hegel is named explicitly. Hegel’s notion of the unity of inner and outer is to be found in his discussion of (inner) forces and their (outer) expression or Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 9, columns 555–7; vol. 25, columns 844–7. 2 SKS 20, 64, nb:73 / KJN 4, 63. translation of the german: “the inner is the outer, the outer (is) the inner.” 1

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realization.3 Kierkegaard, however, polemically refers to a Hegelian unity of inner and outer in existential contexts. it is quite likely that the reference is—as in similar cases—to some extent mediated through danish Hegelianism, in this instance, through the popularization of the motif by adolph peter adler and, especially, Johan ludvig Heiberg.4 the second source is st. paul’s distinction between “inner” and “outer man” as is displayed most clearly in 2 Corinthians 4:16: “For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.”5 Kierkegaard mentions this distinction for the first time in his notes to Henrik Nicolai Clausen’s “Lectures on Dogmatics” (1833–34) and applies it in his first sermon in 1841.6 this source is presumably the reason for Kierkegaard mostly using indvortes/ udvortes (rather than indre/ydre) since these are the words in the verse in the danish bible.7 in productively adopting these sources, Kierkegaard develops an existential understanding of inner and outer. Four groupings of this use may roughly be distinguished as follows. in a first group, Kierkegaard claims an incommensurability of existential inwardness and outer representation. this is where the polemic with Hegelianism is to be found. in a second group, the contradiction of inner and outer describes specific forms of existence, namely irony and “inclosing reserve” (Indesluttethed). a third group of passages makes use of the motif in different religious and ethical contexts. a fourth group encompasses less-specific uses of the motif. Central elements of these uses will be sketched in the following. sections i and ii are developed chronologically, whereas sections iii and iV are typological.

Cf. g.w.F. Hegel, Science of Logic, trans. by a.V. miller, london: george allen & unwin 1969, pp. 518–28; g.w.F. Hegel, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline, Part I: Science of Logic, trans. by K. brinkmann and d.o. dahlstrom, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2010, §§ 137–41, pp. 207–11; g.w.F. Hegel, Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. by a.V. miller, oxford: Clarendon press 1977, pp. 81–7, pp. 160–72, pp. 185–210. Yet the “addition” to § 140 of the Encyclopedia contains some more general uses of the motif, cf. section i. 4 Cf. Jon stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered, Cambridge and new York: Cambridge university press 2003, pp. 223–9; cf. SKS K2–3, 85–6. Cf. Johan ludvig Heiberg, Grundtræk til Philosophiens Philosophie eller den speculative Logik. Som Ledetraad ved Forelæsninger paa den kongelige militaire Høiskole, Copenhagen: a. seidelin 1832, §§ 112–15, pp. 68–71 (in english as Outline of the Philosophy of Philosophy or Speculative Logic, in Heiberg’s Speculative Logic and Other Texts, ed. and trans. by Jon stewart, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 2006 (Texts from Golden Age Denmark, vol. 2), pp. 39–213, here pp. 135–9); adolph peter adler, Populaire Foredrag over Hegels objective Logik, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1842, § 27, pp. 158–60 (ASKB 383). 5 The Bible. Authorized King James Version with Apocrypha, oxford: oxford university press 1998. Cf. also ephesians 3:16; romans 7:22. 6 SKS 19, 24, not1:6 / KJN 3, 18; SKS 27, 255–7, papir 270 / JP 4, 3915. 7 Cf. “det nye testamente i autoriseret oversættelse af 1819,” in Biblia, det er: den ganske Hellige Skrifts Bøger, Copenhagen: C.F. schubart 1824 (ASKB 6). Hegel has das Aeussere/das Innere; Heiberg and adler use det Ydre/det Indre. 3

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I. Incommensurability Thesis and Polemics with Hegelianism (1) The first formulation of the “incommensurability thesis” is to be found in the prelude to the pseudonymous writings, in the famous first lines of the preface to Either/Or: “it may have at times occurred to you, dear reader, to doubt somewhat the accuracy of the familiar philosophical sentence that the outer is the inner and the inner is the outer.”8 Victor eremita explicitly mentions “inwardness incommensurable with the exterior,”9 but he neither specifies his “doubt” nor does he name the “target” of his polemic. Yet it is clear that the claim refers to human existence. (2) the next account appears in Fear and Trembling. Johannes de silentio’s starting point is the ethical view of life, according to which the individual shall “strip himself of the qualification of interiority and express this in something external.”10 if this view is “sound,” and there is “nothing incommensurable in a human life… then Hegel was right,” according to whom “das Äußere (die Entäußerung) [the outer (the externalization)] is higher than das Innere [the inner].”11 However, according to Johannes, Hegel is not correct in “speaking about faith”—which Hegel in fact never does with reference to inner and outer. by contrast, Johannes claims that “faith is the paradox that interiority is higher than exteriority” and “incommensurable with exteriority.”12 thus, in its second formulation, the incommensurability thesis refers specifically to religious inwardness, in contrast not only to Hegel, but also to the ethical. (3) in Stages on Life’s Way, the inner/outer motif is used several times, mostly in the “letter” by Frater taciturnus, in contrasting the religious incommensurability of inner and outer to its commensurability in aesthetics.13 Yet a passage in the “story of suffering” expresses a more general polemic against the “scarcely greek, even less Christian, systematic board fence—the outer is the inner and inner is the outer.”14 (4) the work that draws most on the incommensurability thesis is the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Here, Johannes Climacus states that “Hegelian philosophy culminates in the thesis that the outer is the inner, and the inner is the outer.”15 this is said to be an “esthetic-metaphysical principle,” distorting both the “ethical” and the “religious” which, in different ways, establish a “contrast relation between the inner and the outer.”16 other than in Fear and Trembling, the ethical, too, is in opposition to a unity of inner and outer.17 Climacus repeatedly polemicizes against speculation and SKS 2, 11 / EO1, 3. ibid. Cf. SKS 2, 14 / EO1, 6; SKS 18, 170, JJ:96 / KJN 2, 158. 10 SKS 4, 161 / FT, 69. 11 SKS 4, 161 / FT, 68–9. this refers to Hegel, Encyclopedia of the Philosophical Sciences in Basic Outline, § 140, pp. 209–10. Cf. SKS K4, 137. remarkably, Kierkegaard uses Inderlighed/det Ydre instead of “Indvortes/Udvortes” here. 12 SKS 4, 161 / FT, 68–9. Cf. SKS 4, 172 / FT, 82. 13 Cf. SKS 5, 408–9, 419, 431–2, 439 / SLW, 441–3, 453–4, 468, 477. 14 SKS 6, 348–9 / SLW, 375. Cf. SKS 6, 396 / SLW, 427–8 and (less specific) SKS 6, 342 / SLW, 368. 15 SKS 7, 270n. / CUP1, 296n. 16 SKS 7, 270n. / CUP1, 296–7n. 17 Cf. SKS 7, 129, 132, 496 / CUP1, 138, 141–2, 546–7. 8 9

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claims the incommensurability of (inward) existence,18 thereby applying the motif to several topics: to actuality, decision, action,19 suffering,20 and guilt,21 or, critically, to attempts to make religious inwardness visible in an “outwardness.”22 Furthermore, he uses the motif to clarify “hidden inwardness”23 and “indirect communication.”24 (5) the incommensurability thesis is taken up in later works as well.25 Yet there is also a counter movement: In some reflections, Kierkegaard raises the question of whether remaining fully in “hidden inwardness” might be a “deception” or “betrayal.” these doubts point to the later notion of “succession” (of Christ) and existential reduplication.26 II. Specific Forms of Existence (1) the inner/outer motif is present even before Either/Or. in his dissertation, Kierkegaard uses it to characterize irony, stating that, in socrates, the “outer was not at all in harmony with the inner but was rather its opposite.”27 this “inner” is irony’s negativity, which is said to “negate the phenomenal.”28 thus, the incommensurability is attributed to a specific form of existence. Furthermore, Kierkegaard in 1841 tends to close the gulf between inner and outer, namely in his notion of “controlled irony” in which “the essence [is] nothing other than the phenomenon.”29 (2) a second form of existence characterized by the incommensurability of inner and outer is “inclosing reserve” (Indesluttethed). This constellation is first unfolded in Either/Or, part one, namely, in “silhouettes.” Here, the aesthete defines “reflective sorrow” as “inclosingly reserved” (indsluttet) and states that it is essentially a “contrast between the inner and the outer.”30 already Victor eremita states, concerning the esthete, that his “exterior has been a complete contradiction of his interior”;31 and “inclosing reserve,” as the contradiction of inner and outer, is Cf. SKS 7, 57–8, 89–90, 97, 131, 157, 214–5, 221–2, 232, 405n. / CUP1, 53–4, 90–1, 99, 141, 170, 236, 244, 255–6, 446n. 19 Cf. SKS 7, 296, 310–12, 347–8, 393–5 / CUP1, 324–5, 338–41, 382, 432–5. 20 Cf. SKS 7, 399 / CUP1, 438–9. 21 Cf. SKS 7, 489–92, 504 / CUP1, 538–42, 554. 22 Cf. SKS 7, 351–2, 368–78, 452, 546 / CUP1, 386, 405–16, 499, 601. 23 Cf. SKS 7, 452, 458–63, 474–5 / CUP1, 499, 505–11, 522–3. 24 Cf. SKS 7, 235–7, 250–4, 264 / CUP1, 289, 276–8, 259–61. 25 Cf. SKS 15, 256–8 / BA, 99–102; SKS 9, 145–7 / WL, 143–6; SKS 12, 95–100 / PC, 86–92; SKS 27, 533–4, papir 438. 26 Cf. SKS 20, 215–16, nb2:191 / KJN 4, 215; SKS 20, 301–3, nb4:30 / KJN 4, 302–3; SKS 21, 130, nb7:101 / KJN 5, 136–7; SKS 24, 217–18, nb23:26 / JP 2, 2130; SKS 27, 571, papir 458 / JP 3, 2543. Cf. also SKS 12, 209–12 / PC, 214–16. 27 SKS 1, 74 / CI, 12. 28 SKS 256–7n. / CI, 212n. Cf. SKS 1, 212–14, 294–6 / CI, 163–5, 256–7. On infinity, see SKS 1, 331–2 / CI, 297. For later discussions, cf. SKS 18, 242, JJ:323 / KJN 2, 223; SKS 7, 294–5, 456–8 / CUP1, 323, 503–5. 29 SKS 1, 352–4 / CI, 325–7. 30 SKS 2, 167–8 / EO1, 169–70. Cf. SKS 2, 171–6, 180–1, 197 / EO1, 173–8, 183–4, 201. 31 SKS 2, 11 / EO1, 3. 18

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analyzed in Either/Or, part two, Stages on Life’s Way,32 and in The Sickness unto Death, where it is characterized as a “demonic” form of despair.33 III. Religious and Ethical Use besides their use in the “incommensurability thesis,” the opposition of inner and outer is present in further contexts, without necessarily implying a sharp contradiction. (1) mainly in the early edifying discourses, Kierkegaard makes direct use of the pauline distinction of “inner” and “outer man.” although this motif is often closely related to the central topic of the respective discourse, it is at no point itself developed at length. The motif is first mentioned in the first discourses from 1843,34 and most extensively treated in a discourse directly drawing on ephesians 2:13–21.35 illustrative uses are to be found in several discourses from 1843–44.36 (2) Closely linked to this, the inner/outer motif is used in different contexts to illuminate aspects of religious existence. mostly, these passages are informed by the opposition of an inner, spiritual life and a worldly outer. the motif is used with respect to the source of “resignation”37 and “corruption”;38 to differentiate an “external wish” from “something internal one can only will”;39 in understanding the “inner” as source of the “impure”;40 to accentuate the inward “gaining” of one’s soul, and to illustrate the soul’s self-contradiction “between the eternal and the temporal”;41 with reference to god as spirit, who can only be known inwardly;42 to display that earnestness (of death) does not concern the outer, but the inner;43 to describe an “internal” possibility of being free in suffering;44 to define Christian marriage as an inner, not outer change;45 to reflect upon mercifulness;46 to define the Christian notion of “like for like”;47 to characterize a “lowly” and an “eminent”

SKS 3, 212–13 / EO2, 222; SKS 6, 396 / SLW, 427–8, cf. Quidam’s self-description, using the pauline terminology, in SKS 6, 219–20 / SLW, 235. 33 SKS 11, 185–7 / SUD, 72–4. Cf. further uses in SKS 11, 130, 165, 211–12 / SUD, 14, 50–1, 99. 34 SKS 5, 55 / EUD, 48. 35 SKS 5, 87, 90, 93–106 / EUD, 79, 83–4, 86–101. 36 SKS 5, 220–1, 296, 310, 320 / EUD, 221–2, 302, 318–9, 330. Cf. also SKS 6, 368 / SLW, 396; SKS 12, 88 / PC, 76; SKS 14, 101 / C, 315. 37 SKS 1, 23 / EPW, 67. 38 SKS 19, 218, not7:51 / KJN 3, 214. 39 SKS 5, 21–2 / EUD, 12. 40 SKS 5, 69–70 / EUD, 59–60. 41 SKS 5, 162–3, 165–71 / EUD, 162–3, 166–72. Cf. SKS 9, 34 / WL, 26. 42 SKS 5, 369 / EUD, 386. Cf. SKS 5, 438 / TD, 64. 43 Cf. SKS 5, 444–5 / TD, 73–5. 44 SKS 8, 220 / UD, 119. 45 Cf. SKS 9, 140–2 / WL, 138–40. Cf. SKS 9, 145–7 / WL, 143–6; SKS 18, 40, ee:105 / KJN 2, 35–6. 46 Cf. SKS 9, 325–6 / WL, 329–30. 47 SKS 9, 376–8 / WL, 383–5. 32

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person’s difference in becoming a Christian;48 to distinguish between religious and worldly “triumph”;49 and to contour belief as inner actuality.50 (3) within this horizon, Kierkegaard also uses the inner/outer motif to illustrate the purpose of his own work as a whole. In one of its latest significant uses in 1851, for instance, he stresses that his intention has been “inward deepening” (Inderliggjørelse) of Christianity, and by no means an “external change.”51 (4) related to its religious use is the ethical use of the inner/outer motif in Either/Or, part two. repeatedly, the ethicist applies the distinction to accentuate the existential dimension of the person with respect to “intention” which turns the external into the internal,52 the distinction of inner and outer history,53 marriage,54 the distinction of inner and outer deed,55 and to the notion of (self-)choice which “transforms everything exterior into interiority.”56 Furthermore, it is used to demonstrate that both duty and the ethical as such are never “a question of the external, but of the internal.”57 IV. Less Specific Uses Kierkegaard also uses the inner/outer motif in various contexts that do not fit directly into the categories above.58 still loosely related to these is the general notion of an inner “essence” of a person as opposed to his or her appearance;59 the motif may also refer to a distinction between inner and outer sense (for example, the inner and outer ear).60 Kierkegaard uses the motif to illustrate that “form” is created by the inner rather than the outer,61 and to state that inwardness is the condition for “cultured conversation.”62 Also, the motif is applied to define myth as an outer representation of what is happening on the inside63—or to discuss different understandings of SKS 10, 63–5 / CD, 54–5. SKS 10, 235–6 / CD, 229. 50 Cf. SKS 11, 198 / SUD, 85. 51 SKS 14, 112–13 / COR, 53–5. Cf. SKS 21, 300, nb10:84 / KJN 5, 310–11; SKS 23, 353, nb19:31 / JP 6, 6646; SKS 24, 214, nb23:21/ JP 2, 2129; SKS 24, 217–18, nb23:26 / JP 2, 2130; SKS 24, 390–2, nb24:113.a; SKS 27, 532–3, papir 436. 52 SKS 3, 100 / EO2, 98. 53 Cf. SKS 3, 133–5 / EO2, 134–6. 54 Cf. SKS 3, 149 / EO2, 152. 55 Cf. SKS 3, 170–1 / EO2, 174–5. Cf. SKS 3, 53–4 / EO2, 47. 56 SKS 3, 239–40 / EO2, 251. 57 SKS 3, 251–3 / EO2, 264–5. Cf. SKS 3, 146, 242–3 / EO2, 148, 254–5. 58 the motif is also present in excerpts and lecture notes. Yet only two passages come close to Kierkegaard’s own use: cf. SKS 20, 372–3, nb5:6.a / KJN 4, 372 (on luther); SKS 24, 273, nb23:135 / JP 4, 4766 (on tertullian). 59 Cf. SKS 2, 261–2 / EO1, 269–70; SKS 5, 46–7 / EUD, 37–8; SKS 6, 124n, 371 / SLW, 131n, 400; SKS 8, 19, 35–7 / TA, 16, 35–7. 60 Cf. SKS 18, 48, ee:136 / KJN 2, 43; SKS 2, 410 / EO1, 422. 61 Cf. SKS 8, 59–61 / TA, 61–4. 62 SKS 8, 94 / TA, 99. 63 Cf. SKS 4, 352 / CA, 47. 48 49

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the categorical imperative,64 and to characterize plato’s concept of recollection.65 in different contexts, it is used to distinguish between inner and outer “decision” (Bestemmelse) in general66 as well as inner and outer dangers or difficulties.67 more technically, the motif is applied to describe the relation between the frame and content of a letter68—and, finally, to define the way one should understand the subjunctive.69 see also Communication/indirect Communication; demonic; ethics; existence/ existential; inwardness/inward deepening; irony; paradox; religious/religiousness; speculation/science/scholarship; worldliness/secularism.

64 65 66 67 68 69

Cf. SKS 17, 19, aa:12 / KJN 1, 14. SKS 27, 234–5, papir 264:5 / JP 2, 2274. SKS 2, 227–8 / EO1, 233. Cf. SKS 3, 54, 121–5, 138 / EO2, 47, 121–5, 139–40; SKS 6, 151–2 / SLW, 162. SKS 3, 15 / EO2, 5. Cf. SKS 6, 191–2 / SLW, 204–5.

intensity/extensity noreen Khawaja

Intensity (Intensitet—noun), Extensity (Extensitet—noun) the danish intensitet (corresponding to French intensité and german Intensität) comes from the latin intensitas, which is derived from intensus, “stretched,” “tight” (past participle of the verb intendere). it is a synonym for styrke, or “strength,” particularly in relation to qualities or forces such as energy, concentration, or determination.1 Extensitet, by contrast, derived from the latin extendere (“to stretch out”), describes principally the scope or range occupied by a body in space, though it can also describe semantic scope, as of a concept or word. the terms pervade Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings and journals. even though they are prevalent, however, they are not especially conspicuous. one might describe intensity and extensity as a kind of conceptual substructure, supporting and adding content to more well-known concepts such as inwardness, consciousness, communication, sin, and despair. while philosophers have used these contrasting terms to draw a distinction between mental and physical reality, Kierkegaard’s usage is actually unique. For him, both terms are psycho-spiritual designations, describing modes of subjective experience or attitudes rather than the properties of objects. extensity, as a way of describing the magnitude of a thing (for example, the number of one’s followers) or even the subjective experience of an objective magnitude (how it feels to encounter a large number of followers), does not interest Kierkegaard. as a mode of subjective experience, extensity denotes primarily a concern with or valuation of objective, external magnitude (that is, the pursuit of a large audience). intensity, accordingly, refers to the explicit emphasis on the subjective element that occurs when an individual values subjectivity. a passage from “the rotation of the Crops,” in Either/Or, part one, highlights the distinction between the two attitudes and demonstrates their fundamentally competitive relationship: Here at once is the principle of limitation, the sole saving principle in the world. the more a person limits himself, the more resourceful he becomes. a solitary prisoner for life is extremely resourceful; to him a spider can be a source of great amusement. think of our school days…how resourceful we were then! What fun we had catching a fly, keeping it prisoner under a nutshell, and watching it run around with it! what delight in cutting a hole in the desk, confining a fly in it, and peeking at it through a piece of paper! How entertaining it can be to listen to the monotonous dripping from the roof! what a Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 9, columns 610–11.

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Noreen Khawaja meticulous observer one becomes, detecting every little sound or movement. Here is the extreme boundary of that principle that seeks relief not through extensity but through intensity.2

the strict economy between the two terms appears most sharply in A Literary Review of Two Ages: “Generally speaking, compared to a passionate age, a reflective age devoid of passion gains in extensity what it loses in intensity.…talkativeness gains in extensity: it chatters about anything and everything and continues incessantly. when individuals are not turned inward toward quiet contentment, in inner satisfaction, in religious sensitiveness, but in a relation of reflection are oriented to externalities and to each other…then chattering begins.”3 this passage, much like the one above about the fun of catching a fly, emphasizes a negative relation between the two modes of concern—the more intensively one conducts oneself, the less extensive one’s social world. The negative dialectic between concentrated intensity and prolific extensity is a frequent theme for Kierkegaard, and it bears on the much-discussed distinction between qualitative and quantitative change: to introduce something decisive––and this is the task––cannot be done in the same manner as everything else; and therefore now, especially when the disaster of the time is precisely this “to a certain degree”….like the leap of the wild beast upon its prey, like the strike of the plunging eagle, something decisive is introduced––suddenly and concentrated in one sortie (intensively). and just as the wild beast combines cunning and strength––at first cunningly keeps perfectly quiet (no tame animal can be that quiet) and then totally pulls itself together into one single leap [Spring]…in the same way something decisive is introduced.4

throughout these diverse accounts, extensity appears as the alibi of incomplete commitment. the solitary person can enjoy concentration in the sound of water on the roof without seeking “relief” in the extensive; the individual in passionate intensity is turned inward and does not “chatter” on distractedly about sundry details of the external world; the wild beast does not reflect on whether or not to seize its prey and then attempt to do so, but simply “leaps.” the basic tension between extensive and intensive attitudes, adumbrated in the passages above, stands in contrast to the logical deployment of the terms by g.w.F. Hegel and a number of his danish proponents.5 one major task of Hegel’s logic was to establish the essential connection between mental and physical reality by describing an absolute and universal subject, one free from the condition of “limited resources” that characterized Kierkegaard’s schoolroom example. Hegel uses the categories of intensity and extensity in particular to denote the fundamental complementarity of this subject’s quantitative and qualitative growth: SKS 2, 281–2 / EO1, 292. SKS 8, 92 / TA, 97–8. 4 SKS 13, 131 / M, 93. 5 see, for example, Johan ludvig Heiberg, Heiberg’s Speculative Logic and Other Texts, ed. and trans. by Jon stewart, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 2006 (Texts from Golden Age Denmark, vol. 2), pp. 72–4. 2 3

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the higher a tone, the more intensive it is, and the greater is at the same time the number of its vibrations; or a louder tone, to which a higher degree of intensity is attributed, is audible in a larger space. ––with a more intensive color a larger surface can be colored in the same way as with a weaker one; or again, something brighter (another kind of intensity) is visible at a greater distance than something not as bright, etc.

the non-competitive relation between extensity and intensity extends, for Hegel, to “things spiritual,” in which “a high intensity of character, talent, genius, has a comparably encompassing presence, far-reaching effect, and all-pervading influence.”6 likewise, he adds, “the most profound concept has the most universal significance and application.”7 Hegel’s “spiritual” corollary represents just the type of position that would inspire Kierkegaard to connect, polemically, the idea of intensity with indirect communication and the need for a new age of incognito martyrdom: “the very instant i communicate directly,” Kierkegaard writes in a notebook entry from 1848, “the truth loses in intensity; i avoid martyrdom in some measure––is this permitted, isn’t it deceiving god?”8 the tension between intensity and extensity is, to be sure, a dialectical one for Kierkegaard. it is not that one chooses between concern for the inner and concern for the outer as one chooses between two mutually exclusive alternatives. to exist as a human being is to be engaged with a world beyond one’s private spiritual reality. but the more the world presses into one’s concerns, the greater the difficulty, subjectively speaking, to turn that external relation into an occasion for inward deepening. “each person is supposed only to save himself and has his hands full with that,”9 Kierkegaard is not shy of repeating, and “the more important the individuality is”10––the more “encompassing” its presence, in Hegel’s words––“the saving continually becomes more difficult––more intensive in inwardness.”11 Analytically speaking, intensity for Kierkegaard generally signifies an attitude in which passion, concentration, and self-reflection shape crucially one’s engagement with the world. Kierkegaardian intensity thus approaches what phenomenologists will later call “reflexive intentionality,” in the sense that it designates a mode of engagement in which the “how” of that engagement becomes an explicit concern. Given that intensity involves both passion and reflexivity, arguably the two most important features of Kierkegaardian spirit, the “intensive” often serves as a kind of shorthand for the right path an individual ought to take in cultivating herself. extensity and its cognates, which appear somewhat less frequently in Kierkegaard’s works, are often used to mark off the path not to be pursued. one of the earliest major accounts of intensity is in a’s discussion of different types of seduction in Either/Or, part one. The significance of seduction becomes 6 georg wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, The Science of Logic, ed. and trans. by george di giovanni, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 2010, p. 188. 7 ibid. 8 SKS 21, 45, nb6:61 / KJN 5, 43. 9 SKS 7, 50 / CUP1, 45. 10 ibid. 11 ibid.

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apparent when we understand that both terms have to do with the appetitive or libidinal character of human existence––the desiring, seeking, reaching activity through which a person engages her world. while extensive desire is focused on its object(s), intensive desire involves an emphasis or focus on the desiring relation itself. there is on the one hand the “spiritual seducer,” who possesses “the power of words” and thereby self-reflection: “This is the genuine seducer; the esthetic interest here is also something else: namely the how, the method.”12 and on the other we have the quantitative operation of don giovanni, who “seduces by the hundreds”13 in pursuit of an abstract ideal of sensual satisfaction. “there is something very profound,” a continues, “in the fact that Faust…seduces only one girl,” for “in intensity this one girl is seduced and destroyed in an entirely different way than all those don giovanni deceived.”14 the pseudonym goes on to imagine (proleptically, as it would turn out) a literary rewrite of the legend that could capture the “spiritual seducer” more precisely: in the musical don Juan, there would then be the extensive seducer; in the other, the intensive. so the latter don Juan is not presented as possessing his object with one single blow….that which occupies us here is the subtlety, the cunning, whereby he knows how to steal into a girl’s heart….How many he has seduced is of no importance here; what occupies us is the artistry….The musical Don Juan enjoys the satisfaction; the reflective don Juan enjoys the deception, enjoys the craftiness.15

a’s discussion of seduction in these passages sets up a clear association that will persist throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship: intensity correlated with selfconsciousness correlated with a quantitatively restricted engagement with the world. the connection between intensity and self-consciousness is especially salient in anti-Climacus’ discussion of despair six years later, in The Sickness unto Death: the ever increasing intensity of despair depends upon the degree of consciousness or is proportionate to its increase: the greater the degree of consciousness, the more intensive the despair….the devil’s despair is the most intensive despair, for the devil is sheer spirit and hence unqualified consciousness and transparence; there is no obscurity in the devil that could serve as a mitigating excuse.16

anti-Climacus takes the point to a still more dramatic conclusion, describing the intensification of despair as the accurate and increasing self-consciousness of being in despair, one consummation of which is suicide: “the person who, with a realization that suicide is despair and to that extent with a true conception of the nature of despair, commits suicide is more intensively in despair than one who commits suicide without a clear idea that suicide is despair; conversely, the less true his conception of despair, the less intensive his despair.”17 12 13 14 15 16 17

SKS 2, 103 / EO1, 99. ibid. ibid. SKS 2, 110–11 / EO1, 107–8. SKS 11, 157 / SUD, 42. SKS 11, 163 / SUD, 48.

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despair, for anti-Climacus, is not an end in itself but a progressive, deepening consciousness of the conditions of finite existence by which one eventually (ideally, at least) comes to salvation in faith. thus to intensify one’s despair can either be to take the path toward faith, or to get caught on a detour. “in an ethical-dialectical sense,” we are told, “the person who is conscious of his despair and remains in it is further from deliverance, because his despair is more intensive.”18 and yet, a deepened consciousness of one’s being in despair “is still a step forward”: “simply because this despair is more intensive, it is in a certain sense closer to salvation.”19 the “Christian psychological exposition” named by the subtitle of The Sickness unto Death consists in a theory of the human self, which, in standing “directly before Christ, is a self intensified [potentseret] by the inordinate concession from god, intensified by the inordinate accent that falls upon it because God allowed himself to be born, become man, suffer, and also die for the sake of this self.”20 the entire text operates on the logic of intensity, understood as deepening selfawareness: ignorance of one’s being in despair is intensified into knowledge of and eventually despair over one’s being in despair; this reflective form of despair is intensified, when the conception of God is present, into a consciousness of sin;21 and sin’s “highest intensification [Potentsation]” is offense, which depends on the consciousness that the God before which one stands, as the infinitely and qualitatively different, has revealed himself to human beings through the paradox of Christ.22 still, despite the fact that the book is a religious account of the intensity of self-consciousness, anti-Climacus cannot seem to let go of the worry that intensity not be glorified in itself. As he reminds us well into Part II: “there is nothing meritorious about being in despair to a higher degree. esthetically it is an advantage, for esthetically there is concern only for vigor; but ethically the more intensive form of despair is further from salvation than the lesser form.”23 Indeed, the value placed on intensification throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship finds its frequent counterpart in an anxiety that the particular sort of attitude being intensified may not be worth the effort. Johannes Climacus worries about the misapplication of intensive passion on questions of “simple historical fact.”24 Judge william uses the criterion of intensity heavily in recommending a life of duty, and in largely the same way as a and anti-Climacus, that is, to indicate the passionate accentuation of one’s self-conscious engagement: with the ethical it is not a matter of the multiplicity of duty but of its intensity. when a person has felt the intensity of duty with all his own energy, then he is ethically matured, SKS 11, 159 / SUD, 44. SKS 11, 177 / SUD, 62. 20 SKS 11, 225 / SUD, 113. in this passage and throughout the text, Kierkegaard alternates more or less interchangeably between the words Intensitet and Potentsation (and their variants). both sets of terms are translated by the Hongs as “intensity.” whenever a passage i cite uses the latter term, i have indicated it in parentheses. 21 SKS 11, 220 / SUD, 109. 22 SKS 11, 242 / SUD, 131. 23 SKS 11, 213 / SUD, 101. 24 SKS 4, 290 / PF, 92. 18 19

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and then duty will break forth within him. the fundamental point, therefore, is not whether a person can count on his fingers how many duties he has, but that he has once and for all felt the intensity of duty in such a way that the consciousness of it is for him the assurance of the eternal validity of his being.25

but it was precisely this formal character––the fact that one can do just about anything “intensively”––that brought Judge william to consider the pursuit of intensity without regard to its object, as apiece with the aesthetic take on life. to the author of the above passage on seduction, he writes, with his usual mixture of reproach and admiration: To an extent, you are probably justified in ridiculing the people who are drained by every pleasure…since you, on the contrary, understand superbly the art of falling in love in such a way that this love throws your own personality into relief. You know very well that the most intensive enjoyment is in clutching the enjoyment in the consciousness that it may vanish the next moment. This is why the finale in Don Giovanni has pleased you so much. pursued by the police, by the whole world, by the living and the dead, alone in a remote room, he once again gathers together all the powers of his soul, once again raises the goblet, and once again rejoices in the sounds of music.26

while it is true that aesthetic representation, in depicting romantic love, diverts its gaze from the drawn-out process of commitment, renewal, struggle, self-doubt, and the like, rightly demands a momentary “concentration of the extensive in the intensive”27 for the sake of “aesthetic effect,”28 the representational strategy ought not be confused with a code for life. Here lies the shortcoming of the aesthete’s celebration of Don Giovanni, for Judge william. it translates the representational strategy of the poet, who seeks to depict desire aesthetically into an end in itself, mistaking the formal object of poetry for the material object of existence. and in pursuing existential transformation all at once, the aesthete risks forgetting struggle: “the greater the significance of that which is to advance, the slower the course of history,” and “the more significant also the course itself…that all that is the goal is also the way.”29 Despite these occasional qualifications, intensity endures as a key ideal of spiritual existence throughout Kierkegaard’s authorship. many of the later journal entries endorse the function “intensity” had in the pseudonymous works in even more exuberant, and explicitly religious, terms. in a journal entry from 1852 devoted to the distinction between extensity and intensity (there are several such entries), Kierkegaard writes: the movement toward intensive immersion, into the intensive, is the truth. extensive movement is the sophistic. one wishes to spare oneself the increasing labor that is connected with having to carry on intensively, so one chooses to work toward expansion, 25 26 27 28 29

SKS 3, 253 / EO2, 266. SKS 3, 33 / EO2, 25. SKS 3, 132 / EO2, 133. ibid. SKS 3, 132–3 / EO2, 133.

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and one does this––as it is said––out of love for human beings. Hypocrisy! Hypocrisy! …the intensive is the true.30

intensity appears on a number of occasions in the later journals as a criterion of religious existence, one that indicates the positive relationship between suffering, becoming, and truth: “intensive existence relates itself to being the singular individual, and thereby relates itself again to ideality. it can of course become more and more intensive, and thus continually become more and more laborious. even so, the ideality is never reached.”31 intensity, seen as an ever more laborious labor, becomes in these years virtually another name for the path of Christianity. of course it is “true,” subjectively focused Christianity that Kierkegaard has in mind, not the Christianity, for example, based in charity and social justice.32 Here again he draws on the distinction between intensity as deepening self-consciousness and extensity as concern for the external: “instead of holding out at one’s limits toward intensively becoming a Christian (and to become a Christian is to relate oneself to the intensive; the intensive is what god wants) one gets preoccupied with it as if becoming a Christian meant working on others.”33 in these late writings, intensity appears as the criterion of modern spiritual cultivation at the most basic level; it is what corrects for the passive, spectacle-chasing constituents of the crowd, those who are not individuals, “not capable of transforming themselves in silence and with the work of ideality into intensive points.”34 We find here the confirmation of a religious psychology signaled from some of Kierkegaard’s earliest writings.35 it is intensity that holds the promise for the true, ahistorical revolution of Christianity: From now on there will no longer come prophets, judges, etc. who go out in front to lead the race further, but a continuous sequence of martyrs who, by hurling themselves against what human beings have devised in order to go further, will force them back. only in this way shall there be a going-further: in intensity. the reading has once and for all been set; in this respect there’s nothing further to add. but what matters is internalizing it. by means of this human going-further everything becomes more and more diluted–– by means of god’s governance everything becomes more and more inward.36

SKS 25, 144, nb27:26 / JP 2, 2102. SKS 24, 430, nb24:168. 32 in one of his more well-known passages on european politics, he extends this distinction to the category of reform: there is the “true reformer,” who is an individual and represents the “intensive internal development of the state,” and the other type of reformer, who in attacking the government affirms the value of the crowd. See SKS 20, 137, nb2:3 / KJN 4, 135. 33 SKS 26, 236, nb32:142 / JP 2, 2104. 34 SKS 22, 400, nb14:92 / JP 1, 985. 35 see, for example, the theological parallel from the 1840–41 notebooks: “what is great in what god brings forth is not its extent, as if god’s image in the world was developed successively on different planets, but in the intensity that is spirit” (SKS 19, 254, not9:1 / KJN 3, 248). 36 SKS 20, 420, nb5:122 / KJN 4, 421. 30 31

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see also Communication/indirect Communication; Consciousness; despair; Earnestness; Immediacy/Reflection; Inner/Outer; Inwardness/Inward Deepening; movement/motion; redoubling/reduplication; sin; spirit; time/temporality/ eternity.

the interesting K. brian söderquist

The interesting (det Interessante—noun) the concept of the interesting was fashionable in german idealist aesthetics and criticism beginning around 1830. it served as a general term for stimulating artistic effects that were regarded as fascinating or exciting rather than beautiful. the “interesting” could thus designate tension, disharmony, as well as something piquant or sensational, but it could also designate a refined or reflective style and a stimulating novel arrangement of materials.1 the idea is often associated with the german romantic Friedrich von schlegel, who made it a criterion for distinguishing between the aesthetic values of antiquity and modernity. in his most important piece on the matter, Über das Studium der griechischen Poesie, Schlegel places emphasis on the subjective reflectivity present in modern aesthetic productions, making the claim that self-reflectiveness was a distinctive feature of modernity.2 in the danish context, “the interesting” was made topical by playwright and philosopher Johan ludvig Heiberg. For Heiberg, “the interesting” is a category of modern literary art tied to character development. in his review of danish poet and playwright adam oehlenschläger’s play Dina, for example, Heiberg writes that ancient tragedy does not recognize the interesting, which is a modern concept for which ancient languages did not even have a corresponding expression. This circumstance signifies both the greatness and monumentality of ancient tragedy, but also its limitation; for it follows from this that as much as that genre demands character portrayals, as little, basically, has it room for character developments; here there is, so to speak, nothing to develop, as little as in a marble statue. the boundaries of everything are plastically determined from the start, indeed even predetermined.3 Cf. definitions of “the interesting” in KJN 1, explanatory notes, 539; KJN 2, explanatory notes, 505; KJN 3, explanatory notes, 650–1. 2 see Friedrich Schlegel’s sämmtliche Werke, vols. 1–10, Vienna: Jakob mayer und Compagnie 1822–25 (ASKB 1816–1825), see vol. 5, Über das Studium der griechischen Poesie, pp. 5–332. 3 Johan ludvig Heiberg, review of oehlenschläger’s Dina in Intelligensblade, vol. 2, nos. 16–17, november 15, 1842, p. 80. “the interesting” is also treated by danish author Johannes Carsten Hauch in Don Juan i Gregorius den Syvende og Don Juan. To Dramaer, in vol. 2 (pp. 137–270) of his Dramatiske Værker, vols. 1–3, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1828–30. For the widespread use of the term in denmark, see KJN 6, explanatory notes, 634–5; Carl Henrik Koch, Kierkegaard og det interessante. En studie i en æstetiske kategori, 1

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in general, then, “the interesting” is used to indicate the particular and unique constellations of reflective subjective consciousness that are portrayed in the figures of modern literature and other forms of fine art that were absent in the aesthetics of antiquity, which was less subjectively attuned. Kierkegaard’s understanding of “the interesting” shares family resemblances with those of his predecessors, and he seems to presuppose that his educated readers are generally familiar with the connotations associated with it. thus, he also understands “the interesting” to be a category of modern aesthetics that designates a sense of reflective fascination, coyness, and seductiveness that one sees in modern literary characters. But unlike many of his contemporaries, who define the interesting in scholarly works on aesthetics or in literary and dramatic reviews, Kierkegaard’s discussions are integrated informally into literary works themselves or recorded in his private self-assessments of his authorship. His most elaborate discussions of the interesting are found in his early pseudonymous works, especially Either/Or, Repetition, Fear and Trembling, and Stages on Life’s Way, and sporadically in his journals, where the interesting appears as a general description of his own early works and the most fitting category for him as pseudonymous author. Definitive of the concept of the interesting is reflection. Regardless of where Kierkegaard uses it, “the interesting” has to do with a reflective self-awareness that gives rise to a tension between the inner life and outward appearances. His most interesting characters are acutely aware of the potential incongruity between their own thoughts and motives—hidden from the world—and their outward actions— apparent to any observer. the category of the interesting is thus closely tied to his concept of irony, which likewise has to do with the tension between the inner and the outer. in fact, “the interesting” is perhaps best described as the most nuanced, self-reflective and modern form of irony. Kierkegaard’s most extensive use of the concept of the interesting appears in his first major pseudonymous work, Either/Or. Here, three different aestheticallyminded pseudonyms—Victor eremita, a, and Johannes the seducer—all treat “the interesting,” and do so in an internally consistent manner. We see “the interesting” first mentioned in Victor Eremita’s “Preface,” where he suggests that it is a key category for interpreting the interrelationship of the works he has collected and published as part one of Either/Or. one of eremita’s selfprofessed challenges is to identify the authors of the various texts he discovered in an old writing desk originally owned by character a. after expressing his great surprise that the external appearance of the desk hardly suggested that he would find such great thought hidden inside, eremita explains his conjecture that everything in part one was penned by the same character, a—despite the fact that a himself writes that one of the pieces, the “seducer’s diary,” is the work of a friend. eremita is suspicious. He senses an affinity between the diary and other works by A and bolsters his argument by pointing out that in a’s essay on don Juan, he mentions a desire to investigate a figure who not only seduces, but is highly reflective about how and why he seduces: this “counterpart” to the traditional don Juan would be “a Copenhagen: C.a. reitzels Forlag 1992, pp. 25–31; patrick stokes, Kierkegaard’s Mirrors: Interest, Self, and Moral Vision, basingstoke: palgrave macmillan 2010, pp. 17–28.

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reflective seducer in the category of the interesting where the issue is not how many he seduces, but how.”4 as eremita sees it, the “seducer’s diary”—pseudonymously signed “Johannes,” the danish version of “Juan”—is that very piece, penned by a himself.5 turning to a’s essay on don Juan, “the immediate erotic stages or the musical erotic,” we see more clearly what eremita was alluding to and how a ties “the interesting” to a duality between the inner and the outer. the interesting seducer is easiest to understand, A writes, when he is contrasted with an unreflective seducer, Don Juan. As he sees it, the classic Don Juan figure is driven by sheer desire for sensuous satisfaction. His success stems from the fact that his desire is so powerful and immediate that it becomes difficult for the female objects of his desire to withstand his straightforward passionate demands. in fact, a is almost hesitant to use the term “seducer” when describing such a character because it implies a certain cunning that he simply lacks. enthusiastic moralists who are quick to accuse don Juan of unethical behavior have really failed to understand that he has not yet approached the sort of reflection necessary for ethical thinking.6 He is driven by sensuousness alone and thus represents a rather primal form of aestheticism. genuine seduction can only take place reflectively, that is, focusing on “the how, the method”;7 it can only take place “within the category of the interesting.”8 With reflection comes a breach that brings about an awareness of the external and the internal. the immediate don Juan is said to work in the “extensive” sphere, while the reflective seducer’s activity is “intensive.”9 the thoughtful seducer is not presented as possessing his object with one single blow—he is not the immediately categorized seducer; he is the reflective seducer. That which occupies us is the subtlety, the cunning, whereby he knows how to steal a girl’s heart, the dominion he knows how to gain over it, the enthralling, deliberate, progressive seduction. How many he has seduced is of no importance here; what occupies us is the artistry, the meticulousness, the profound cunning with which he seduces. ultimately the enjoyment itself becomes so reflective that by comparison it becomes quite different from the [immediate] musical Don Juan’s enjoyment. The musical Don Juan enjoys the satisfaction; the reflective Don Juan enjoys the deception, enjoys the craftiness.10

we sense here that a’s interpretation of “the interesting” is generally consistent with the definitions current in his time. Like Schlegel and Heiberg, A asserts that the classic Don Juan figure instantiates a static idea, in this case pure sensuous desire, while the reflective, interesting seducer can only be understood by examining the subjective motivations and intentions of a well-developed modern character. importantly for the Kierkegaardian corpus, we see that the immediate don Juan 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

SKS 2, 17 / EO1, 9. SKS 2, 16–17 / EO1, 8–9. SKS 2, 102–3 / EO1, 98–100. SKS 2, 103 / EO1, 99. SKS 2, 103 / EO1, 100. SKS 2, 111 / EO1, 107. SKS 2, 111 / EO1, 107–8.

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lacks the reflective capacity necessary to think of his actions in ethical terms. In fact, he cannot even distance himself enough from his sensuous desires to see what he is doing. the subjective motivations are apparent if we turn to the “seducer’s diary” itself, and look at the way Johannes, the reflective aesthete, describes his own aims. of the three pseudonymous authors in Either/Or to speak of “the interesting”, Johannes is the only one who self-consciously interprets himself and his projects via the category of the interesting, and he is the only figure who lets us dwell on the tension between his hidden intentions and his more mundane actions. Johannes is aware that he has the power to transform a given situation into something he can reflect upon, that is, something interesting, by adding layers of reflective intrigue. Through the power of interpretation, he stands at a distance from his actions, transfiguring both himself and others into interesting characters. In the “seducer’s diary,” his overarching project is to take a seemingly simple relationship with an unreflective girl, Cordelia, and to refashion it in such a way that neither the relationship nor the reactions of the girl appear to be simple. “How beautiful it is to be in love; how interesting it is to know one is in love. this you see, is the difference.”11 His method is always to begin with a simple appreciation of feminine beauty, but if the circumstances are right, he aspires to own more than images of a beautiful body. by focusing attentively on his own desire and the desire he awakens in her, the immediately beautiful image cleaves into the inner—the awareness of his own passions and drives—and the outer—a staged scene he can observe and recall at will. To some degree, watching Cordelia’s reflective capacities develop is also one of his goals. because she is intelligent and artistically inclined, he can take pleasure watching the way she becomes capable of seeing herself from the outside, as an object of his desire, and consequently becomes more attuned to her own thoughts and passions. this provides him with another dimension of the interesting tension between the inner and outer. He writes: “the majority enjoy a young girl as they enjoy a glass of champagne, in one effervescent moment—oh, yes, that is beautiful and with many a young girl this is undoubtedly the most one can attain, but here there is more.”12 He continues: “the question always remains whether her womanliness is sufficiently strong to become reflected, or whether it will be enjoyed only as beauty and loveliness; the question is whether one dares bend the bow to greater tension. It is in itself great to find a purely immediate womanliness, but if one dares risk altering it, one has the interesting.”13 the ultimate payoff for a is the enjoyment he gets as he watches it all unfold. one might say he plays the roles of author, narrator, and character while simultaneously observing the action as if he were an appreciative member of an audience watching the seduction on stage. He has the best of both worlds: he has privileged access to his own inner thoughts and plans, and he can also enjoy narrating his own behavior as if he were another.

11 12 13

SKS 2, 323 / EO1, 334. SKS 2, 331 / EO1, 342. SKS 2, 334 / EO1, 345.

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In his diary, Johannes also reveals that, unlike the classic Don Juan figure, his reflective capacities have brought him right to the boundary of ethical thinking. on occasion he asks himself if he could possibly be accused of ethical violations: “what am i doing?” he writes in one entry. “am i beguiling her?…am i stealing her heart?”14 but almost as quickly as he raises these questions, he returns to an amoral perspective, judging his comportment in terms of its entertainment value. is the story he authors and stars in interesting? as he sees it, his life is an artwork to be enjoyed, and it must be evaluated according to those rules. to judge his actions in ethical terms is a misplaced concern.15 in Fear and Trembling, written shortly after Either/Or, Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous author Johannes de silentio names the interesting, though the discussion is rather limited. what he says, however, is important for a broader understanding of how “the interesting” relates to other Kierkegaardian concepts. after noting in “problema iii” that he will investigate the abraham story according to “aesthetic categories,” that is, an analysis of the story which focuses on the interplay of author, character, audience, and so on, de silentio notes rather cryptically that the interesting is a “border region” between “the aesthetic” and “the ethical.”16 that is, an individual governed by a search for the interesting manages to look at himself with amoral poetic fascination while at the same time being reflective enough to entertain ethical questions. this is consistent with a’s observations in Either/Or that the classic don Juan is too unreflective and sensuously driven to justify speaking about “cunning,” “deception,” and other ethical-oriented terms. meanwhile Johannes is certainly capable of asking ethical questions even though he strategically avoids dwelling on them. He can thus move about in territory shared by both the aesthetic and the ethical. de silentio’s assertion that “the interesting” is a border region between the aesthetic and the ethical also suggests the close family resemblance to another concept defined by the tension between intention and appearances, namely, irony.17 de silentio suggests as much when he writes that socrates, who is referred to throughout the Kierkegaardian authorship as an ironist, was “the most interesting” man ever to have lived.18 the association of the two concepts is even clearer in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, where pseudonym Johannes Climacus uses irony to name the border region between the aesthetic and the ethical.19 though Kierkegaard never explicitly spells out the relationship of “the interesting” to irony, the latter concept is clearly used more broadly in the authorship to speak of hiddenness and indirection, while “the interesting” is almost always limited to the coquettishness and playfulness in modern literature. that is, “the interesting” is a sub-category of irony. notable in this context is an early entry in Kierkegaard’s journals where he 14 15

437–8. 16 17 18 19

SKS 2, 377 / EO1, 388–9. ibid. see also SKS 2, 356–7 / EO1, 368; SKS 2, 373 / EO1, 385; SKS 2, 424–5 / EO1, SKS 4, 173 / FT, 83. SKS 1, 286 / CI, 247. SKS 4, 173 / FT, 83. SKS 7, 455 / CUP1, 501–2; SKS 7, 457 / CUP1, 504.

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writes that one of his ironic characters, Constantin Constantius from Repetition, flirts with “the interesting”: “He is clever, an ironist, struggles against the interesting but doesn’t notice that he remains caught in it himself.”20 elsewhere in the journals, Kierkegaard describes himself, as author, and his early authorial projects as “interesting.”21 We find one example in an entry from 1849 in which Kierkegaard struggles retrospectively to assign significance to his early authorship. Here, he seizes hold of the idea that his early works were just what the age wanted, and that he had just the background and talent to deliver it: “the age was, and is, lost in the interesting…. i was…in eminent possession of the interesting (that’s what the age demanded). There is hardly an author―absolutely none in Denmark―who in any way could challenge my rank as the only essential one of his kind: to be, qua author, the interesting itself.”22 Because of this neat fit, he continues, it would have been possible to “become a hero and idol of the times,”23 continually pleasing his audience with interesting works. He remained “faithful to [his] mission” however, and moved instead toward devotional writing.24 later that year, Kierkegaard again entertains the idea that, as author, he belongs within the category of the interesting, but because of the delicate nature of his religious mission, he cannot allow the world to see it clearly. He decides not to reveal to his contemporaries anything about himself as author, for they would naturally be overcome by the temptation to focus on him, the most interesting author of his generation, rather than the religious message of his work: “nothing pertaining to my authorial persona can be used at all because it’s clear that instead of escaping the interesting, i would just become more deeply immersed in it, and it would have the same effect on my contemporaries. the simple move is easy: to keep silent….”25 similar sentiments show up in the posthumously published The Point of View for My Work as an Author. His primary aim in this book is to convince his audience that his entire authorship, including the early works, ought to be understood as a religious project. in the “epilogue,” he predicts the reaction of the reading public now that he has revealed that even the most fascinating parts of his authorship, including the “seducer’s diary,” all serve religious ends; and here his observations are accompanied by a sarcastic critique of his contemporaries: “but what have you done?” i hear someone say. “don’t you see what you’ve lost in the eyes of the world by revealing this information?” Yes, indeed, i see it quite clearly: i’ve lost…every worldly form of the interesting. i lose the interesting that lies in preaching the seductive subtlety of desire, hedonism, and hedonism’s most refined euphoric message, as well as the arrogance of ridicule. i lose the interesting that lies in being an interesting possibility…i lose the interesting that lies in being a riddle.…in the eyes SKS 18, 195, JJ:172 / KJN 2, 180–1. see SKS 19, 287, not10:7 / KJN 3, 284; SKS 21, 261, nb10:10 / KJN 5, 271; SKS 22, 23, nb11:27 / KJN 6, 19; SKS 22, 127, nb11:204 / KJN 6, 124; SKS 22, 298, nb13:37 / KJN 6, 300; SKS 22, 315, nb13:69 / KJN 6, 318; SKS 22, 347–8, nb14:8 / KJN 6, 351–2. 22 SKS 22, 23, nb11:27 / KJN 6, 19. 23 ibid. 24 ibid. 25 SKS 22, 127, nb11:204 / KJN 6, 124. 20 21

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of the masses, in the eyes of the world, i’ve lost the interesting….that the problem of becoming Christian, that this is really the fundamental thought behind all my work as an author—how boring!26

as one sees so often in his later journals, Kierkegaard is quick to dismiss the popularity of his early aesthetic works, including those that deal with “the interesting,” and he fails to see existential or religious value in any of it. and as one so often sees, he cannot hide the bitterness about the fact that those works are exactly those the world appreciates most. see also aesthetic/aesthetics; authorship; Communication/indirect Communication; Immediacy/Reflection; Inner/Outer; Intensity/Extensity; Irony; Life-View; Poetry; stages.

26

SKS 16, 70–1 / PV, 91–2, translation modified.

inwardness/inward deepening Christian Fink tolstrup

Inwardness/Inward Deepening (Inderlighed—noun; Inderliggjørelse—noun) the danish word Inderlighed and the corresponding form Inderliggjørelse are both derived from the adjective inderlig, which comes from old nordic innarliga, meaning “on the inner side,” and is parallel to the german innerlich.1 as a concept, inwardness has its roots in german medieval mysticism, which was revived in the pietistic tradition following the reformation. I. Kierkegaardian Inwardness the concept of inwardness is treated at length in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, where it is a central concept connected to the idea of subjective truth. but the concept is present as early as in Either/Or, where the condition for being able to choose oneself arguably rests on a distinction between the inner and the outer. put another way, the dialectic of inwardness is present in the opposition between the despair of the aesthete and the choice of the ethical. in the same way, irony represents the dialectic of inwardness in Kierkegaard’s dissertation, since irony is either a strategy for the one who consciously uses it, or a despairing imprisonment for the one who, unconsciously, is caught in immediacy. Fear and Trembling addresses the contradiction between the inner and the outer as a presupposition for the passion of faith. likewise, the knight of faith is characterized as having an inner conviction not visible from the outside. The Concept of Anxiety brings the negative aspect of the dialectic of inwardness into focus in its analysis of the demonic. “inclosing reserve” (det Indesluttede) is defined as a lack of inwardness. the relation to inwardness is then made problematic. a similar analysis is found in The Sickness unto Death, where the problem of inwardness is likened to a lock that is jammed. the problem of inwardness refers to the fact that existence in inwardness Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 9, columns 274–7. Cf. also Christian molbech, Dansk Ordbog indeholdende det danske Sprogs Stammeord, vols. 1–2, 2nd ed., Copenhagen: gyldendal 1859, vol. 1, column 1080. molbech seems to disregard what he mentions as a new usage of the word, and brings in the danish author Jens baggesen as an example of germanizing the language by using indre with the article, as in “an inner desire” (en indre Trang). molbech expresses his disapproval by calling this a phenomenon of fashion (Modefænomen).

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is an obligation, an ethical task. the moral duty is to engage in the process of true inwardness, which is a new inwardness. due to this emphasis on the problematic aspect of inwardness, the idea of inwardness is dealt with later in the authorship in terms of the process of cultivating it. accordingly, the point of focus is moved to the process of inward deepening. the dialectic of inwardness is partly a double perspective that involves an inward and an outward movement. in this way, Kierkegaard’s concept of inwardness differs from the mystical-contemplative form of inwardness. the concept implies a metaphor for the inward life, but since this cannot be separated from one’s existence, it must also have a movement outwards into the world. passion is this outward dimension of inwardness. the dialectic of the inner and outer is that the inwardness is not just hidden from the outside. since the inner relates to the outer, the hidden inwardness is revealed as the inner relates to the outer. the dialectic of inwardness is Kierkegaard’s response to the Hegelian view that the inner is the outer and the outer is the inner.2 Kierkegaard argues for the opposite view. However, he does seem to follow Hegel when he claims that inwardness is not a return to emotion or feelings, but is also an intellectual process. II. Existence and Passion in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, under the heading “subjective truth, inwardness; truth is subjectivity,”3 Climacus makes a strong claim for subjective truth. the concept of inwardness has a rather prominent, but perhaps neglected, position next to this famous claim. the ground for Climacus’ assertion is that the truth is not understood by a phantom-idealist, but captured through the experiences of daily life as lived by an ordinary, existing human being. existence, then, is not something extraordinary, as though thought, knowledge, or religious or mystical experiences could provide any advantage for making the truth available. as Climacus puts it, “it is an existing spirit who asks about truth, presumably because he wants to exist in it.”4 existence, according to Climacus, is related to inwardness: “all essential knowing pertains to existence, or only the knowing whose relation to existence is essential is essential knowing.”5 “passion is existence at its very highest,”6 and the highest is also known as the moment of passion—the momentary existing of an individual in a unity of the infinite and the finite, a moment in which reflection relates inwardness to existence. it is important to note that these different aspects of inwardness are connected. to some extent it is possible to see them as synonymous, since Kierkegaard uses them in such a way. but there is also another dimension to consider. we see Climacus explain the concept of inwardness: “so, then, subjectivity, inwardness, is truth. 2 3 4 5 6

Cf. SKS K2–3, 85–6. SKS 7, 173 / CUP1, 189. SKS 7, 175 / CUP1, 191. SKS 7, 181 / CUP1, 197. ibid.

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is there a more inward [inderligere] expression for it?”7 this suggests a degree of expression that allows for development in the concept. but, then he immediately continues: “Yes, if the discussion about ‘subjectivity, inwardness, is truth’ begins in this way: ‘subjectivity is untruth.’”8 Here we see both. subjectivity and inwardness are used synonymously. moreover, we see that when subjectivity, or inwardness, is intensified, it turns from truth to untruth. III. The Problem of Absent Inwardness in his retrospective “a glance at a Contemporary effort in danish literature,” Climacus claims that the misfortune of the time is that it has forgotten to exist; it has forgotten what inwardness is.9 in opposition to the preoccupation with objective knowledge, Climacus argues for the necessity of indirect communication in order to make way for a new inwardness. the absence (Fravær, Udebliven) of inwardness or the loss (Tab) of inwardness is dealt with earlier in the authorship. in Chapter iV of The Concept of Anxiety, Vigilius Haufniensis analyzes the absence of inwardness as “inclosing reserve” (Indesluttethed).10 inwardness or certainty (Vished) can fail in two directions according to Haufniensis. either way, the problem is too much abstraction at the expense of concrete action. looking at immortality as an example,11 the absence of inwardness can be that a person does not reckon immortality as a possibility. or it can be in the other direction, namely, that one takes it for granted. the one who mocks belief is really no different from the so-called “holy” one who recites scripture by rote—they both lack certainty and inwardness. in the Postscript, Climacus addresses the same problem in terms of the “two ways of reflection,”12 namely, the objective way and the subjective way. the question of the absence of inwardness arises in the context of Climacus’ observation that it is always an existing spirit, an individual human being, who inquires about the truth. the certainty that the objective questioner claims, when considered apart from the existence of the subject, can be a delusion. delusion can arise in two ways. lunacy results when the passion of inwardness causes one to cling to a fixed, finite idea.13 this is the delirium of inwardness. the other way in which delusion arises is in the absence of inwardness, that is, when the questioner understands that the truth is real for human beings as such, but not for himself. so, the problem of the absence of inwardness concerns the one who will not recognize the truth as a subjective truth and, accordingly, will not appropriate that truth.

SKS 7, 189 / CUP1, 207. ibid. 9 SKS 7, 239 / CUP1, 263. 10 SKS 4, 438ff. / CA, 123ff. 11 SKS 7, 158 / CUP1, 170. For a modern reader this is perhaps a rather obscure example, whereas for a reader of Kierkegaard’s time it was a topical issue. 12 SKS 7, 177 / CUP1, 193. 13 SKS 7, 179 / CUP1, 195. 7 8

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For anti-Climacus, the problem of inclosing reserve is that the dialectic of inwardness is lost, since the corresponding outwardness has disappeared into indifference. inwardness is all there is, and because of the loss of outwardness the inwardness is like a jammed lock.14 this mental block is the result of the most intense despair. this is the despair of the self that does not begin “with the beginning but ‘in the beginning,’ ”15 meaning that this person does not accept the existence of an external power, but wants to construct himself.16 as the most intense form of despair, this demonic form is rarely seen. IV. Inward Deepening whereas the term “inwardness” is used from the beginning of Kierkegaard’s writings, its equivalent, “inward deepening” (Inderliggjørelse), does not appear before the Postscript. the term “inward deepening” brings out the temporal dimension of inwardness, the process of becoming inward: Subjective reflection turns inward toward subjectivity and in this inward deepening will be of the truth, and in such a way that, just as in the preceding, when objectivity was advanced, subjectivity vanished, here subjectivity as such becomes the final factor and objectivity the vanishing. Here it is not forgotten, even for a single moment, that the subject is existing, and that existing is a becoming.17

Commenting on an article by the theologian andreas gottlob rudelbach, Kierkegaard says that “Christianity is inwardness, and inward deepening of Christianity is my assignment.”18 the task of inward deepening is concerned with how one responds to the Christian message. it is assumed that people living in denmark during Kierkegaard’s time know what Christianity is. so the task is not to tell what Christianity is about, but rather for each individual to grasp that knowledge subjectively.19 this view is not limited to the late writings, but is expressed already at the beginning of the Postscript: if truth is spirit, then truth is inward deepening and is not an immediate and utterly uninhibited relation of an immediate Geist [spirit, mind] to a sum total of propositions, even though this relation is confusingly given the name of the most decisive expression of subjectivity: faith. The direction of unreflectiveness is always oriented outward, thereunto, toward, in striving to reach its goal, toward the objective. the socratic secret—which, unless Christianity is to be an infinite retrogression, can be infinitized in Christianity only by an even deeper inwardness—is that the movement is inward, that the truth is the subject’s transformation within himself.20

14 15 16 17 18 19 20

SKS 11, 186 / SUD, 72. SKS 11, 182 / SUD, 68. ibid. SKS 7, 180 / CUP1, 196. SKS 14, 112 / COR, 53 (my translation). see SKS 25, 239, nb28:32 / JP 2, 2046. SKS 7, 44 / CUP1, 37–8.

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this understanding of inward deepening is found again in Climacus’ “the intermediate Clause between a and b,” late in the Postscript. Here Climacus defines the concept of inward deepening as a matter of relating oneself to the Christian message. it is a relation that is part of the difference between religiousness a and b in Postscript, that is, between the ordinary religious belief and the specific Christian faith: The distinction between the pathos-filled and the dialectical must, however, be qualified more specifically, because Religiousness A is by no means undialectical, but it is not paradoxically dialectical. religiousness A is the dialectic of inward deepening; it is the relation to an eternal happiness that is not conditioned by a something but is the dialectical inward deepening of the relation, consequently conditioned only by the inward deepening, which is dialectical. on the other hand, religiousness B, as it will be called from now on, or paradoxical religiousness, as it has been called, or the religiousness that has the dialectical in second place, makes conditions in such a way that the conditions are not the dialectical concentrations of inward deepening but a definite something that qualifies the eternal happiness more specifically.21

This is an important passage, since it shows that inward deepening is not the final stage of a subjective process. religiousness A as the dialectic of inward deepening is part of a practice that continues in religiousness B. it is a transitional stage between religiousness A and B that gives rise to a “new pathos.” V. Hidden Inwardness in Christianity, the emphasis is on living “before god.”22 this is the condition for true Christian inwardness. but there is a tendency for this inwardness to turn itself outward in passion. in the Postscript, Climacus focuses on “religious suffering” as “dying to immediacy.”23 He points out that this process of dying-to belongs to inwardness, and that the religious suffering attending the experience of the absolute difference between god and human beings should not be expressed in outwardness. Climacus illustrates this point by reference to the monastic movement. while he admires the passion of the monastic, he points out that “[t]he more decisive an undertaking…the easier it is (just because it is more direct) to join the godconception together with it,” 24 and consequently one can easily be tricked into the illusion that one is more than a finite human being.25 because it is easy for one to mistake the external or outward expression of the monastic form of life (asceticism) for true inwardness,26 the latter must remain hidden, that is, be expressed essentially in the form of humility.

21 22 23 24 25 26

SKS 7, 505 / CUP1, 556. SKS 7, 450 / CUP 1, 497. SKS 7, 452 / CUP 1, 498. SKS 7, 441 / CUP 1, 486. SKS 7, 445–6 / CUP1, 492. SKS 7, 371 / CUP1, 408.

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this positive sense of “hidden inwardness” is problematized in the late authorship, where Kierkegaard associates the expression with a form of religious evasion. in a journal entry from 1849, Kierkegaard argues that in luther’s time Christ had to be defined as a “gift,” as a redeemer, in opposition to the exaggerated exploitation of Christ as an “example.”27 However, Kierkegaard continues, what was intended by luther only as a corrective ultimately prevailed in protestantism, with the result that Christ as the example has been forgotten, and the whole thing has turned into a “pretense in hidden inwardness.”28 now one can pretend to be a Christian under the cover of hidden inwardness while actually evading the task of renunciation and suffering. this is the reason why the pseudonymous author of Practice in Christianity, anti-Climacus, takes the hiddenness of inwardness to be a problem. He therefore criticizes established Christianity on the grounds that it allows everyone to pretend to be a Christian in hidden inwardness, even though this has nothing to do with Christian faith. the concept of inwardness plays a central role in Kierkegaard’s authorship. but, as we have seen, while Kierkegaard’s uses of it are well defined, the concept of inwardness is susceptible to misuse, especially in the case of hidden inwardness. it is perhaps a point of some significance that Kierkegaard attributed his own predilection for hidden inwardness to being an ironist and a melancholic.29 see also Communication/indirect Communication; existence/existential; Faith; inner/outer; objectivity/subjectivity; passion/pathos.

27 28 29

SKS 22, 241, nb12:162 / JP 3, 2503. ibid. SKS 23, 435, nb20:74 / JP 2, 2125.

irony Nassim Bravo Jordán

Irony (Ironi—noun) From the greek εἰρωνεία, dissimulation. according to its lexical meaning in danish it is the expression of something that the speaker does not mean or that is the opposite of what he means. sometimes it can refer, especially in the aesthetics of the romantics, to the freedom or arbitrariness of fantasy over its object, or, in a philosophical sense, to the state of mind that puts the finite in contrast with the infinite, thus stripping the former of all its value. Finally, it also makes reference to the method used by socrates.1 the word “irony” appears most frequently in The Concept of Irony, followed by the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments and Either/Or. Kierkegaard discusses in depth the concept in his doctoral dissertation of 1841, The Concept of Irony, while in the Postscript, published in 1846 under the pseudonym “Johannes Climacus,” Kierkegaard compares irony with the concept of “humor.” it should also be noted that throughout the investigation in The Concept of Irony the terms “irony” and “ironist” are identified with “romanticism” and “romanticist.”2 Kierkegaard distinguishes two types of irony: irony as a rhetorical device, and irony as a life-view or existential position. I. Irony as a Rhetorical Device in this sense, which corresponds to the most common use of the word, irony is a figure of speech that consists in saying the opposite of what is meant; in other words, there is a contradiction between the inner and the outer, “the phenomenon is not the essence but the opposite of the essence.”3 this, according to Kierkegaard, is a structural feature of all kinds of irony. in rhetorical irony, the “phenomenon” refers to the expression, the outer element, and the “essence” corresponds to the true meaning of the speaker, the inner element. another characteristic of this type of irony is its liberating function or negative freedom. the ironic speaker does not assume responsibility for whatever he says, because he can always claim that this

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 9, columns 648–50. 2 Cf. SKS 1, 312n. / CI, 270n. 3 SKS 1, 286 / CI, 247. 1

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was not what he truly meant and thus frees himself from his words and actions.4 we say that it is a negative freedom because there is no limit to restrain the ironist: he is not bound by his own words. this can also lead to a feeling of superiority and elitism that isolates the ironic speaker from the simple folk that are not able to understand his speech.5 as we will see, “negative freedom” is also a common characteristic of both types of irony, rhetorical and existential. However, Kierkegaard claims that irony as a figure of speech cancels itself because the ironical speaker actually assumes that his listeners can understand his irony. in this way, he negates the immediate phenomenon, his own speech, and the essence identifies again with its external expression, so there is no true opposition.6 deep down the ironical speaker wants to be understood, even if not immediately, and thus, for Kierkegaard, he cannot be a genuine ironist. the implication of this is that true irony cannot be detected or understood by the others. Kierkegaard argues that irony cannot be a mere “style of speaking” one chooses to use once in a while; it is rather a way of living, something that a person has “all day long and is not bound to any style.”7 II. Irony as a Life-View or Existential Position unlike rhetorical irony, its existential counterpart is not only a style of speech, but a way of living that permeates the whole existence of the ironical subject. it also plays a significant role in the development of selfhood. Indeed, Kierkegaard affirms that irony “belongs essentially under ethics,”8 and that “just as philosophy begins with doubt, so also a life that may be called human begins with irony.”9 As aforementioned, in this kind of irony we can also find a contradiction between phenomenon and essence, an imbalance between the inner and the outer. but in the case of the individual that has adopted irony as his life-view, this means that there is a rupture between the ironist’s inner self (the essence) and his outward actuality (the phenomenon). we saw that the rhetorical ironist became isolated from the others as a result of the intrinsic concealment of his way of speaking. in a similar but more radical manner, the “existential ironist” isolates himself from the world he inhabits and ultimately alienates himself from his own inner self. this occurs because the ironist refuses to accept the validity of the “entire given actuality.”10 in short, irony in its “eminent sense” negates “not this or that phenomenon but the totality of existence that it contemplates sub specie ironiae.”11 the ironist thus establishes himself as the only criterion and source for truth. it must be noted that Kierkegaard understands the 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Cf. SKS 1, 286 / CI, 247–8. Cf. SKS 1, 287 / CI, 248–9. Cf. SKS 1, 286–7 / CI, 248. SKS 7, 457 / CUP1, 503–4. SKS 1, 65 / CI, 6. ibid. SKS 1, 292 / CI, 254. ibid.

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term “actuality” as “historical actuality, that is, the given actuality at a certain time and in a certain situation.”12 actuality, then, seems to refer to the everyday situations and relations in the surrounding context of the individual. Irony as a standpoint made its entrance in world history through the figure of socrates. on account of the “hidden” nature of irony, Kierkegaard acknowledges that describing Socrates as an ironist is a feat “as difficult as to picture a nisse with the cap that makes him invisible.”13 However, it is important to underscore that Kierkegaard’s historical account of Socratic irony is heavily influenced by Hegel. as Kierkegaard himself remarks, “Hegel represents a turning point in the view of socrates. therefore, i shall begin with Hegel and end with Hegel.”14 socrates made his appearance in the historical scene at a moment when the athenians were starting to question the absolute authority of the state regarding religious, legal, and ethical matters. through ironical questioning, socrates uncovered the contradictions within the established order. irony has here a dismantling or destructive function; socrates destroys the validity of the prevailing culture and system of beliefs, but does not provide anything else in place of the lost actuality. in this sense, socrates was “purely negative.”15 the historical consequence of socrates’ ironical, destructive activity was a new form of awareness or consciousness, namely, subjectivity. as socrates revealed the inadequacy of the established order and gave no other solution to cover for the loss, he brought the individual subject to a state of isolation where he was left alone to himself. the individual was forced, as it were, to discover his own subjective consciousness. now the subject had to turn his gaze into his own inner self and look for an answer that the given actuality could no longer provide. unlike plato, who used irony as a tool to get rid of “the bonds that restrain speculation”16 and in order to get access to a philosophical truth, socrates made of irony his own position, a “terminus striven for,”17 not an instrument used in the service of the idea.18 this means that irony is present in all aspects of socrates’ life. Kierkegaard argues, though, that the absolute negativity of socratic irony is historically justified, because it paved the way for the new principle of subjective reflection. The shaking and annihilation of the old order was necessary in order to bring about a new beginning, even if the ironist himself did not know what this new beginning was, for he had only the negative power of irony,19 that is, the power to undermine reality. in this way, it is possible to understand why socrates gave no positive answers to his disciples. after the entrance of subjective consciousness in world history, irony reaches a new level. Kierkegaard explains that this is the consequence of a subjectivity “raised 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

SKS 1, 297 / CI, 259. SKS 1, 74 / CI, 12. SKS 1, 264 / CI, 220. Cf. SKS 1, 254 / CI, 210. SKS 1, 175 / CI, 123. Cf. SKS 1, 172 / CI, 121. Cf. SKS 1, 258 / CI, 213–14. Cf. SKS 1, 298 / CI, 260–1.

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to the second power, a subjectivity’s subjectivity, which corresponds to reflection’s reflection.”20 this heightened awareness of the self was a result of Fichte’s philosophy21 and was further pursued by the romantics, particularly by Friedrich von schlegel, ludwig tieck, and Karl Ferdinand solger. From Kierkegaard’s point of view, in Romanticism we find irony in its “eminent sense,” which is described as “infinite absolute negativity.”22 The Romantic ironist becomes increasingly aware of his own “inner infinity” and of the contrast between this and the “finiteness” of the empirical world; in other words, in finding the infinitude within himself, he discovers, on the one hand, the vanity and futility of given actuality, and, on the other, that there is something more to the self than everyday life. For the ironist, historical and concrete actuality has only relative validity, and, thus, he negates it, because he “knows that the phenomenon is not the essence.”23 the consequence of this is that the ironical individual turns his attention away from actuality and toward his own inner self, widening the gap between both. as actuality is reduced to mere relativity and no longer determines the individual in any way, the ironist becomes negatively free. He derives pleasure from this negative freedom, because he is left with an “infinity of possibilities” to play with.24 the ironical subject feels now entitled to compose himself poetically, that is, to create and recreate himself as he sees fit. For the ironist, Kierkegaard argues, “everything is possible.”25 Furthermore, the ironist poetizes not only himself, but “he poetically composes his environment also.”26 this is another feature of his unlimited negative freedom. since actuality has no validity in itself, there is no need for the ironist to form or adjust himself according to the context, but it is the context that is adjusted to fit the ironist. This means, to summarize, that the ironical subject aspires to recreate poetically both his actual environment and his personality. Kierkegaard criticizes Romantic irony for several reasons. In the first place, he makes a philosophical critique. For Kierkegaard, irony as a position, specifically in the case of Friedrich von schlegel and ludwig tieck, is the result of a misunderstanding of Fichte’s philosophy. on the one hand, the romantics confuse the Fichtean eternal “i” with an empirical “i.” on the other hand, and more importantly, the romantic ironists also confound Fichte’s “metaphysical actuality” with “historical actuality.”27 whereas Fichte had a philosophical and systematic interest when he posed the “i” as the source of everything, schlegel and tieck “wanted to obtain a world,” that is, they used the Fichtean principle to justify their urge to recreate actuality. unlike socrates, who undermined the established order to bring forth a new type of consciousness

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Cf. SKS 1, 282 / CI, 242. Cf. SKS 1, 308–9 / CI, 272–3. SKS 1, 292 / CI, 254. SKS 1, 315 / CI, 279. Cf. SKS 1, 299–300 / CI, 262. SKS 1, 318 / CI, 282. SKS 1, 318 / CI, 283. SKS 1, 311 / CI, 275.

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(and was thus historically justified), the Romantics destroy reality in order to impose their own arbitrary and fantasized actuality. but Kierkegaard’s most decisive criticism of romantic irony points to an existential issue. Kierkegaard contends that the romantic ironist possesses only an incomplete personality;28 indeed, the ironist modifies his own self so constantly and in such an arbitrary fashion that he ultimately risks losing his very own inner core, his essential selfhood.29 this is the foremost danger of irony. Kierkegaard observes that the romantics have been often criticized on account of their refusal to acknowledge any ethical reality, not only as “custom and usage,” but as a qualification of spirit.30 nevertheless, he remarks that it is a mistake to regard immorality as irony’s biggest flaw, because in this way its main lure, its attractive poetical life, remains unscathed and is even reinvigorated by this sort of prudery. therefore, Kierkegaard focuses his critique on the poetical aspect of irony. He claims that irony is “not only immoral, but unpoetic,” because it is irreligious.31 the poetic is understood here as a “victory over the world,”32 that is, as the transfiguration of an imperfect reality into a higher one. In this sense, the poetic transfiguration should reconcile the ironist with the previously negated actuality. but this does not occur, because the so-called transfiguration is in fact a process of substituting the given actuality with an artificial one; thus instead of reconciling the ironist with his world, this poetizing isolates him even more.33 From Kierkegaard’s point of view, the only way to “infinitize” actuality is through religion. In the religious, Kierkegaard suggests, actuality is infinitized for me, not by me,34 as happens with irony. whereas in ironical poetizing the given actuality is substituted arbitrarily for an artificial and ephemeral fantasy, the religious reality remains the same and, still, is genuinely transfigured. In this way the isolated subject reconciles himself with his actuality and regains his own self. Furthermore, as the recovered actuality poses a frame for the subject to act upon, he loses his negative freedom and becomes positively free. according to Kierkegaard, this is the true poetical life; an individual can live poetically “only when he himself is oriented and thus integrated in the age in which he lives, is positively free in the actuality to which he belongs.”35 However, Kierkegaard admits that there is a beneficial aspect in irony. Indeed, irony is a necessary moment in the development of the self, because it makes the individual aware of his own subjectivity and reveals the deficiencies and contradictions of the philistine and bourgeois world. in this sense, Kierkegaard remarks that “no genuinely human life is possible without irony.”36 as said, irony Cf. SKS 1, 199 / CI, 149. Cf. SKS 1, 317–18 / CI, 282. 30 Cf. SKS 1, 325 / CI, 290. 31 SKS 1, 330–1 / CI, 296–7. Kierkegaard is referring here to Friedrich von schlegel’s Lucinde, the epitome of ironical literature. 32 ibid. 33 ibid. 34 ibid. 35 SKS 1, 354 / CI, 326. 36 SKS 1, 354–5 / CI, 326. 28 29

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can become dangerous if the subject insists on remaining in his ironical isolation. therefore, Kierkegaard suggests irony as a controlled element, that is, irony limited positively by the frame of given actuality. Finally, irony can also be a limit position or confinium between the aesthetic and the ethical.37 in this particular sense, the ironist contrasts the particular elements of finitude (the events of daily life) with the ethical infinite requirement; as a result, the ironist allows this contradiction to come into existence through him.38 according to Kierkegaard, there is the possibility that an ethicist resides behind the frivolous appearance of the ironist; in Kierkegaard’s words, the ethicist might use irony as his incognito.39 nevertheless, it is not certain that the ironist is an ethicist; this only occurs when the subject “relates himself within himself to the absolute requirement.”40 in a similar way, humor works as the border between the ethical and the religious.41 Kierkegaard explains that humor and irony are essentially the same, but for two differences. Firstly, even if both humor and irony uncover the vanity of reality, the ironist acquires limitless freedom in making light of everything but himself, while the humorist makes no exception of his own person, that is, he finds that everything is vanity, including himself.42 secondly, humor appropriates Christian categories (yet without doing it in a decisive way), whereas for irony the essential is “recollection’s withdrawal from temporality into the eternal.”43 in any case, when compared with “the qualitative decisiveness of the essentially Christian,”44 the differences between humor and irony are merely quantitative. see also aesthetic/aesthetics; anthropology; Classicism; Comic/Comedy; Freedom; Humor; imagination; individual; poetry; romanticism.

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44

SKS 7, 455 / CUP1, 501–2. Cf. SKS 7, 455 / CUP1, 502. Cf. SKS 7, 456 / CUP1, 503. ibid. Cf. SKS 7, 455 / CUP1, 501–2. Cf. SKS 7, 296 / CUP1, 257–8. SKS 7, 246 / CUP1, 271–2. ibid.

irrational sean anthony turchin

Irrational (irrationel―adjective) From the latin, irrationalis, the lexical meaning in danish is “pertaining to that which is unreasonable or meaningless.”1 the concept is found only twice in Kierkegaard’s published corpus, in Philosophical Fragments and Stages on Life’s Way. in both works, although the concept denotes that which is contrary to reason or intellect, that something is deemed irrational does not imply that it is necessarily beyond human capacity to think. rather, what is considered irrational is that behavior which transgresses the social norm or what is deemed reasonable within society. even more, as will be discussed below, this concept imparts a sense of contradiction which, when detectable, is deemed unacceptable or unreasonable. Kierkegaard also uses the term three times in his journals and notebooks: once to denote the incommensurable,2 once to contrast with the rational in the context of quoting tertullian’s hatred of reason (Fornufthadet),3 and once to quote from Johann eduard erdmann’s Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen that “philosophy and therefore also truth begin in the irrational.”4 in the preface to Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, describes the behavior of an individual who thinks about his situation in contradiction to what it really is as a “singularly stupid” individual, that is, as irrational. In this specific situation, the individual thinks his work is one of extreme historical significance and is thus “transported into a state of bliss, into what could be called the howling madness of the higher lunacy, symptomatized by yelling, convulsive yelling.”5 this state, Johannes writes, is “irrational exaltation.”6 elsewhere, in Stages on Life’s Way, this concept remains consistent with its use in Philosophical Fragments. Here, plato’s and aristotle’s notion of a woman is represented as “an incomplete form, consequently an irrational quantity that perhaps in a better existence can be led back to the male form.”7 the context here, like that 1 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 9, columns 650–1. 2 SKS 25, 205, nb27:88. 3 SKS 19, 8, not1:2 / JP 5, 5058. 4 SKS 19, 148, not4:19 / JP 5, 5271. the full title of erdmann’s book is Vorlesungen über Glauben und Wissen als Einleitung in die Dogmatik und Religionsphilosophie, berlin: duncker und Humblot 1837 (ASKB 479). 5 SKS 4, 216 / PF, 6. 6 ibid. 7 SKS 6, 57 / SLW, 55.

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in Philosophical Fragments, relates again to the unreasonable or the contradictory. woman is characterized as irrational insofar as her behavior cannot be measured against an absolute standard, even against an ethical standard.8 in sum, woman is deemed an irrational being insofar as there is nothing consistent with regard to her thoughts or emotions. Furthermore, she can escape the confines of acceptable behavior, as judged in home or society and thrive in contradiction or irrational behavior, by advantage of her female sex, that is, her beauty.9 However, although the term “irrational” is hardly used by Kierkegaard, there are various cognate terms, which help to explicate Kierkegaard’s conception of the irrational. terms such as Afsindighed (madness), vanvittig (crazy), Daarskab (folly, foolishness), det Absurde (the absurd), and Paradox all aid in formulating Kierkegaard’s concept of the irrational. these terms can be found scattered throughout various texts, including Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, Stages on Life’s Way, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, The Sickness unto Death, and Practice in Christianity. For example, in “every good and every perfect gift is from above,” from the Two Upbuilding Discourses from 1843, Kierkegaard writes, “From your hand, o god, we are willing to receive everything. You reach it out, your mighty hand, and catch the wise in their foolishness [Daarskab].”10 Kierkegaard again writes, in “strengthening in the inner being” from Three Upbuilding Discourse from 1843, “He [the Apostle Paul] was too insignificant for Rome to fear him; his foolishness [Daarskab] was too naïve for the powers to arm themselves against him.”11 in sum, Kierkegaard’s use of Daarskab hints at the irrationality of Christian truths in relation to human understanding. this indeed seems to be the case when Kierkegaard writes, “did the wise hail his [the apostle paul’s] teaching so that their reputation could guarantee its truth? no, to them it was foolishness [Daarskab].”12 in addition, in the Four Upbuilding Discourses of 1844, afsindig appears in the context of the juxtaposition of faith and understanding. Kierkegaard writes, “Faith reads the understanding only as in a dark saying; humanly speaking, it does not have the explanation, only in a certain deranged [afsindig] sense, so that, humanly speaking, it is the most foolish business arrangement ever made in the world.”13 in Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard offers some insight into his conception of irrationality as it pertains to the general teachings and stories of Christianity by means of exploring the old testament patriarch, abraham, who is lauded as the paradigm of faith in Judaism, Christianity, and islam. in this context, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes de silentio, has much to say about the absurd in Christianity. For Johannes de silentio, that which is absurd manifests a sense of what is beyond the capacity of reason to comprehend. as such, the offense to reason occasioned by the absurd can only be appeased by faith. this struggle of human reason and 8 9 10 11 12 13

SKS 6, 50–2 / SLW, 48–9. ibid. SKS 5, 41 / EUD, 31. SKS 5, 88 / EUD, 80. SKS 5, 90 / EUD, 83. SKS 5, 376–7 / EUD, 395.

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faith, or of ethical judgment and faith, is portrayed in the story of god commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, a command whose execution entails the violation of normal ethical duties, which are justifiable in terms of public reason. Of course, Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice Isaac is stopped by God. However, for silentio, it is only from a religious point of view that abraham’s act is conceived in terms of sacrifice and thus heralded as the act of a man of faith; from the ethical point of view he is a murderer.14 but since silentio “cannot make the movement of faith, [he] cannot shut [his] eyes and plunge confidently into the absurd.”15 according to the pseudonyms Johannes Climacus or anti-Climacus, the belief that the truths of Christianity cannot be reduced to truths of reason is a theme that permeates Kierkegaard’s corpus. as Johannes Climacus argues in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Christianity does not want to be understood by reason and therefore presents itself in terms of paradox to discourage attempts to grasp it objectively and to encourage the individual instead to grasp it with the inwardness of faith.16 this means that the truths of Christianity evade rational accountability by means of historical investigation or philosophical speculation. this, however, does not necessarily entail that these truths are irrational in and of themselves but only in relation to finite human comprehension and rational investigation. Kierkegaard himself believes that from the perspective of eternity, these paradoxes do not exist.17 thus, one could argue that although these truths are strictly speaking suprarational, they seem irrational in terms of our ability to make sense of them with the finite resources of human reason. Specifically, Kierkegaard consistently calls us back to consider the rationality of the incarnation, that is, the ability of this truth to be placed under the rational scrutiny of historical investigation or philosophical speculation. in both Philosophical Fragments and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, argues that the belief that an individual can be both god and man is a paradox. He writes, “For if the god is absolutely different from a human being, then a human being is absolutely different from the god—but how is the understanding to grasp this? at this point we seem to stand at a paradox.”18 For anti-Climacus, the “rationality” of the teachings of Christianity is also of concern. in both The Sickness unto Death and Practice in Christianity, antiClimacus advances the notion that the truths of Christianity are paradoxical in terms of both the belief in the forgiveness of sin as well as belief in the incarnation. He writes, “the god-man is the paradox, absolutely the paradox. therefore, it is altogether certain that the understanding must come to a standstill on it.”19 For anti-Climacus it is impossible and extremely irrational to seek to prove that Christ was god by means of historical evidence or philosophical speculation. this follows from anti-Climacus’ belief that “god and man are two qualities separated

14 15 16 17 18 19

SKS 4, 126 / FT, 30. SKS 4, 129 / FT, 34. SKS 7, 196–7 / CUP1, 214. ibid. SKS 4, 251 / PF, 46. SKS 12, 93 / PC, 82.

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by an infinite qualitative difference.”20 “do god and man then resemble each other to such a degree, is there such scant difference between them, that i, if i am not mad [afsindig], can start with the assumption that it was a human being…?”21 earlier in the same passage anti-Climacus had argued that it is impossible “by observing the ever-unfolding results of something…[to produce] by a simple deduction…a quality different from that of the assumption.”22 it would then be madness (Afsindighed ) to mix up qualities to the extent that one believes one has derived a different quality from the one contained in one’s original assumption.23 in order to emphasize the irrationality of believing that Christ is god, especially for his contemporaries (who knew Jesus was despised and excluded from the synagogue—far from the loftiness and majesty usually associated with god), antiClimacus, points us to those whom Christ chose as his disciples: those who were mainly his [Christ’s] company—his apostles! what madness [Afsindighed]—but not a new madness, for this is entirely in conformity with the first— his apostles are some fisherman, ignorant fellows who yesterday netted herring—and tomorrow, as they say in the context of madness…will go out into the whole world and transform the shape of the world.24

in reference to the Christian doctrine of the atonement, anti-Climacus argues that Christianity first posits sin in a way that is incomprehensible to human understanding. But then it compounds this irrationality by affirming the forgiveness of sin in a way that is also incomprehensible to human understanding.25 in fact, that a human being’s sin would even be a concern to god is a thought never entertained by speculative minds.26 therefore the doctrine of the atonement cannot be rationally comprehended but can only be believed.27 in conclusion, the concept “irrational” is used to signify that which extends beyond what is deemed reasonable by society, that is, unreasonable, as well as what transcends what is known according to human modes of thinking. thus, the “irrational” for Kierkegaard encompasses both: (1) modes of being and thinking that are irreducible to universal norms or systematic public reason; and (2) those modes of being and thinking that are beyond our comprehension by virtue of their divine nature or origin. see also absurd; Contradiction; Crowd/public; ethics; Faith; Forgiveness; immanence/transcendence; objectivity/subjectivity; offense; paradox; philosophy/ philosophers; Qualitative difference; reason; sin; skepticism/doubt; understanding/ Comprehension. 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

SKS 11, 237 / SUD, 126. SKS 12, 42–3 / PC, 28. SKS 12, 42 / PC, 28. ibid. SKS 12, 66 / PC, 54–5. SKS 11, 212 / SUD, 100. SKS 11, 196 / SUD, 83. SKS 11, 210 / SUD, 98.

Joy benjamin miguel olivares bøgeskov

Joy (Glæde—noun) the word “joy” is the most common translation of the danish word glæde, which shares the same etymological root as the english word glad. the lexical meaning in danish is normally associated with a positive feeling of satisfaction and happiness.1 the word “joy” is common in Kierkegaard’s texts. it is used in every single one of his major works, though it plays a central role in the arguments of only a few of them. The most detailed and explicit reflections on the concept of joy can be found in Christian Discourses, Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, and The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air. It is possible to find nuances of the term determined by the use of adjectives such as “earthly joy” (jordiske Glæde),2 “blessed joy” (salige Glæde),3 “human joy” (menneskelige Glæde),4 or by connecting it to a concrete substantive, as in “the joy of eternity” (Evighedens Glæde),5 “faith’s joy” (Troens Glæde),6 “the ironist’s joy” (Ironikerens Glæde).7 but these expressions do not determine meanings that remain constant throughout Kierkegaard’s many different works. on the contrary, these expressions are susceptible to be interpreted in the light either of their immediate context or of the pseudonym that expresses them. thus, for example, an expression such as “sacred joy” (hellig Glæde),8 as it is used by the aesthete in Either/Or, part one, can make the reader suspicious that it is not necessarily meant in a religious way. Joy and happiness are deeply related concepts, which can be considered synonymous in many ways. nonetheless, it can be remarked that while it is possible to doubt whether happiness, for Kierkegaard, belongs to the religious/Christian life, there is no doubt that joy is essentially related to the religious life. it is possible to distinguish among different meanings of the word “joy,” ordering them from the more perfect and complete kind of joy to the more imperfect and deceptive kind of joy. Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 6, columns 1101–2. 2 SKS 18, 67, ee:193 / JP 2, 2177; SKS 23, 409, nb20:31 / JP 4, 4799. 3 SKS 9, 236 / WL, 234; SKS 10, 233 / CD, 225. 4 SKS 14, 100 / C, 314. 5 SKS 8, 369 / UD, 273. 6 SKS 10, 54 / CD, 43. 7 SKS 1, 289 / CI, 250. 8 SKS 2, 56 / EO1, 48. 1

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I. Unconditional Joy in The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air, Kierkegaard develops the concept of unconditional joy, which can be considered the highest form of joy achievable for a human being. Following the biblical text of matthew’s gospel,9 the masters of this kind of joy are the bird and the lily. The first remarkable feature of Kierkegaard’s treatment of the subject is that joy is not considered mainly as a feeling; the bird and the lily can be masters of joy not because they feel joy, but because they are joy.10 For the bird and the lily, joy is not an individual event. rather, their whole lives are joy, and this is considered unconditional joy,11 since they are not joyful only in a certain respect. as long as the images of the lily and the bird represent for Kierkegaard an ideal of the religious or more precisely of the Christian life,12 it is possible to say that this is a kind of religious joy that belongs essentially to Christianity. precisely because the lily and the bird are joy, they can be masters of joy and their teaching is, according to Kierkegaard, based on one message: “that there is a today.”13 Consequently, Kierkegaard presents a famous definition of joy as “truly to be present to oneself…truly to be today.”14 Being present to oneself can be understood as a joyful condition, first of all, because those who are present to themselves free themselves from the most common kinds of sufferings: the worrying about tomorrow and the worrying about yesterday,15 which are self-inflicted forms of suffering that do not affect those who can live in this day “today.”16 nevertheless, understanding joy only as a lack of suffering would be incomplete, and it could lead to some mistaken ways of achieving it. in fact, it is possible to avoid the suffering of worrying simply by renouncing all forms of desire, as a means of acquiring peace by the absence of passions. but this annihilation of the desires for Kierkegaard is not joy, but rather spiritual suicide,17 or at its best it can be considered a form of resignation;18 however, it is not the joy of the lily and the bird. therefore, presence to oneself should not be understood as a passionless detachment from the external world. on the contrary, this form of self-presence, which is joy, is built on a relation with something other than oneself. First of all it demands a relation with the world (as we will see below in section ii); but also it is built on a relation to something higher than oneself, that is, god. therefore, against any understanding of joy as some form of solitary self-enclosure, Kierkegaard can claim that “unconditional joy is joy over god.”19

9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19

matthew 6:24–34. SKS 11, 40 / WA, 36. SKS 11, 42 / WA, 38. SKS 10, 21 / CD, 9: “if you live as the lily and the bird live, then you are a Christian.” SKS 11, 42 / WA, 38. SKS 11, 43 / WA, 39. ibid. SKS 10, 80 / CD, 70. SKS 8, 203 / UD, 100. SKS 4, 135 / FT, 40. SKS 11, 46 / WA, 43.

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the joyful relation with god is intimately related to a joyful relation to oneself, but the latter is not achieved without the former. this can be understood by considering that for Kierkegaard “this is then the only joyful thought…that god is love.”20 to understand god as love is to understand oneself as the loved one. therefore, independently of the variable conditions of a person’s existence, that individual can find joy in who he or she is, that is, the one “loved by God.”21 For Kierkegaard, failing to rejoice in the relation with god is a purely human fault: it can neither be attributed to god nor to circumstances.22 it is in the strictest sense a fault, because Christianity goes beyond a merely poetic wish that we be like the bird and the lily, and actually commands us to be like the bird and the lily.23 this effectively makes joy a commandment for the Christian, and hence the commandment presupposes the capacity to fulfill it. since the Christian can always live like the bird and the lily, it can be said that he or she “is always joyous, always giving thanks.”24 but this does not mean that there is no sorrow in the life of a Christian. Following Christ’s words, Kierkegaard insists that “each day has enough trouble of its own,”25 so the present day includes some form of sorrow. thus Kierkegaard warns “that sorrow is mixed with joy—this is surely worth learning.”26 this mixing of joy and sorrow can be found in different ways in Kierkegaard’s texts: in Christian Discourses it is possible to find a kind of joy that proceeds from the faith that suffering is beneficial,27 and in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript there is a joy in the fact that suffering signifies the relation with the absolute.28 similarly, in Fear and Trembling, we find that in the trial of faith it is possible to attain “joy by virtue of the absurd.”29 but at a more fundamental level it is possible to see that sorrow can become a source of joy, since “this, namely, is the unconditional joy: to worship the omnipotence with which god the omnipotent one bears all your sorrow lightly as nothing.”30 Joy is then mainly an act of worship, which is a consequence of witnessing god’s bearing the sorrow of human beings. It is difficult to exaggerate the importance given by Kierkegaard to this act of worship, since it is in this action that humans find their reward31 and become more like god.32 such a state of worship and its corresponding joy belongs exclusively to the religious stage, and cannot be achieved by philosophy.33 worship demands more than mere speculation about god’s existence; it demands that we witness god 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33

SKS 8, 370 / UD, 274. SKS 10, 33 / CD, 21. SKS 11, 46 / WA, 42. SKS 11, 15 / WA, 9. SKS 10, 93 / CD, 85. SKS 10, 81 / CD, 72. SKS 8, 333 / UD, 232. SKS 8, 337 / CD, 237. SKS 7, 411 / CUP1, 452. SKS 4, 144 / FT, 50. SKS 11, 46 / WA, 43. SKS 8, 148 / UD, 35. SKS 8, 290 / UD, 193. ibid.

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bearing the suffering. but beyond all that, this act of worship demands faith, since, as Kierkegaard claims, this “also is unconditional joy: worshipfully to dare to believe ‘that god cares for you.’ ”34 It is worth stressing that despite understanding suffering as beneficial, Kierkegaard rejects any attempt at making suffering a kind of goal in itself for the Christian life, since given that Christians should suffer like Christ, just like him in the night of his passion, they can and should ask god if it is possible to avoid this suffering.35 Kierkegaard also warns that the Christian gospel is not just a consolation for suffering since in itself Christianity is joy. unfortunately, in this life the joy of Christianity cannot be presented directly as joy, but only as consolation.36 II. A Religious Joy over the World not only god can be a source of joy. For Kierkegaard, every good gift comes from above,37 and therefore everything that can be considered a good gift can also be a source of joy. Consequently, finding joy in what is less than God is far from being considered sinful or ungodly. so “the rich Christian has joy from his earthly wealth,”38 and the Christian bride and groom can find “the sheer joy of erotic love.”39 Furthermore, Kierkegaard provides a long list of earthly things—from our own existence to all that nature contains—claiming that “if this does not give joy, then there is nothing to rejoice over.”40 this statement means that not even the unconditional joy over God can be achieved if a person does not find joy in these things. with this Kierkegaard establishes an intimate relation between joy over god and joy over the present world and one’s own existence. regarding the Christian relation to the world, we can speak of a double movement of joy, since the Christian finds joy in what is enjoyable in the world, but he or she can also find joy in the fact that this world is a good gift from God. This is so just as a person who finds joy in a good present, on the one hand, finds joy in the present itself, and on the other in the fact that this is a sign of the love from the one who gave it.41 thus it is possible to say that, for Kierkegaard, there is a joy over that which is not the eternal, but it can have an eternal meaning. therefore, the man of faith, far from excluding himself from finding joy in the world, can engage joyfully with it, in fact, even more joyfully than the “worldly man.”42 It should be noticed that even though the Christian can find great joy in what is not absolute, this does not mean that Christ promises that Christians will receive

34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42

SKS 11, 46 / WA, 43. SKS 8, 353 / UD, 255. SKS 9, 71 / WL, 64. SKS 5, 41 / EUD, 32. SKS 10, 43 / CD, 32. SKS 5, 419 / EUD, 43. SKS 11, 43 / WA, 39. SKS 10, 43 / CD, 32. SKS 4, 134 / FT, 39.

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all kinds of “earthly joy.”43 in regard to earthly joy, it may be said that today can be “glad or sad,”44 but neither the kind of joy nor the kind of sadness that lasts just a day can affect the fundamental joy of the spirit of those who are always present to themselves. III. Deceptive Joy turning to himself, the aesthete of Either/Or confesses: “i have never been joyful, and yet it has always seemed as if joy were my constant companion.”45 with this Kierkegaard introduces a kind of joy that is mainly appearance and deception. the deception may be external, insofar as it only fools an external observer, while the aesthete himself is aware of it. but there is also a form of self-deceptive joy, where the subject tries to hide some deeper form of sorrow under a more immediate form of joy. in this case, the joyful event is no more than a brief distraction from a fundamental underlying anxiety.46 Kierkegaard presents as an example of such a case the common saying, “let us eat and drink, because tomorrow we shall die.”47 such a desperate attempt to sink into the joy of the moment fails due to the fact that it is finally motivated by the fear of death. This in itself proves that the person is not really living in the present moment, and consequently he or she cannot really enjoy the present moment.48 this kind of immediate enjoyment is then just a consolation for the loss of joy, but is not joy in itself.49 deceptive joy can also be considered unsatisfactory for two other reasons: on the one hand, because those who pursue this kind of joy lose even the capacity to enjoy the joy of today;50 on the other, because in comparison to the higher forms of joy this joy is much less joyful, as we find in Johannes de silentio, who claims that compared to the joy of faith “it is unhappy.”51 though it is possible to count Kierkegaard among those who claim that a spiritual joy must be preferred to a more worldly or sensual kind of joy, this statement can only be accepted with the proviso that spiritual (religious) joy does not exclude the enjoyment of this world. Furthermore, it is possible to develop a perverse relation to what can be considered a more spiritual form of joy. such is the case with what Kierkegaard calls “joy over the beautiful,”52 common among those who enjoy poetry and art. despite the fact that beauty may be considered an object of spiritual joy— and so the person who seeks it cannot easily be accused of pursuing only the joys of SKS 23, 409, nb20:31 / JP 4, 4799. SKS 10, 86 / CD, 78. 45 SKS 2, 49 / EO1, 40. 46 SKS 3, 240 / EO2, 252. 47 SKS 5, 453 / TD, 83. 48 SKS 10, 86 / CD, 77. 49 SKS 9, 71 / WL, 64. 50 SKS 10, 86 / CD, 78. 51 SKS 4, 129 / FT, 34. 52 SKS 7, 285 / CUP1, 313: “the contemplation of poetry and art, ‘joy over the beautiful,’ is disinterested, and the observer is contemplatively outside himself qua existing person.” 43 44

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immediate sensual pleasures—nevertheless, for Kierkegaard, this kind of joy tends to forget its own concrete individual existence in favor of the abstract contemplation of art. in this way, joy over an object such as beauty becomes a perverted spiritual joy. see also duty; Faith; grace; gratitude; Happiness; Hope; love; melancholy; moment; passion/pathos; silence; spirit.

Judaism tamar aylat-Yaguri

Judaism (Jødedom––noun) the danish term refers to the religion, culture, or community that traces its origin to the ancient Hebrew people of israel.1 Judaism also refers to Jewish faith, belief, existence, or law, as well as the social and political contexts in which these occur. the origin of the danish word for Jew, Jøde, is middle low german Jode, from the latin judaeus and greek ἰουδαῖος, corresponding to the Hebrew Jehudi.2 the most frequent occurrences of the words “Judaism,” “Jew(s),” and “Jewishness” in Kierkegaard’s corpus are found in his journals and notebooks, followed by Works of Love and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Yet they appear in practically all of Kierkegaard’s published works. Initially, Kierkegaard identifies Judaism as the second of three “stages” of religiousness: paganism, Judaism, and Christianity. “aesthetic religion” (paganism) progresses to “ethical religion” (Judaism), and culminates with the “true religion” of Christianity.3 The Concept of Irony, Either/Or, and The Concept of Anxiety assign Judaism this middle position in Kierkegaard’s tripartite schema. in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript Judaism begins to lose its separate status and begins to become assimilated to aesthetic paganism. this development reaches completion in Edifying Discourses in Various Spirits, Works of Love, and Christian Discourses, where Judaism finally merges with paganism in a dualistic schema. This pattern seems momentarily suspended in The Sickness unto Death, where anti-Climacus appears to liberate Judaism from its simple association with paganism and instead brings it closer to Christianity. However, in his next work, Practice in Christianity, anti-Climacus espouses a hostile attitude toward Judaism. “Judaism at the time of Christ,” he writes, is “a complacent, self-defying established order.”4 Kierkegaard’s increasingly strident rhetoric culminates in his final years, when he maintains that at best the religiousness of Copenhagen is Judaism. Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 9, column 1012. 2 Nudansk Ordbog, ed. by lis Jacobsen, Copenhagen: politikens Forlag 1979, p. 473 (Jøde). 3 this entry relies heavily on bruce H. Kirmmse, “Kierkegaard, Jews, and Judaism,” Kierkegaardiana, vol. 17, 1994, pp. 83–97, and bruce H. Kirmmse, “Kierkegaard, Jødedommen og Jøderne,” in Kirkehistoriske Samlinger, 1992, pp. 105–7. 4 SKS 12, 97 / PC, 89. 1

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as is common among those who see Christianity emerging out of Judaism, Kierkegaard at times had considerable sympathy for the new testament’s roots in the Hebrew bible. Judaism receives the torah from a transcendent and eternal god, and his chosen people enact an authentic ethical-religious life. However, Kierkegaard moves away from this sympathetic view as he adopts a two-stage either/or, in which the choice is between Christianity and everything else. Viewing Christianity as superior to Judaism, Kierkegaard regards it as a stage that must be surmounted and utterly rejected.5 Judaism is a mistake in so far as it embraces nature, carnal reproduction, worldly comfort, and the bonds of a collective identity. Judaism is nature; nature is about worldly needs; worldly needs are objective; objectivity is essentially about desires, and at its maximum, a ceaseless pursuit of success in every earthly endeavor. in contrast, Christianity chooses spirit over nature, embraces suffering and chastity, and places the solitary individual above the group or tribal solidarity. as Johannes Climacus succinctly states it: “Christianity is spirit; spirit is inwardness; inwardness is subjectivity; subjectivity is essentially passion, and at its maximum an infinite, personally interested passion for one’s eternal happiness.”6 Kierkegaard uses harsh and offensive language with respect to the Jews: goethe observes…that the murder of the egyptians by the Jews was just the opposite of the sicilian Vespers. there, the host murdered the guest; here, the guest murdered the host. but this will probably become the Jews’ relationship to all of europe in our time.7

one cannot discount pervasive european and danish anti-semitism during Kierkegaard’s lifetime. in 1813, denmark underwent a serious debate on whether a Jewish presence was helpful or harmful to the society, and on whether there ought to be any Jews in denmark at all. in 1819 anti-semitic riots took place in the streets of Copenhagen. Yet Kierkegaard thought of himself––not entirely negatively––as perhaps a “wandering Jew,” a romantic figure of homelessness and despair. Later on this sympathy was superseded by a use of “the Jew” as synonymous with decadent aspects of modernity: the rise of market economies, the leveling of class structures, the loud democratic press catering to and shaping “the crowd,” and political liberalism. it is unclear whether the very public and pitched battle with the Corsair and its editor, meir aron goldschmidt, should be viewed as a battle with the “Jewish press” or “a Jew.” the question is often raised whether Kierkegaard was anti-semitic.8 However, there is a range of things one can mean by anti-semitism. For example, one might 5 SKS 25, 348, nb29:90 / JP 2, 2224: “Christianity in its whole history has had a constant tendency to promote Judaism as the equal of Christianity instead of using it as a point of departure or that which is to be abandoned when renunciation, unconditional renunciation, is proclaimed.” 6 SKS 7, 39 / CUP1, 33. 7 SKS 21, 296, nb10:75 / KJN 5, 307. 8 For more on Kierkegaard’s alleged anti-semitism, in addition to Kirmmse, see Johnny Kondrup, “meïr goldschmidt: the Cross-eyed Hunchback,” in Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries, tome iii, Literature, Drama and Aesthetics, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2009 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 7), pp. 105–50.

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fail to love or admire Jews or Judaism and yet not be anti-semitic. one might be indifferent to Jews and Judaism yet not be anti-semitic. a person might employ antisemitic stereotypes without resenting or scorning Jews or Judaism. there is “the anti-semitism of tolerance” that dominated golden age denmark and continues to exist into our time. in the context of his central concern to critique Christianity and a decadent Christendom, Kierkegaard’s view of Judaism seems no more ethically suspect than his view of Christendom. Kierkegaard’s view of Judaism is interesting insofar as it is a major ingredient in his critique of Christendom. in that context his harsh and offensive language against Jews should be no more ethically suspect than his harsh and offensive language against Christendom. if he is anti-semitic he is also anti-Christendom. if we don’t cringe at his scorn for Christendom, then perhaps we needn’t cringe at his scorn for Jewishness. we can explore Kierkegaard’s view of Judaism without having on our agenda the need to reach a verdict on the biographical question, whether or not, and to what extent, he was anti-semitic. He accuses danish Christendom with abandoning the path of suffering and unrest, and that is also his critique of Judaism: “the little fragment of religiousness we see in Christendom (and it is little enough) is actually… Judaism.”9 Kierkegaard calls grundtvig’s emphasis on ritual language and on taking the congregation as a chosen people, “Jewish.” grundtvig’s enemy, bishop mynster, is also labeled “Jewish,” for what Kierkegaard saw as blurring what should be an absolute distinction between religious and secular authority.10 thus what appears at first to be a scorn for “Jewish elements” in society is better read as a scorn for a “pagan” Christendom, couched in conventional anti-Jewish rhetoric. Kierkegaard’s critique of Judaism mirrors his critique of Christendom. Kierkegaard’s anti-semitic language is and remains offensive, yet that language is mostly used by Kierkegaard to criticize the decadence of the would-be Christians in Christendom. Jews and Judaism are designated as the constitutive other for would-be Christians. “the Jew” is a necessary person and “Judaism” is a necessary concept for Christianity, for both indicate what remains to be achieved: it cannot be made clear enough or be repeated often enough that Christianity certainly is related to Judaism, but in such a way, please note, that Judaism serves Christianity by helping it become negatively recognizable, is the repulsion of offense, yet they belong together for the very reason that this repulsion is an essential part.11 Kondrup finds it “worth noting that Kierkegaard kept his [seemingly anti-Semitic] statements to himself….Kierkegaard himself apparently found them inappropriate for publication” (p. 128). ronald m. green concludes his analysis “Fear and Trembling: a Jewish appreciation” with these words: “the past two centuries have seen cultural anti-semitism begin with the intellectual musings of a prestigious philosopher and end in genocide. in the wake of these events, Fear and Trembling merits a modest word of Jewish appreciation” (Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook, 2002, p. 149). see also peter tudvad, Stadier på antisemitismens vej. Søren Kierkegaard og jøderne, Copenhagen: rosinante 2010. 9 SKS 23, 403, nb20:23 / JP 2, 1867. 10 see Kirmmse, “Kierkegaard, Jødedommen og Jøderne,” p. 106. 11 SKS 25, 364, nb29:102 / JP 2, 2225.

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Christianity gets its identity in terms of whom it excludes. by means of “repulsion” or “offense,” Judaism serves as the other by means of which Christianity can recognize and define itself. Can one understand “the Otherˮ that is Judaism? De Silentio understands Abraham enough to know he is to be adored, but nevertheless finds him to be beyond understanding.12 in Practice in Christianity, however, Judaism is shown to be absolutely different from the way of Christ, and it is “apparent that he was in the truth.”13 in this case, it seems, the otherness of Judaism does not block understanding but allows clear comprehension. to summarize, Kierkegaard’s view of Judaism is often discussed under the question of whether or not he was anti-semitic. but to treat his understanding of Judaism in this narrow way fails to clarify the substantive philosophical role played by his views on Judaism. Knowing how Kierkegaard understood Judaism is more basic than the issue of whether he was anti-Semitic. The philosophical significance of Judaism for Kierkegaard rests on his insight that the Jew appears as the other, who effects the self-definition of the Christian individual. Viewed this way, Judaism is a necessary and valued component in the constitution of Christian identity. see also Christendom; ethics; Faith; identity/difference; individual; paganism; paradox; religious/religiousness; self.

SKS 4, 207 / FT, 120: “but there was no one who could understand abraham.” see also SKS 25, 248–9, nb28:41 / JP 2, 2223. 13 SKS 12, 97 / PC, 89: “thus Judaism at the time of Christ became, through the scribes and pharisees, a complacent, self-deifying established order. the outer and inner had become entirely commensurable, so totally that the inner had dropped out.” 12

language steven shakespeare

Language (Sprog—noun) From the middle low german sprake, derived from spreken, meaning to talk or speak. lexically, Sprog encompasses layers of definition at various levels of abstraction. It can mean language in a generic sense, a system of signs for the expression of thought (the content of consciousness or bevidsthedsindhold).1 Clearly, such a definition already contains philosophical presuppositions about the relationship of signs to thinking which were subject to critical examination in Kierkegaard, as in many other idealist and romantic philosophies contemporary with his. moving along the scale of abstraction, Sprog can refer to the language of a nation or ethnic group, or to the specialized language of a profession. this meaning encompasses the different modes by which signs are used (for example, in speech or writing, or in coded form). Sprog can also be defined as a specific statement, remark, saying, or proverb: a condensed utterance2 (in a similar way to the use of “word” in a request to someone to “speak a word to us,” or the contemporary response to a pithy insight with the exclamation “word!”). these levels of meaning are important for understanding Kierkegaard’s use of the term. since his practice of indirect communication calls into question the distinction between the form and content and usage (or, in more Kierkegaardian idiom, between the “what” and the “how”) of significant utterances, an examination of his understanding of language can helpfully be organized under the following headings: I. Language as specific tongue, especially mother tongue, II. Language as a formal, grammatical arrangement of signs, III. Language as a medium qualified by spirit, iV. language as communicative action. I. Language as Specific Tongue, especially Mother Tongue The more restricted use of the term to refer to specific national languages is clearly present in Kierkegaard’s works.3 A significant aspect of this is his reference to the “mother tongue,” in this case danish. in Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, he declares himself proud to write in Danish, and declares his filial Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 21, columns 525–34. 2 ibid. 3 For example, SKS 6, 87 / SLW, 282. 1

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devotion to it.4 This connection with the mother tongue (as one’s first language) is also mentioned in the earlier discourses.5 this terminology is carried further in Stages on Life’s Way, in which Frater taciturnus writes of the mother tongue or “native language” to which he is bound, and describes it as “a language that is intense and emotional every time the right lover knows how to incite masculinely the language’s feminine passion.”6 this gendered personification of language casts it in the role of the passive but seductive woman (explicitly as eve), whose ardor is unleashed by a self-assertive male. The gender binary at play here is both reflected and called into question by the association of language with abstraction and spirit in other works, which will be explored under the following headings. II. Language as a Formal, Grammatical Arrangement of Signs in his magisterial dissertation, Kierkegaard discusses whether the use of mythical “discourse” (Foredrag) in plato’s dialogues is merely an accommodation to the reader, an inessential use of traditional imagery to convey an essentially philosophical idea. Contrasting the mythical with the dialectical, Kierkegaard writes that, on this view “the two kinds of presentation are seen not in relation to the idea but in relation to the listener; they are like two languages—the one less articulated, more childlike and soft, the other more developed, more sharp-edged and hard.”7 language here means something like a formal mode of expressing an idea through signs. such modes can differ in their level of articulation, but do not affect the underlying idea that is being conveyed.8 However, Kierkegaard rejects this view. He argues that the dialectical and the mythical interact in a more subtle way, each developing throughout the platonic corpus, so that philosophical ideas are formed through both abstract and imaginative means. In other words, Kierkegaard acknowledges a more formalistic definition of language, but seeks to move beyond it, so that form and content are understood in their inextricable and dynamic relationship. Further instances of this approach can be found in The Concept of Irony, but also at various other points in the authorship. For example, Kierkegaard refers to the way in which Jean paul characterizes irony, humor, and moods as “different languages” which simply express the same thought in various ways.9 in contrast, Kierkegaard argues that a concept such as irony has its own history, a history that essentially affects the meaning of its deployment. therefore, having embraced the ordinary use of language, one must be attentive to the way the meaning of a word differs across SKS 12, 281 / WA, 166. SKS 5, 106 / EUD, 101. 6 SKS 6, 450 / SLW, 489. 7 SKS 1, 151 / CI, 97. 8 For a further example of this, the aesthete of Either/Or, part one, writes of being praised for both the quality of his language and its content, implying that the two are in principle distinct (SKS 2, 44 / EO1, 35). 9 SKS 1, 284 / CI, 245. 4 5

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time. language, in the “ordinary” sense, simply correlates signs with meanings; a more developed understanding allows for the meaning of signs to evolve historically and contextually. a bridge from this more formal understanding of language to one in which it is seen as essentially related to spirit is found in the way Kierkegaard writes of differences of language, analogous to the different specialized languages spoken by professions. Here, language refers not merely to a specialized vocabulary, but to a conceptual framework within which such vocabulary makes sense and can be used appropriately. in the early edifying discourses, Kierkegaard refers to “eternity’s language” (in which expectation is not characterized by probability, by the qualification of a “perhaps” (maaskee), but is qualitatively unshakeable).10 in contrast, discussing the separation of an individual from god, Kierkegaard notes how “human language” says little of this, and that “language itself is so selfish.”11 Here, language implies an orientation or life-view that fundamentally affects the availability and meaning of concepts. the “grammar” of such language, therefore, is not defined by narrowly lexical syntactical rules, but by the discursive presuppositions that limit or open the field for reflection and resolution. it is, for instance, a confusion of language to talk of faith as something that can come and go depending on external circumstances. this sort of confusion is comparable to the philosophical notion of a category mistake. in a related vein, The Sickness unto Death talks of a language of immediacy and of a language of the gods, which human beings cannot speak.12 the contrast is not between two vocabularies, but between two determining contexts for the use of linguistic terms—one of which results in a decisive silencing of human language. language is a means of expression or articulation in each case, but the ultimate orientation of the language is decisive. as a term for the generic articulation of ideas, language is thus nuanced and multiplied, so that it encompasses a diversity of incompatible conceptual frameworks, intimately related to qualitatively different forms of life (and to the infinite qualitative distinction between a human being and god). Nevertheless, such a concept of language omits explicit reflection on the form of mediation as such. It is by turning our attention to this that we find a view of language enmeshed in the contradiction between the real and the ideal, the concrete and the abstract—and so as inseparably linked to spirit. III. Language as a Medium Qualified by Spirit often, the inadequacy of language in communicating certain ideas is noted. language fails to articulate the horror of losing one’s soul, for example.13 However, these ideas SKS 5, 217 / EUD, 217. SKS 5, 245 / EUD, 246. 12 SKS 11, 165 / SUD, 51 (where the appearance of concepts like “self” and “despair” in the language of immediacy is considered an “abuse of language”); SKS 11, 238 / SUD, 127. Cf. SKS 6, 395 / SLW, 427 (where the language of immediacy is contrasted with the language of inclosing reserve). 13 SKS 5, 189 / EUD, 185. 10 11

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need not be religious or ethical. For example, “language breaks down, and thought is confused” when the aesthetic author discusses how “the unhappiest one” should in fact be termed the “happiest one.”14 this suggests a contrast between language, considered as an abstract medium for the expression of ideas, and the actuality of existence. in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript we read of how actuality cannot be rendered in the “language of abstraction,” which is characterized as a hypothetical unity of thought and being.15 However, this is soon followed by a reference to the “language of actuality.”16 in the latter, actuality is defined as inter-esse, the “between-being,”17 which maintains an existing individual’s ethical relationship to existence, rather than subsuming existence into an abstract category of pure thought. The relationship between these two languages is significant. The language of abstraction annuls actuality, changes it into something merely possible. the language of actuality does not consume the actual within the possible, but relates abstraction to actuality “as a possibility.”18 The distinction appears to be a fine one, but it is decisive. when abstract thought is related to actuality as a possibility, what is meant is an ethical possibility, a possibility for passion, resolution, and action—for interest. possibility can be a consuming abstraction, or the condition for ethical and religious choice (hence Kierkegaard’s interest in the subjunctive character of ethical language, for instance). Here, then, “language” itself is a medium in which possibility plays an important role, but different positionings of possibility radically alter the status of the language used. one might compare the contrast made elsewhere between the richness of language in the service of desire as compared to language that merely describes things.19 For the seducer, there is a “whole language” concealed in the thought of seduction.20 it is a short step from this to a further step, in which language is the medium that articulates the minimal but decisive difference that is the presence of spirit, as a self which is (mis)related to actuality via possibility (or via god). Works of Love moves in this direction with its notion of “transferred” (overført) language.21 All human language, including that of Scripture, is defined in this way, at least potentially. those in whom the spirit is awakened use ordinary language, but mean by it something essentially different. the sensuous is not abolished by the spiritual, but taken over by it and made figurative. The language of spirit is therefore “secret.”22 in effect, it is hidden in plain sight. the context is an examination of the idea that love builds up. in contrast to the idea of building a house from scratch, which is an achievement redounding to the credit of the builder, love builds up by annihilating itself, by presupposing that love already exists in the other 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

SKS 2, 223 / EO1, 230. SKS 7, 286 / CUP1, 314. SKS 7, 287 / CUP1, 315. SKS 7, 286 / CUP1, 314. SKS 7, 287 / CUP1, 315. SKS 6, 34 / SLW, 29. SKS 2, 352 / EO1, 363. SKS 9, 212–13 / WL, 209–10. SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209.

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person. the language of spirit thus works, not in the standard metaphorical order of understanding one (often less familiar) reality through the already understood associations of another reality (that is, understanding love’s work by applying to it associations derived from building). it works by taking the familiar meaning of words and making them paradoxical to the point of self-annihilation (love builds by presupposing that what it builds is already there). In this sense, language cannot be defined in lexical, syntactical ways entirely, but by usage, and by the possibilities it affords for articulating the relationship between the actual and the possible. language’s own paradoxical, spiritual capacity is thus brought to the fore. Kierkegaard’s most sustained examination of the structure of language occurs in the unpublished Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est. Here, language is theorized as a mediation, which by expressing immediacy cancels it. the context is an exploration of the preconditions of doubt. a consciousness that exists without doubt would be immediate: it would simply be an acceptance without question of what was given to it, what was present. use of language, however, implies a separation between what is present, immediate, and real and what is articulated in a form that abstracts from, mediates, and divides that reality. language is thus connected with consciousness as we actually experience it in existence, where consciousness is not simply absorbed in itself, but is shaped by an encounter with another (and therefore with its own limits). the connection between language and consciousness is pithily stated: “immediacy is reality; language is ideality; consciousness is contradiction. the moment i make a statement about reality, contradiction is present, for what i say is ideality.”23 language is a mediacy and an ideality that makes consciousness possible as questioning and self-reflexive. In this sense, language is not merely descriptive or formal, but productive: “when i use language to express reality, contradiction is present, since i do not express it but produce something else.”24 this contradiction lies at the root of doubt (is the world really as i represent it?), but is also the condition for the existing person to have any interest in existing. The connection of language with ideality and consciousness or spirit is confirmed by two other key texts: Either/Or, part one and The Concept of Anxiety. in the former, the aesthetic writer considers the “classic” status of mozart’s Don Giovanni. along the way, he draws a contrast between language and music. we are told that “language is the most concrete of all media.”25 Here, to be “concrete” means to be determinate and able to articulate historical ideas. unlike language, music remains ahistorical and abstract. as the essay progresses, we see how this distinction is used to associate language with spirit as its idea and music with sensuous immediacy. language “is the medium absolutely qualified by spirit, and it is therefore the authentic medium of the idea.”26

23 24 25 26

SKS 15, 55 / JC, 168. ibid. SKS 2, 62 / EO1, 55. SKS 2, 73 / EO1, 67.

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the sensuous basis of language is negated, reduced to the status of an instrument. in sculpture and painting, the sensuous element is essential to what the artwork is. note the distinction that the aesthete makes just prior to this. He admits that there is a sense in which music, sculpture, and painting are languages, since “every expression of an idea is always a language, since the essence of the idea is language.”27 this connects with our earlier consideration of language as a formal means of expression, but extends it. the suggestion that “the essence of the idea is language” implies that idea and language cannot be understood in terms of content and form. the philosophical idea is an articulated idea—which also means that it is an existential idea, since it is a consciousness of the irresolvable contradiction that makes spirit possible. in The Concept of Anxiety, the focus is on the story of adam and eve’s temptation in the garden. in the section on anxiety as a presupposition of hereditary sin, Vigilius Haufniensis notes how, prior to eve’s creation in the genesis account, adam already had language, since he had given names to the animals. However, this possession of language is dubbed “imperfect,” similar to a child’s identification of animals on an alphabet board. Vigilius has already suggested an alternative interpretation of language to this rather crude representational one. Reflecting on the mythical presentation of the command not to eat of the tree of Knowledge coming from outside adam and eve, he argues that this can be dispensed with: “innocence can indeed speak, inasmuch as in language it possesses the expression for everything spiritual.”28 one can thus conclude that adam “talked to himself.”29 Carrying this through into the temptation story, Vigilius again argues that the mythical form of the serpent can give way once we realize that “the speaker is language, and also that it is adam himself who speaks.”30 language here is the capacity for articulating spirit, in terms of existentially decisive situations of command and temptation. it is therefore more akin to speech acts and testimony than to a system of signs understood according to a model of propositional representation. in a footnote, Vigilius notes that, for all he refers to adam speaking to himself, it is not that human beings are the inventors of language.31 this echoes a statement in the early edifying discourses in which God is hailed as the “first inventor of language and the only one who holds the blessing in his hands.”32 no doubt conscious of contemporary debates about the origin of language, Kierkegaard insists on the uncanny nature of the language of spirit, and the existential distinctions it enforces between faith and understanding. the “masculine” nature of the speaker—subduing and negating the sensuous matter of language—is here undermined by the way Kierkegaard’s texts complicate the relationship between the sensuous and the spiritual, the speaking subject and the otherness of language. 27 28 29 30 31 32

SKS 2, 73 / EO1, 66. SKS 4, 351 / CA, 45. ibid. SKS 4, 353 / CA, 47. ibid. SKS 5, 377 / EUD, 395.

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we can see how Kierkegaard takes up the Hegelian and more generally idealist interest in language, as it enables the dialectical development of consciousness from immediacy to self-conscious articulation, whilst at the same time resisting any attempt to sublate the contradictions intrinsic to the way language operates. a connection with the idea of the “sign of contradiction” in Practice in Christianity clearly suggests itself. IV. Language as Communicative Action the notion that language is a communicative ethical-religious act rather than a system of signs understood formally and synchronically is implied in our analysis under the previous two headings. it is interesting to note occasions when language itself is seen as an agent in The Concept of Anxiety, for example, but also the way in which this connects with the further claim made in that work that the demoniac “will not come out with it [vil ikke rykke ud med Sproget]….language, the word, is precisely what saves, what saves the individual from the empty abstraction of inclosing reserve…language does indeed imply communication.”33 such a statement clearly invites us to connect the understanding of language in Kierkegaard’s texts to his wider analysis and practice of liberating communication: the vocation of one who “stirs the waters of language.”34 see also allegory; Communication/indirect Communication; Concrete/abstract; Contradiction; Dialogue; Immediacy/Reflection; Metaphor; Music; Myth; Necessity; poetry; rhetoric; spirit; writing.

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SKS 4, 425–6 / CA, 124. SKS 7, 85 / CUP1, 86.

law david Coe

Law (Lov—noun) From the old danish logh, old norse log. its simplest lexical meaning is moral. the law or laws express what is legal and illegal in a society or association. the law can also refer to persons who enforce the law. Scientifically, laws refer to fixed rules according to which phenomena of nature occur. religiously, law refers to the social or ethical rules of the bible, Koran, and the like, especially the commandments and ordinances perceived as a whole. The law can denote the first five books of Jewish and Christian scripture, the pentateuch, distinguished from other scriptures. law can also refer to the part of Christian doctrine that emphasizes human obligations and penalties.1 because the Hongs’ english translation capitalizes “law,” this entry will do the same from now on. Kierkegaard’s most significant discourse on the Law occurs in the discourse entitled “Love is the Fulfilling of the Law” in Works of Love. Kierkegaard also explores the concept in For Self-Examination and Judge For Yourself!. the concept is lightly touched upon by the pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis in The Concept of Anxiety and in the signed Christian Discourses. Kierkegaard normally regards the law in its Christian biblical and doctrinal sense. In his discourse on Romans 13:10, “Love is the Fulfilling of the Law,” Kierkegaard unveils the law in its dialectical relation to love. positively, there is no conflict between the Law and love. The Law is the blueprint of love. “There is not one of the law’s provisions, not a single one, that love wants to have removed.”2 But negatively, the Law merely explains love; only love embodies and fulfills the law. “the law is like a laborious speaker who despite all his efforts still cannot say everything, but love is the fulfilling.”3 analogously, “[t]he relation of love to the law is here like the relation of faith to understanding. the understanding counts and counts, calculates and calculates, but it never arrives at the certainty that faith possesses: in the same way the Law defines and defines but never arrives at the sum, which is love.”4 dialectically, the law and love are distinct like knowing and doing,

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 12, columns 1196–1205. 2 SKS 9, 110 / WL, 106. 3 SKS 9, 108 / WL, 104. 4 SKS 9, 109 / WL, 105. 1

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explaining and being, and yet they belong together like “hunger and the blessing that satisfies it.”5 as noted above, Kierkegaard’s normal concept of the law is “god’s law,”6 the biblically derived obligations god has imposed on every human being. Kierkegaard criticizes a relativistic approach to the law taken by the world: “god and the world agree in this, that love is the fulfilling of the Law; the difference is that the world understands the law as something it thinks up by itself.”7 For example, “[w]hen a great number do what is wrong, or we all do it, then this wrong is the right.”8 “then it ultimately is people who determine the law’s requirement instead of god.”9 While love is the fulfilling of God’s Law, Kierkegaard confesses that no one has fulfilled the Law except Jesus Christ. “Christ was the fulfilling of the Law.”10 in Christ, there was no distinction between explanation (the law) and being (love). the Law “followed him step by step, hour by hour, with its infinite requirement—but he was the fulfilling of the Law.”11 Because Christ alone has fulfilled the Law, “an everlasting chasmic abyss”12 is fixed between Christ and every other person. This distinction is not only “an essential expression of how we relate to god,”13 but the distinction also inculpates us. Subjectively, Kierkegaard found it impossible to speak about love as the fulfilling of the law “without simultaneously acknowledging one’s own guilt and making every human being guilty.”14 thus, the concept of the law is subjectively incriminating and unpleasant: a human being groans under the law. wherever he looks, he sees only requirement but never the boundary, alas, like someone who looks out over the ocean and sees wave after wave but never the boundary. wherever he turns, he meets only the rigorousness that in its infinitude can continually become more rigorous, never the boundary where it becomes gentleness.15

Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Vigilius Haufniensis corroborates: “what is said of the law is also true of ethics: it is a disciplinarian that demands, and by its demands only judges but does not bring forth life.”16 This belief in our incapacity to fulfill the Law accords with Kierkegaard’s lutheran background. according to the apology of the augsburg Confession:

5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

SKS 9, 110 / WL, 106. ibid. SKS 9, 131 / WL, 128. SKS 9, 120 / WL, 117. ibid. SKS 9, 106 / WL, 101. SKS 9, 105 / WL, 101. ibid. SKS 9, 106 / WL, 101. SKS 9, 108 / WL, 104. SKS 9, 109 / WL, 105. SKS 4, 324 / CA, 16.

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people cannot by their own powers live according to the law of god and because all are under sin and guilty of eternal wrath and death, we cannot be set free from sin and be justified through the law. Instead, what has been given us is the promise of the forgiveness of sins and justification on account of Christ, who was given for us in order to make satisfaction for the sins of the world.17

Kierkegaard concurs: “whereas the law with its requirement became everyone’s downfall because they were not what it required and through it only learned to know sin, Christ then became the downfall of the law; because he was what it required.”18 in the same discourse, Kierkegaard further develops the concept of the law by describing the love that fulfills the Law, which is to help another person to love god. “to help another person to love god is to love another person; to be helped by another person to love god is to be loved.”19 “worldly wisdom is of the opinion that love is a relationship between persons; Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: a person—god—a person, that is, that god is the middle term.”20 Fulfilling the Law means asking “whether each individual is first related to god and then whether the relationship of love is related to god.”21 if this is not so, fulfilling the Law means splitting up the relationship “until the lovers are willing to understand this.”22 So stringently fulfilling the Law requires two things: inwardness and continuance.23 “the inwardness of Christian love is to be willing, as a reward for its love, to be hated by the beloved (the object). this shows that this inwardness is an unalloyed god-relationship. it has no reward, not even that of being loved: thus it belongs entirely to god.”24 “the requirement of continuance in time means that the same inwardness of love is to be maintained throughout the duration of time.”25 The Christian lover who fulfills the Law sacrifices everything “so that it is not the husband who is the wife’s beloved, but it is god.”26 in For Self-Examination, Kierkegaard diagnosed two misuses of the law in two distinct ages. The Middle Ages believed they could fulfill the Law through works and so merit salvation.27 Kierkegaard’s post-luther age abused luther’s doctrine of justification by grace alone (apart from works) as justification for ceasing to do the works of the law altogether.28 the former was pelagian; the latter was antinomian. Kierkegaard summarizes: “in every human being there is an inclination either to The Book of Concord: The Confessions of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, ed. by robert Kolb and timothy J. wengert, trans. by Charles arand et al., minneapolis: Fortress press 2000, p. 126. 18 SKS 9, 104 / WL, 99. 19 SKS 9, 111 / WL, 107. 20 ibid. 21 SKS 9, 112 / WL, 108. 22 ibid. 23 SKS 9, 133 / WL, 130. 24 SKS 9, 133 / WL, 131. 25 SKS 9, 135 / WL, 132. 26 SKS 9, 124 / WL, 121. 27 SKS 13, 46 / FSE, 17. 28 ibid. 17

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want to be meritorious when it comes to works or, when faith and grace are to be emphasized, also to want to be free from works as far as possible.”29 Kierkegaard corrected both misuses. “true lutheranism”—“Christianity”—is not an either/or of either grace or works. instead, it is a dialectic that sighs: “Your life should express works as strenuously as possible; then one thing more is required— that you humble yourself and confess: but my being saved is nevertheless grace.”30 Kierkegaard reintroduced the law to his post-luther age not in order to reintroduce medieval works-righteousness or to merely terrorize with the law, but to perpetuate an honest confession: “the highest…must be presented in all its demand and men must then be told: if you cannot do it, then entrust yourself to god, confess your weakness: he is no cruel lord, he has great compassion. but you are not permitted to be ignorant of the highest aspects of god’s requirement.”31 or as he states in Christian Discourses, “do not subtract from the gospel the law that is in it.”32 in his antinomian age, Kierkegaard reintroduced the exacting law in order to exact an earnest hunger for forgiveness in Christ. see also asceticism; Catholicism; Christ; Confession; ethics; Forgiveness; god; guilt; love; middle ages; protestantism/reformation; repentance; sin.

29 30 31 32

SKS 13, 45 / FSE, 16. SKS 13, 46 / FSE, 17. SKS 22, 277, nb13:8 / JP 6, 6503. SKS 10, 304 / CD, 283.

leap gerhard schreiber

Leap (Spring―noun; springe―verb) like its germanic cognates, the danish word Spring (derived from the old norse verb springa, “to well up,” “to swell up,” “to break forth,” “to burst forth”) retains a tight link to its historical meanings “well,” “source [of water],” and “bursting forth.”1 Spring can refer to the (single) leaping movement of a living being; to the sudden movement of a thing from one spot to another—particularly that of water spurting out of the earth, as in english “spring” (danish, kildespring);2 or, more generally, to a source, an origin, or a thing’s (first) appearance or bursting into bloom (once again as in english “spring”).3 Finally, Spring may also be used to describe behaviors, decisions, or actions that bring about new states of affairs, and which are marked by initiative and decisiveness. this gives Kierkegaard’s word for leap the special connotation of breaking forth, or of a sudden change in a course of development. something new emerges in the leap that had not previously been there. as a species of transition, then, a leap is a movement that is not bound to any given path, even though it is directed toward an end. For it is its own end. in Kierkegaard’s authorship we encounter the concept “leap” primarily in the pseudonymous texts he published between 1843 and 1846, particularly The Concept of Anxiety (64 occurrences) and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (68 occurrences). the surmise that Kierkegaard developed his “theory of the leap”4 in the years 1843–46 is further supported by the fact that we find only scattered mentions of the “leap” in Kierkegaard’s published and unpublished writings, as well as in his journals and notebooks, both before and after this period. (the same holds for all of Kierkegaard’s upbuilding discourses, Christian discourses, and newspaper articles—even the ones he wrote during the years in question.) during the winter of 1843–44, Kierkegaard gathered materials relevant to the leap concept in loose see Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 21, 1943, columns 480–7 (Spring) and columns 489–504 (springe); Christa Kühnhold, Der Begriff des Sprunges und der Weg des Sprachdenkens. Eine Einführung in Kierkegaard, berlin and new York: walter de gruyter 1975, pp. 7–9. 2 Kierkegaard uses this meaning of Spring almost exclusively in a figurative sense, cf. SKS 5, 366 / EUD, 382; SKS 7, 169 / CUP1, 183; SKS 15, 167 / BA, 45. 3 Still more specifically, Spring can also be used to refer to the budding of plants, like that of trees in the springtime (løvspring). 4 Pap. V C 12 / JP 3, 2352; cf. SKS 18, 241, JJ:318 / KJN 2, 221. 1

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paper 283.5 This document includes numerous ideas and reflections that would later find their way into his published texts, especially The Concept of Anxiety and the Climacus writings. For Kierkegaard, the leap represents the answer to a question he formulated in numerous attempts and variations, namely, the question of how a new quality may arise as the result of a continuous quantification.6 the leap is the category of transition from quantitative changes within a certain quality to a change in the quality itself. Quality is indifferent to quantity, inasmuch as a given quality remains the same even when the relevant quantity is altered. on its own, quantity cannot generate (new) quality; quantity is an irrelevant determinant with respect to quality.7 For this reason, the transition from a quantitative to a qualitative determination cannot take place without a leap.8 the leap, then, stands for a discontinuous, qualitative change,9 which, unlike any gradual transition, does not merely involve a quantitative modification of an existing determination,10 but generates something qualitatively new. in the moment of the leap, in other words, a certain existing determination ceases to exist: in approximating a limit, the given determination exhausts its possible variations and is replaced or displaced by a different determination that has come into existence. this new determination is fully present from the very moment of its appearance, without any degree of qualification.11 an essential moment of every leap, therefore, is its suddenness12 as the “complete abstraction from continuity,”13 where the role of this sudden happening in a human life varies according to the significance of what it is that is happening. as an “existencecategory,”14 the leap belongs essentially in the “realm of freedom.”15 its “substance” is “pathos,”16 and so Kierkegaard can use the phrase “pathos-laden transition”17 to see notes 23 and 27 below. Cf. SKS 4, 336 / CA, 30; Pap. V b 49:5, pp. 107–8 / CA, supplement, 180–1; Pap. Vi b 13 / JP 5, 5787; SKS 27, 269, papir 277:1 / JP 1, 261; SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345; SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 (with Pap. V b 49:5, p. 108 / CA, supplement, 181); SKS 27, 277, papir 283:2 / JP 3, 2351; SKS 27, 285, papir 302 / JP 5, 5712; and SKS 4, 336–40 / CA, 30–4; SKS 18, 303, JJ:492 / KJN 2, 279. 7 Cf. SKS 19, 406, not13:41.b / KJN 3, 404. 8 Cf. SKS 27, 267, papir 277:1 / JP 1, 261. 9 Cf. SKS 7, 21 / CUP1, 11. 10 Cf. SKS 4, 273–5 / PF, 73–5; SKS 19, 395, not13:27 / KJN 3, 393; SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2348. 11 Cf. SKS 4, 337–8 / CA, 30–2. 12 Cf. SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345; SKS 4, 337 / CA, 30; SKS 4, 384ff. / CA, 81ff.; SKS 18, 172–3, JJ:104 / KJN 2, 160. 13 SKS 4, 433 / CA, 132. 14 Cf. Pap. V b 150:21 / JP 3, 2344. 15 Pap. V C 12 / JP 3, 2352. 16 Pap. V b 49:14 / JP 3, 2343. on the leap in the situation of existence, and as an expression of despair, see SKS 17, 35, aa:18 / KJN 1, 29; SKS 19, 187, not5:33 / KJN 3, 183; SKS 2, 304 / EO1, 314. 17 SKS 19, 386, not13:8.a / KJN 3, 384 (emphasis removed); cf. SKS 18, 241, JJ:318 / KJN 2, 221; SKS 19, 375, not12:4 / KJN 3, 373; SKS 19, 386, not13:8.c / KJN 3, 384; SKS 27, 399, papir 365:24 / JP 1, 649; SKS 27, 408, papir 368:2.b / JP 1, 653; SKS 7, 234 / CUP1, 258. 5 6

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refer to the leap that passion both makes possible and accompanies. the leap does not come about by virtue of an infinitesimal approach to it (that is, as exceeding or transcending a limit that is approached by approximation along a continuum, so that the zone of origin paves the way for the target zone), but rather takes place when I myself leap by my own power and at my own initiative, in a movement all my own. this gives the act of leaping its active, decisive character.18 as a category of the realm of determinations that are governed by “being,” the leap lies “outside of immanental thought,”19 and thus also cannot be grasped by “pure thinking” in the sense of Hegel’s logic. in the leap—unlike in an approximating synthesis and its quantitating proposition20—something new emerges that can neither be derived from its own constituting elements nor be explained by its previous development.21 this novum, the proposition of a new quality, is not the presupposition for, but rather a pre-supposition to, its further development. the leap makes no reference to a ground state from within which one could gain some purchase on it; rather, by its very appearance, the leap wards off all inquiries into its ground. though the leap does presuppose its precedent state as existent, it implies a break in the chain of precedents—and so does not proceed from its precedent state without further ado.22 loose paper 283, mentioned above, presents a taxonomy of leaps.23 this follows a brief introduction24 and an articulation of two basic, non-mutually-reducible theses about leaps—“every quality…arises through a leap”25 and there is “a qualitative difference between leaps”26—with respective consequences for the particular problem areas at issue. The various leaps are then classified27 as (1) leaps in nature, which can be grasped as natural phenomena (for example, “[t]he leap by which water turns to ice”28); (2) leaps in understanding, with which we are familiar from inner experience (for example, “the leap by which i understand an author”29); or Cf. SKS 5, 397 / TD, 15; SKS 7, 97 / CUP1, 99; SKS 7, 333 / CUP1, 365; SKS 7, 350 / CUP1, 384; SKS 8, 69 / TA, 71; SKS 26, 9, nb31:2 / JP 4, 4806; SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2349. 19 SKS 27, 269, papir 277:1 / JP 1, 196; cf. SKS 15, 256 / BA, 99. 20 Pro-position in the literal sense of “setting forth.” 21 Cf. SKS 4, 388 / CA, 85. 22 Cf. SKS 19, 390–1, not13:23 / KJN 3, 388 (see note 74 below). 23 on the interpretation of SKS 27, 275–7, papir 283 / JP 3, 2345–51, see Klaus schäfer, Untersuchungen zu ontologischen Problemen in den Climacus-Schriften Sören Kierkegaards, dissertation, university of tübingen, 1966, pp. 40–2 and pp. 51–3 (explanatory notes). 24 Cf. SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345. this suggests that Kierkegaard may have planned a monograph on the subject; on this see also SKS 27, 285, papir 302 / JP 5, 5712. 25 SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345 (translation slightly altered). 26 ibid. (translation slightly altered). 27 the remarks in SKS 27, 276–7, papir 283:1 and SKS 27, 277, papir 283:2 are additions that can fit into this taxonomy. In what follows, examples of clear references to loose paper 283 will be adduced, as will (occasionally) examples of similar usages of “leap” in both Kierkegaard’s published and private writings. 28 Cf. SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345. 29 ibid; cf. SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2347. 18

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(3) the self-determinations of freedom, in which the self is transformed to the extent that it is at issue (for example, the transition from eudaemonism to the concepts of duty and virtue, inasmuch as the choice of the good does not follow from intellectual considerations, but emerges only “in the moment of decision”30). this last category also includes the leap by which “the thought of god”31 emerges, or that by which “the resulting [conclusion] (resultare, to leap backwards) occurs in the proofs for the existence of god.”32 as Kierkegaard argues in Philosophical Fragments, the existence of god (indeed, the existence of anything whatsoever33) cannot be proven but only presupposed, because god’s existence cannot emerge as long as i “continue to be the one who is demonstrating”34 it. god’s existence appears only once i let go of the proof. this letting go is meine Zuthat (my contribution),35 and thus must be brought into focus, even if it is nothing but a tiny moment—“a leap.” that existence itself emerges from the proof “by a leap” is, in sum, “the reservatio finalis”36 of every proof of god’s existence. the above three categories do not exhaust Kierkegaard’s list. we also have (4) leaps in a philosophical context, such as (a) in the inquiry into philosophy’s absolute beginning,37 which must be understood, qua absolute beginning, as a presuppositionless proposition rather than a “wrenching oneself free”38 of something in the context of the dialectic of approach and takeoff; (b) specifically in logic39 (for example, in the passing over of a concept into its opposite40), even if, in that context, the leap is “mendaciously omitted”;41 (c) in the theory of motion42 (especially in regard to “[t]he transition from possibility to actuality”43) and similarly (d) in epistemology44 (for example, in “[t]he transition from probability to truth”45). Cf. SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2349; see also SKS 7, 313 / CUP1, 342–3. SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2349. 32 SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2349 (my translation); on this compare, in Kierkegaard’s lecture notes, SKS 19, 251, not9:1 / KJN 3, 245. 33 Cf. SKS 4, 245–6 / PF, 40–1; see also SKS 7, 45n. / CUP1, 39n. 34 SKS 4, 248 / PF, 42 (my translation). 35 SKS 4, 248 / PF, 43; cf. SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345. 36 SKS 4, 248 / PF, 43. 37 Cf. SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345 (with SKS 15, 41 / JC, 149); SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2346; SKS 7, 111–12 / CUP1, 115. 38 SKS 15, 32 / JC, 138 (my translation). 39 Compare SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345; SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2349; SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2350; SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 (not in JP) with SKS 4, 337 / CA, 30; and SKS 18, 225, JJ:266 / KJN 2, 206; SKS 18, 241, JJ:318 / KJN 2, 221 with Pap. Vi b 13 / JP 5, 5787. 40 see SKS 15, 32 / JC, 138; SKS 15, 233 / BA, 286 (cf. Pap. Vii–2 b 261:22); furthermore SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2346. 41 SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2350 (my translation); cf. also SKS 4, 337n. / CA, 30n. 42 Cf. SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2348. 43 SKS 7, 313 / CUP1, 342; cf. SKS 4, 385 / CA, 82; SKS 19, 396, not13:27 / KJN 3, 393; SKS 19, 420, not13:55 / KJN 3, 418; SKS 4, 273–5 / PF, 73–5. 44 Compare SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2348 with SKS 4, 244, / PF, 38. 45 SKS 27, 276, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2348; see notes 63 and 68–70 below. 30 31

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the leap concept is also used (5) to interpret the transition between various “stages”46 or “spheres”47 of existence (that is, between various possible ways in which a person can relate to himself qua existing human being), be it the transition “from esthetics to ethics”48 or that “from ethics to religion.”49 as existence, human being is essentially movement—process—rather than completed, immutable being.50 existing happens neither by itself, that is, without the human being’s own initiative, nor as a continual cycle. it is a perpetual leaping51 through which the antitheses that are constitutive of human being are momentarily (that is, at the relevant moment of decision, and so at the risk of possible failure) reconciled, meaning that it is the human being’s task “to transform the leap in life to a gait.”52 similarly, the transitions between the various stages of existence do not occur in a series of immanent changes.53 they have the character of leaps, that is, they imply “a break with immanence.”54 similarly, the leap is used to account for (6) the transitions between various states of consciousness, such as “the leap of sin-consciousness” or “the leap of reconciliation.”55 above all, however, the leap for Kierkegaard stands for both (7) the structurally paradoxical encounter between the human being and the absolute56 and (8) Christianity’s personal call as a historical mode of existence, not only inasmuch as “Christianity’s entry into the world” was carried out as “the paradox,”57 but also in the sense that each individual’s entry into Christianity requires a leap, since every Christian must “have come into Christianity by a paradox.”58 Kierkegaard addresses this point most directly in the Climacus writings (especially in his discussion of lessing59), where he insists “that there is no direct and immediate transition to Christianity”60 or “faith”61 (for example, by taking recourse to “historical SKS 7, 262 / CUP1, 287. SKS 6, 439 / SLW, 476; cf. SKS 7, 455 / CUP1, 501. 48 SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345; cf. SKS 19, 375, not12:4 / KJN 3, 373; SKS 22, 236, nb12:148 / KJN 6, 237; SKS 22, 315, nb13:68 / KJN 6, 317; furthermore SKS 21, 332, nb10:152 / KJN 5, 343. 49 SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345; cf. SKS 7, 238 / CUP1, 262; furthermore Pap. Vii–2 b 241:7 / BA, supplement, 218; SKS 15, 256 / BA, 99; Pap. iX b 10, p. 310 / BA, supplement, 230; SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2350. 50 Cf. SKS 7, 281 / CUP1, 308–9. 51 Cf. SKS 4, 136 / FT, 41 (cf. FTP, 70); SKS 4, 137 / FT, 42 (cf. FTP, 71). 52 SKS 4, 136 / FTP, 70. 53 Cf. SKS 7, 269 / CUP1, 295. 54 SKS 7, 269 / CUPH, 247 (cf. CUP1, 295); cf. SKS 7, 309 / CUP1, 338; SKS 7, 313 / CUP1, 342; Pap. V b 49:14 / JP 3, 2343. 55 SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2349; cf. SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345. 56 Cf. SKS 27, 275, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2345. 57 ibid. (my translation); see also note 70 below. 58 ibid. 59 Cf. SKS 7, 92–102 / CUP1, 93–105 as well as Pap. V b 1:3 / JP 3, 2342; Pap. Vi b 13 / JP 5, 5787 and Pap. Vi b 95, p. 177 / CUP2, 13 together with SKS 27, 277, papir 283:1 / JP 3, 2349; SKS 23, 51–2, nb15:75 / JP 1, 73. 60 SKS 7, 54 / CUP1, 48. 61 SKS 4, 291 / PF, 94; cf. SKS 22, 40, nb11:63 / KJN 6, 36. 46 47

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reliability”62 or by making use of the “probability proof”63), but only “the qualitative transition of the leap from unbeliever to believer.”64 against every such attempt “to quantify oneself into faith”65 (that is, “into a qualitative decision”66 as “the decision of faith”67) with the aid of approximation,68 Climacus urges that faith cannot be replaced by or even be partial to “probabilities and guarantees.”69 because the fact that god became man in Jesus Christ is “the absolute paradox, all that comes later is no help, because this remains for all eternity the consequences of a paradox and thus just as definitively improbable as the paradox.”70 Historical knowledge can only attain to a lesser or greater degree of probability, and can become no more than an approximation for a person’s “infinite interest…in his own eternal happiness.”71 to base such eternal happiness upon “something historical, the story of Jesus Christ,”72 thus marks “a μετάβασις εις άλλο γένος...a leap for both the contemporary and the one who comes later.”73 because of the “desultory element of the paradox, which lacks continuity or, at any rate, only has retrospective continuity”—as Kierkegaard remarks elsewhere—“faith cannot be proven, grounded, comprehended.”74 it is evident that the set of examples in loose paper 283 comes to center on Christianity as the primary model for understanding the leap, in relation to which the other modes of leaping are represented as deficient. Kierkegaard has a very specific process and setting in mind when he contemplates the leap: the transition from non-Christian to Christian. when we take into account the full spectrum of uses of “leap” in Kierkegaard’s authorship, however, it must be noted that Kierkegaard elsewhere thematizes leap phenomena (often metaphorically) that emphasize aspects of the leap not treated in loose paper 283.75 For example, the leap also represents SKS 7, 94 / CUP1, 95. SKS 4, 291–2 / PF, 94–5. 64 SKS 7, 21 / CUP1, 12; cf. SKS 7, 332–3 / CUP1, 365–6; SKS 7, 347 / CUP1, 381; SKS 7, 350 / CUP1, 384; SKS 22, 40, nb11:63 / KJN 6, 36; furthermore Pap. iX b 10, p. 310 / BA, supplement, 230. 65 SKS 7, 21 / CUP1, 11 (emphasis removed); cf. SKS 7, 35 / CUP1, 28. 66 SKS 7, 94 / CUP1, 95. 67 SKS 7, 24 / CUP1, 15. 68 Cf. SKS 4, 289–91 / PF, 92–3; SKS 7, 21 / CUP1, 11; SKS 7, 30 / CUP1, 23; SKS 7, 139 / CUP1, 149–50; SKS 7, 522 / CUP1, 574. 69 SKS 7, 21 / CUP1, 11. 70 SKS 4, 292 / PF, 94–5 (translation slightly altered); cf. SKS 18, 158–9, JJ:58 / KJN 2, 147; SKS 18, 162–3, JJ:73 / KJN 2, 150–1; SKS 18, 176, JJ:111 / KJN 2, 163; SKS 19, 390–1, not13:23 / KJN 3, 388; SKS 19, 418, not13:53 / KJN 3, 416; SKS 7, 238 / CUP1, 262. 71 SKS 7, 25 / CUP1, 16. 72 SKS 23, 51, nb15:75 / JP 1, 73. 73 SKS 7, 96–7 / CUP1, 98; cf. SKS 22, 40, nb11:63 / KJN 6, 36. 74 SKS 19, 390f, not13:23 / KJN 3, 388; cf. Pap. X–6 b 85 / JP 6, 6405; see also SKS 4, 433 / CA, 132. 75 not to mention the use of “leap” in the sense of bodily action (for example, the leap of a dancer, cf. SKS 4, 44 / R, 170; SKS 4, 135 / FT, 41; SKS 8, 343 / UD, 243—but see SKS 7, 332–3 / CUP1, 365), or of composite verbs like “to skip over” (at overspringe)—(used figuratively) as of an essay (cf. SKS 1, 14 / EPW, 60), a stage in personality development (cf. SKS 1, 26 / EPW, 70; SKS 16, 63 / PV, 84; SKS 17, 119, CC:12.4 / KJN 1, 190), 62 63

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(9) the transition to infinity76 or—primarily as a paraphrase for death—the (final) transition to eternity.77 most important, however, is Kierkegaard’s deployment of the leap concept in order to characterize (10) the Fall in The Concept of Anxiety. as mentioned above, the leap generates something qualitatively new. the same holds for “the qualitative leap which posits sin,”78 that is to say, “an unwarranted actuality.”79 the individual’s fall cannot be explained by the sinfulness of the race, which from adam onward continues to proceed “in quantitative determinations.”80 For the individual participates in the sinfulness of the race only “by the qualitative leap,”81 that is, only inasmuch as he qua individual posits sin.82 The first sin (not only that of adam, but also that of every subsequent human being) is a determination of quality, and thus is not the result of a quantitative determination from which the first sin proceeded, as it were, “through a generatio aequivoca.”83 in the particular individual, sinfulness may express itself as a greater or lesser disposition,84 and to that extent “as preliminary runs to the leap”;85 but this is merely a quantitative determination that is incapable of explaining the fall into sin86 (“a ‘more’ cannot bring forth the leap”87), which is neither an arbitrary thing, nor a matter of succession, nor a product of natural necessity.88 even as the leap or “as the sudden,”89 the fall into sin remains unreachable and inexplicable—which serves only to emphasize “that sin presupposes itself, that sin comes into the world in such a way that by the fact that it is, it is presupposed.”90 the qualitative leap of sin “stands outside of all ambiguity,”91 and despite every “psychological approximation”92 to it that a component in life (cf. SKS 17, 232, dd:31 / KJN 1, 223; SKS 2, 160 / EO1, 162) or of “the intervening causes to reach god” (SKS 5, 242 / EUD, 243; cf. SKS 18, 202, JJ:192 / KJN 2, 186)—as well as of expressions like “being on the point of [doing something]” (at staae paa Springet) (cf. SKS 15, 279 / BA, 126), “jumping for joy” (at springe af Glæde) (cf. SKS 26, 325, nb34:13 / JP 3, 2624, p. 143) or “salto mortale” (cf. SKS 4, 62 / R, 193; SKS 7, 98–9 / CUP1, 100–2 (with SKS 27, 277, papir 283 / JP 3, 2349); SKS 20, 170, nb2:69 / KJN 4, 168). 76 Cf. SKS 2, 379–80 / EO1, 392–3. 77 Cf. SKS 4, 137 / FT, 42; SKS 21, 338, nb10:166 / KJN 5, 349; see also SKS 8, 85 / TA, 89; SKS 8, 102–3 / TA, 108–9. 78 Pap. V b 55:26 / CA, supplement, 200; cf. SKS 4, 352 / CA, 47; SKS 4, 353 / CA, 48; SKS 4, 413 / CA, 111; Pap. V b 72:11. 79 SKS 4, 413 / CA, 111; SKS 4, 415 / CA, 113. 80 SKS 4, 340 / CA, 33; cf. SKS 4, 344 / CA, 37; SKS 4, 362 / CA, 57. 81 SKS 4, 340 / CA, 33. 82 Cf. SKS 4, 352 / CA, 47. 83 SKS 4, 337 / CA, 31. 84 Cf. SKS 4, 344 / CA, 37; SKS 4, 366 / CA, 62. 85 SKS 4, 338n. / CA, 31n. 86 Cf. ibid.; SKS 4, 349 / CA, 43; Pap. V b 55:15 / CA, supplement, 199. 87 SKS 4, 365 / CA, 60; cf. SKS 4, 394 / CA, 91. 88 Cf. SKS 4, 338 / CA, 32; SKS 4, 346 / CA, 40; SKS 4, 354 / CA, 49. 89 SKS 4, 338 / CA, 32; see notes 12 and 13 above. 90 SKS 4, 338 / CA, 32; cf. SKS 4, 338 / CA, 32; SKS 4, 366 / CA, 62. 91 SKS 4, 349 / CA, 43. 92 SKS 4, 394 / CA, 91; SKS 4, 415 / CA, 113; SKS 4, 417 / CA, 115.

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can be made with the aid of the “intermediate term”93 anxiety (which is “altogether ambiguous”94)—psychology, which explores the “predisposing presupposition”95 or “the real possibility of sin,”96 cannot explain it.97 see also beginning; being/becoming; Category; Christ; existence/existential; Faith; god; Happiness; paradox; reason; sin; transition.

93 94 95 96 97

SKS 4, 353 / CA, 49. SKS 4, 349–50 / CA, 43. SKS 4, 329 / CA, 21. SKS 4, 330 / CA, 23. Cf. SKS 4, 353–4 / CA, 48–9; see also note 87 above.

legends matthew brake

Legends (Legender—noun) the danish word Legende, from the german legende and the medieval latin legenda, may refer to a short inscription. it is also commonly used to refer to a traditional story about the life of a hero or a saint. such narratives, which may or may not have any basis in historical fact, are usually intended to be religiously or morally edifying. Legende is also used in a sense that corresponds closely to the english word “fable.”1 Kierkegaard’s use of the term is mostly confined to Either/Or, part one, with various other instances of the term scattered throughout his journals. the pseudonym a uses legends as a vehicle for discussing his views about humanity, and the term is often used in tandem when discussing fairy tales, myth, and folk songs as well.2 in the journals, Kierkegaard discusses three legends from the middle ages: don Juan, Faust, and the wandering Jew. the following discussion focuses on Kierkegaard’s description of these legends and his use of them in the authorship. that the young Kierkegaard loved fairy tales and legends is well documented. in a journal entry dated december 30, 1837, he writes: why does the reading of fairy tales provide such fortifying relaxation for the soul? when i am weary of everything and “full of days,” fairy tales are always a refreshing, renewing bath for me. There all earthly, finite cares vanish; joy, yes, even sorrow, are infinite (and for this reason are so enlarging and beneficial)….One completely forgets the particular private sorrows which every man can have, in order to plunge into the deep-seated sorrow common to all.3

Kierkegaard transfers his love of fairy tales, folk stories, and legends to a, a character whose “life is centered in a fairy tale world situated between dream and actuality”4 and who most likely reflects Kierkegaard’s own youth.5

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 12, columns 568–9. 2 grethe Kjær, “Fairy tale themes in the papers of a in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or,” in Either/Or, Part One, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 1995 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 3), pp. 110–12. 3 SKS 17, 251, dd:94 / JP 5, 5287. 4 Kjær, “Fairy tale themes in the papers of a in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or,” p. 112. 5 ibid., p. 109. 1

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the pseudonym a states that part of the purpose of medieval legends is that of representation. in a legend, such as don Juan, an individual represents one aspect of “the content of life.”6 these representatives are often placed alongside another representative individual who “makes up for the other’s disproportionate magnitude in actual life.”7 the representative individuals who are paired together are usually “indifferent” and “detached” from one another, such as the knight and the scholastic, but the relation between the two is usually comic, as is the case with the king and the fool.8 Kierkegaard utilizes the legends of don Juan, Faust, and the wandering Jew as representatives of “life in its three tendencies, as it were, outside of religion.”9 these three tendencies are sensuality (don Juan), doubt (Faust), and despair (the wandering Jew).10 Kierkegaard states that “not until these ideas are mediated and embraced in life by the single individual, not until then, do the moral and the religious appear. in relation to my position in dogmatics, this is the way i view these three ideas.”11 For Kierkegaard, each one also represents the tendencies of a certain period of history: “don Juan belongs to the middle ages, Faust to the reformation, and the wandering Jew to the modern period.”12 each one also requires a certain artistic medium to be best communicated, for don Juan must be interpreted lyrically, Faust dramatically, and the wandering Jew epically.13 we turn now to a brief description of Kierkegaard’s use of each of these three legends. the pseudonym a notes that compared to some medieval legends, such as Faust, the legend of don Juan has a meager past on which to draw.14 unlike Faust, whom goethe wrote about in a well-preserved folk book during the middle ages, don Juan has no such book. a states: presumably a legend has existed nevertheless, but in all probability it was limited to only a few hints that were perhaps even briefer than the few stanzas on which bürger’s Lenore is based. perhaps it contained only a number, for, unless i am greatly mistaken, the present number, 1,003, does belong to a legend. a legend that has nothing else seems somewhat meager and in a way easily accounts for its not being written down, but still this number has an excellent quality, a lyrical recklessness.15

6 7 8 9 10

p. 23.

SKS 2, 92 / EO1, 87. SKS 2, 93 / EO1, 88. SKS 2, 93 / EO1, 87. SKS 27, 134, papir 140 / JP 1, 795. reidar thomte, Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Religion, eugene: wipf & stock 1949,

SKS 27, 134, papir 140 / JP 1, 795. George Pattison, “Art in an Age of Reflection,” in The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. by alastair Hannay and gordon marino, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1998, p. 84. 13 SKS 19, 94, not2:7 / JP 2, 1179. 14 SKS 2, 96 / EO1, 92. 15 SKS 2, 96 / EO1, 91. 11

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A maintains that we do not know exactly when the idea of the Don Juan figure emerged, but that is “linked to Christianity and through Christianity to the middle ages.”16 i have already pointed out that don Juan represents the sensual for Kierkegaard. a provides some illumination concerning this idea: The Middle Ages had to make the discord between the flesh and the spirit that Christianity brought into the world the subject of its reflection and to that end personified each of the conflicting forces. Don Juan, then, if I dare say so, is the incarnation of the flesh, or the inspiration of the flesh by the spirit of the flesh itself.17

don Juan is unlike other legends, such as Faust, because don Juan is not seen in any particular individual. the sensuous cannot be embodied in a single individual; rather, don Juan is more of a “force” like a gale wind.18 a believes that music is the best medium for demonstrating the power of don Juan.19 music alone captures him in his ideality insofar as it demonstrates Don Juan’s non-reflective, demonic sensuousness: when the music stops, he stops; when the music begins, he begins again.20 only in music can don Juan be shown as he truly is, not as an individual, but as a power. If Don Juan is the personification of the sensual, then Faust is doubt personified. Faust is a reproduction of don Juan, yet different, and this difference goes beyond don Juan’s seduction of 1,003 women as opposed to Faust’s seduction of merely one.21 the difference is the reason for the seduction. as a explains: therefore he seeks in the sensuous not so much pleasure as distraction. His doubting soul finds nothing in which it can rest, and now he grasps at erotic love [Elskov], not because he believes in it but because it has an element of presentness in which there is a momentary rest and a striving that diverts and that draws attention away from the nothingness of doubt.22

in Faust, we see a man plagued by the inaction and paralysis of doubt23 seeking solace.24 Kierkegaard compares Faust to the spirit of the reformation, noting that Faust may be paralleled with socrates. Just as the latter expresses the individual’s emancipation from the state, Faust expresses the individual after the abrogation from the Church, severed from its guidance and abandoned to himself; this is an indication of his relationship to the reformation and is a parody of the reformation insofar as it one-sidedly emphasizes the negative aspect.25 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25

SKS 2, 92 / EO1, 87. SKS 2, 93 / EO1, 88. SKS 2, 97 / EO1, 92–3. SKS 2, 104–5 / EO1, 101. SKS 2, 105–6 / EO1, 102–3. SKS 2, 200–1 / EO1, 205. SKS 2, 201 / EO1, 206. SKS 17, 138, bb:49 / JP 2, 1182. SKS 2, 202 / EO1, 207. SKS 17, 50, aa:41 / JP 2, 1968.

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Faust may have been free to consider all of the intellectual possibilities his heart desired, but it did not free him to do the one thing he sought to do, which was to figure out “what he himself should do,”26 in spite of having access to “the whole kingdom of incalculable possibilities.”27 Kierkegaard continues, “everything, however, will not be sufficient. His expectations will be disappointed.”28 “the present age,” Kierkegaard claims, “is the age of despair, the age of the wandering Jew.”29 the wandering Jew, otherwise known as ahasverus, is Kierkegaard’s representation of despair, and he relates this to the spirit of the present age. As Josiah Thompson says, “[t]his pitiful figure doomed by Christ to spend eternity wandering an alien world is the perfect exemplar of that frozen, timeless world Kierkegaard knew so well.”30 while the wandering Jew carries deep sorrow,31 his life nevertheless leads others to the truth.32 of all three of the medieval legends, this is the one Kierkegaard relates to the most.33 at times, Kierkegaard felt like his suffering was akin to the wandering Jew.34 He hoped that “[i]n coming to understand ahasverus he could come to understand himself; in understanding ahasverus’ situation, he could perhaps come to understand his own. and with luck, this understanding might give him a clue to the direction in which salvation lay.”35 regarding his own development, Kierkegaard reveals that “Johannes Climacus” was actually a contemplative piece, for when i wrote it i was contemplating the possibility of not letting myself be taken over by Christianity, even if it was my most honest intention to devote my whole life and daily diligence to the cause of Christianity, to do everything, to do nothing else but to expound and interpret it, even though i were to become like, be like the legendary wandering Jew—myself not a Christian in the final and most decisive sense of the word and yet leading others to Christianity.36

Kierkegaard believed this to be his lot for his “going astray in my young days.”37 He would be “an omen to an incomparable future,” although he would not enter the promised land himself.38 to summarize, the young Kierkegaard loved fairy tales and legends, believing them to encapsulate great truth, and in his journals and with his pseudonym a, he utilized three of the representative legends from the middle ages to describe the types SKS 17, 138, bb:49 / JP 2, 1182. SKS 18, 84, FF:43 / JP 2, 1185. 28 ibid. 29 SKS 27, 208, papir 257:3 / JP 1, 737. 30 Josiah thompson, The Lonely Labyrinth: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Works, Carbondale: southern illinois university press 1967, p. 64. 31 SKS 17, 107, bb:19 / JP 5, 5196. 32 SKS 27, 109, papir 80 / JP 2, 2210. 33 thompson, The Lonely Labyrinth: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Works, p. 64. 34 ibid., pp. 64–5. 35 ibid., p. 65. 36 SKS 22, 335, nb13:92 / JP 6, 6523. 37 Pap. Vi b 40 / JP 5, 5797. 38 ibid. 26 27

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of existence before the ethical and the religious appear in the life of an individual. the three legends he utilizes are don Juan, Faust, and the wandering Jew, who represent the sensuous, doubt, and despair. This third figure, the Wandering Jew, is the one whom Kierkegaard related to the most, since he felt he too was meant to walk the earth leading others to Christ while never receiving the fullness of being a Christian himself. see also despair; demonic; epic; Fairy-tales; lyric; middle ages; music; myth; protestantism/reformation; pseudonymity; romanticism; theater/drama.

leveling leo stan

Leveling (Nivelleringen/Nivelleren—noun; nivellere—verb) the monumental Dictionary of the Danish Language connects the word nivellere and its cognates with an agency that smooths out and therefore subverts all differences. Nivelleringen is that which equalizes, brings to a lower level, and even trivializes the exceptional, the heteronymous, the “other,” as it were.1 Kierkegaard makes a lot out of this particular feature, whose summit, both in terms of amplitude and nefariousness, he detects in post-1848 danish society in conjunction with the modern dictatorship of the public, the advent of the mass man, and the consequent moral degradation of the press. However, Kierkegaard goes beyond the “heterophobic” dimension and phenomenologically describes the perilous consequences of the abstract equality and even hubristic evil of leveling. His judgments in this sense are not just incredibly insightful and quite prophetic for what was about to happen politically in twentiethcentury europe; they also unfold in a superb literary prose. the starting premise of Kierkegaard’s rather straightforward argument is that, contrary to the passionate, idealistic, and acclamatory spirit of the French revolution, the present age cultivates a characterless envy, the obsessive goal of which is to deprecate or minimize any expression of individual excellence.2 when it becomes an established modus vivendi, Kierkegaard adds, this generalized covetousness “takes the form of leveling,”3 that is to say, it reduces everything to an insouciant “deathly stillness”4 in which “everything sinks down…impotent.”5 the gravest implication is the disappearance of the individual’s “essential passion,”6 which would otherwise enable one to practice an earnest introspection and to dedicate oneself to an ideal. Kierkegaard insists that the moment this “essential passion is taken away…and everything becomes meaningless externality, devoid of character, then the spring of ideality stops flowing and life together becomes stagnant water.”7 thus, “if individuals relate to an idea merely en masse (consequently without the individual separation Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, columns 1264–5. 2 SKS 8, 80, 90 / TA, 83–4, 95. 3 SKS 8, 80 / TA, 84. 4 SKS 8, 81 / TA, 84. 5 ibid. 6 SKS 8, 61 / TA, 62. 7 ibid. 1

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of inwardness), we get violence, anarchy, riotousness.”8 social interaction comes to be dominated by “turmoil and commotion that ends in nothing,”9 while “gossip and rumor and specious importance and apathetic envy”10 are the rule of the day. in short, societal rapports are reduced to “a frustrating and suspicious, aggressive, leveling reciprocity,”11 which, paradoxically enough, culminates in a kind of existential “swamp,”12 as Kierkegaard astutely calls it. Herein, individuals flock together only in virtue of a “sniveling discontent,”13 a “sullen, dogged tenaciousness,”14 and the “garrulous common sense of experience.”15 what gets lost is the “elevation”16 issuing from the “decent modesty”17 of those individuals who congregate through a shared pathos, but who remain separated by an “ideal distance,”18 which secures every single person her “essential inwardness.”19 leveling is not a fundamentally new phenomenon. in pre-modern times, it came about whenever people formed various groups, such as guilds, classes, professional bodies, and even nations.20 the pivotal qualitative difference is that in modernity leveling takes on a purely abstract—or impersonal—character, giving rise to a collective entity, wherein everyone loses their singular identity. in Kierkegaard’s words, “the abstraction of leveling is a principle that forms no personal, intimate relation to any particular individual, but only the relation of abstraction, which is the same for all.”21 that happens because contemporary leveling occurs on the basis of highly generic terms22 and is performed only via unidentifiable third parties.23 a convincing proof in this respect is “the ascendancy of the category ‘generation’ over the category ‘individuality,’ ”24 which replaces the singularity of the person with the faceless, uniform, and indiscriminate aggregate of the crowd. as a result, leveling is contingent upon a reductive, external, numerical or “mathematical

SKS 8, 61 / TA, 63. ibid. 10 SKS 8, 61–2 / TA, 63. 11 SKS 8, 62 / TA, 63. 12 ibid. 13 ibid. 14 ibid. 15 ibid. 16 SKS 8, 61 / TA, 62. 17 ibid. 18 SKS 8, 61 / TA, 63. 19 SKS 8, 61 / TA, 62. 20 SKS 8, 86 / TA, 90; Pap. Vii–1 b 126 / TA, supplement, 132; SKS 4, 155 / FT, 62. 21 SKS 8, 84 / TA, 88. Curiously enough, in his early work Kierkegaard alluded to the abstract leveling underpinning the socratic irony. see SKS 1, 137 / CI, 79. unless he is simply contradicting himself, Kierkegaard may thereby implicitly conceive socrates as a precursor to modernity. see also SKS 7, 407n. / CUP1, 448n. 22 For instance, that of “pure humanity.” SKS 8, 83 / TA, 87; Pap. Vii–1 b 122 / TA, supplement, 134. 23 SKS 8, 90 / TA, 95; Pap. Vii–1 b 123 / TA, 137. 24 SKS 8, 81 / TA, 84. see also SKS 8, 102 / TA, 107–8. 8 9

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equality”25 which Kierkegaard confusingly defines as “the negative unity of the negative mutual reciprocity of individuals.”26 so, whereas before the advent of modernity leveling happened only to a certain degree and never lacked concretion,27 now it has metastasized and become an almost unassailable power. according to Kierkegaard, that is due to its alliance with an even more “monstrous abstraction”28 or “mirage,”29 namely the public.30 since our age is excessively prudent, indolent, “reflective, devoid of passion, [while] obliterating everything that is concrete,”31 the leveling made possible by the public (Publikum) is all the more easy; after all, Kierkegaard specifies, it represents “a decadent urge”32 or “a sensate stimulation that excites momentarily.”33 but leveling is also a mirroring or “reflection-game”34 that defies any resistance on the part of persons or groups. Kierkegaard states that “no particular individual,”35 no community, not even “national individuality,”36 will be capable of visibly and directly withstanding the awesome might and ghostliness of modern public leveling.37 However, the exclusive way to counteract this abstract leviathan is essentially religious, or more exactly, by individually and inwardly appropriating a salvationprone ideality. this attitude is the only one able indirectly, albeit always impalpably, to subvert the apparent omnipotence of Nivelleringen.38 at the same time, Kierkegaard warns his readers that such confrontation is not without painful consequences. He refers first to the constitutive skepticism that drives the leveling process.39 Somewhere else, he defines leveling as “the counterfeit anticipation of eternal life.”40 thirdly, he holds that as a “spontaneous combustion of the human race,”41 leveling originates in “the friction that occurs when the separateness of individual inwardness in the religious life is omitted.”42 Religious dissent is made even more difficult by SKS 8, 81 / TA, 85. see also Pap. Vii–1 b 135:15 / TA, supplement, 134. SKS 8, 81 / TA, 84. see also SKS 25, 489, nb30:132 / JP 2, 2061. Kierkegaard contrasts this inchoate indiscriminateness with the superlative equality of religion (by which he means Christianity), which preserves and continually values the uniqueness of each individual. see SKS 8, 84–5, 91 / TA, 88–9, 95–6. 27 see Pap. Vii–1 b 123 / TA, supplement, 135. 28 SKS 8, 86 / TA, 90. 29 ibid. 30 SKS 23, 43–4, nb15:64 / JP 4, 4173. 31 SKS 8, 87 / TA, 91. see also SKS 8, 87–9 / TA, 92–3; Pap. Vii–1 b 122 / TA, supplement, 134; Pap. Vii–1 b 121:6 / JP 2, 1992; Pap. Vii–1 b 123 / TA, supplement, 136. 32 SKS 8, 89 / TA, 94. 33 ibid. see also Pap. Vii–1 b 123 / TA, supplement, 135. 34 SKS 8, 82 / TA, 86. 35 SKS 8, 83 / TA, 87. 36 ibid. 37 SKS 8, 81 / TA, 84. 38 SKS 8, 83 / TA, 86. 39 ibid. 40 Pap. Vii–1 b 135:15 / TA, supplement, 134. 41 SKS 8, 83 / TA, 87. 42 SKS 8, 83–4 / TA, 87. 25 26

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the absolutization, specific to modernity, of the “positive principle of sociality”43 which opposes primarily “the separation of the religious individual before god in the responsibility of eternity.”44 even more important is the fact that Kierkegaard has more than once equated leveling with a sheer evil force,45 making the struggle against it even more dramatic. nevertheless, in a surprising dialectical twist, Kierkegaard comfortingly reminds that, despite its malignity, leveling constitutes an examen rigorosum (rigorous examination),46 which can be used to the benefit of the individual concerned with matters transcendent.47 what’s more, in this ordeal the believer should never doubt her eventual victory insofar as any leveling agent or reality ultimately remains powerless before the eternal.48 see also Crowd/public; exception/universal; otherness/alterity/the other; press/ Journalism.

SKS 8, 82 / TA, 86. ibid. 45 SKS 8, 84, 89, 101, 103 / TA, 87, 94, 107, 109. 46 SKS 8, 84 / TA, 87. 47 SKS 8, 83–5, 102–3 / TA, 87–9, 107–8; Pap. Vii–1 b 122 / TA, supplement, 134; Pap. Vii–1 b 123 / TA, supplement, 137–8; SKS 23, 43–4, nb15:64 / JP 4, 4173. 48 SKS 8, 85, 103–4 / TA, 89, 109. 43 44

life-View lee C. barrett

Life-view (Livs-Anskuelse―noun) From the old norse líf, meaning “life.”1 the use of this danish term seems to have arisen in the early nineteenth century, probably inspired by the prevalence of the german term Weltanschauung in the philosophy and literary criticism of the Romanticism and idealism that had become so influential in Denmark.2 Kierkegaard generally preferred Livs-Anskuelse to Verdens-Anskuelse, a term which more closely approximated the nuances of Weltanschauung, although he sometimes used both words interchangeably. the concept “life-view” played multiple important roles throughout Kierkegaard’s variegated authorship. However, the phrase has not received the scholarly attention that has been lavished upon his much more celebrated concept “stages of life.” In spite of the relative neglect of “life-view” by the academy, its significance is signaled by its frequent occurrence in both Kierkegaard’s signed works and in his pseudonymous writings, as well as by his continued employment of the term throughout his authorial career. the most crucial and most numerous occurrences of “life-view” are found in his earlier writings, particularly in the works composed from 1838 to 1846. sustained and detailed uses of the term usually appear in the context of Kierkegaard’s literary critiques, especially in the essay “andersen as a novelist” found in From the Papers of One Still Living and in his lengthier review, A Literary Review of Two Ages. but even in this short space of time, Kierkegaard used the concept in ways so different that they cannot be distilled into a univocal meaning. in its most sweeping use, “life-view” simply refers to any comprehensive and cohesive way of engaging life as a whole. as such, the concept can often bear marked similarities to Kierkegaard’s stages of life. in fact, many of the familiar stages are also denominated by Kierkegaard as life-views. even aesthetic immediacy, in spite of its lack of resolution, is sometimes characterized as a life-view in Kierkegaard’s pages. For example, Judge william uses the term to designate the crudely epicurean attitude that the individual should devote his life to enjoyment.3 similarly, Climacus otto Kalkar, Ordbog til det ældre dansk Sprog (1300–1700), vols. 1–6, Copenhagen: universitets-Jubilæets danske samfund 1881–1918 (reprint 1976), vol. 2, p. 808. 2 see Hjördis becker, “From Weltanschauung to Livs-Anskuelse: Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy,” Journal of Philosophical Studies, vol. 18, 2011, pp. 1–18. 3 SKS 3, 175–9 / EO2, 179–84. 1

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also employs “life-view” to characterize the existential posture that allows purely external factors to determine the individual’s subjective states.4 even though this aesthetic orientation is dominated by the idea of good fortune and misfortune and therefore makes happiness contingent upon external conditions, it nevertheless counts as a life-view. Climacus’ critique of this life-view’s inability to comprehend suffering as an essential component of an individual’s inwardness does not negate its status as a genuine life-view. Judge william further strengthens the parallelism between life-view and stage by claiming that the ethical existence that he lionizes is also a life-view.5 Continuing this tendency to use “life-view” and “stage” interchangeably, Climacus labels Christianity6 and the religious life,7 typically denominated as stages, as “life-views.” However, more specific and more nuanced existential orientations are also referred to as discrete life-views, even though Kierkegaard does not call them stages. For example, stoicism with its resigned orientation toward worldly relationships is regarded as a specific life-view, even though it is neither purely ethical nor fully religious.8 moreover, the conviction that one’s relationship with god can exhaust itself in the pursuit of relative ends, as if competence and diligence in a vocation were the highest expression of an orientation toward god, is described as a “speculativeethical” life-view.9 even belief in the transmigration of souls is characterized as a “fantastical” life-view.10 this proliferation of examples suggests that for Kierkegaard in many contexts “life-views,” unlike “stages,” are not reducible to a few basic varieties. the modes of existence that can count as life-views are much more protean and fluid than the famous categories of the aesthetic, the ethical, the religious, and the Christian stages. to further augment the variety of uses, sometimes Kierkegaard uses “lifeview” in a more honorific sense, one that excludes the randomness and flux of the immediate stage, as well as the reveling in abstract possibilities typical of reflective aestheticism. For example, Judge william admonishes his young friend, a jaded aesthete who has turned his back on the world, “all the same, you have no lifeview.”11 the Judge does admit that the disillusioned pleasure-seeker does possess “something that resembles a view,”12 but it is only a certain continuity of mood, lacking all decisiveness and resolution. in a parallel manner Climacus suggests that a life-view dealing with immortality should have implications for the living of actual life in the world, and avoid being nothing more than a poetic or speculative escape from actuality into an abstract eternity.13 in these instances a genuine life-view should be the fruit of an intentional decision to unify the individual’s life according 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13

SKS 7, 394–5 / CUP1, 433–4. SKS 3, 210–11 / EO2, 219–20. SKS 7, 534 / CUP1, 588. SKS 7, 399 / CUP1, 439. SKS 1, 32 / EPW, 76. SKS 7, 430 / CUP1, 474. SKS 7, 543 / CUP1, 598. SKS 3, 195 / EO2, 202. ibid. SKS 7, 159 / CUP1, 171–2.

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to a comprehensive, enduring ideal that can withstand the fluctuations of mood and the accidents of personal temperament. often Kierkegaard employs the term in this more restricted and normative way in his literary analyses. He insists that possessing a coherent life-view is a sine qua non for being a genuine author.14 a recurrent motif in Kierkegaard’s literary criticism is that authors who lack a life-view, such as Hans Christian andersen, are not authentic authors.15 in spite of andersen’s obvious elegiac talents, his works are a web of arbitrary moods, all dependent on the vagaries of his personality.16 a genuine literary production must be more than the expression of the idiosyncrasies of the author’s finite character.17 sadly, literary works devoid of a life-view devolve into the projection of the author’s personal issues and proclivities. novels without life-views simply express the chaos of undigested personal encounters with the social and natural environment. Only the articulation of a definitive life-view can prevent a novel from being arbitrary and purposeless.18 For Kierkegaard, an author surely needs more than poetic gifts and a mastery of arcane knowledge in order to be formidable.19 this approbative sense of life-view becomes evident in Kierkegaard’s discussions of the authors whose literary corpus he does applaud. in his early From the Papers of One Still Living Kierkegaard observes that a reader can learn from the works of steen steensen blicher and thomasine gyllembourg because their views of life emerge in their stories. in regard to gyllenbourg, Kierkegaard enthuses that the cycle of short novels that began with A Story of Everyday Life is unified by a consistent life-view.20 in his review of A Literary Review of Two Ages Kierkegaard added approvingly that the life-view present in A Story of Everyday Life reappeared in a somewhat different guise in Two Ages; the author had remained faithful to her life-view for twenty years.21 this laudable continuity in the authorship is an expression of the consistency and self-identity of the author. this same valorization of authors with life-views recurred in The Book on Adler, where Kierkegaard distinguished “essential authors,” who possess “a definite life and world-view,” from mere “premise authors” who do nothing more than reflect the ephemeral fads and confusions of contemporary culture.22 the literary production of essential authors, however, exhibits a consistent coherence, present in every part of the oeuvre. the display of a life-view is the only true “conclusion” to every literary production, for otherwise a work would simply “end” without resolution.23 in this sense, one of the paramount characteristics of a life-view is that the individual acquires a sense of self-responsibility and self-possession. the problem 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23

SKS 1, 33 / EPW, 77. SKS 1, 32 / EPW, 76. SKS 1, 30 / EPW, 74. SKS 1, 37 / EPW, 82. SKS 1, 36 / EPW, 81. SKS 15, 93 / BA, 7. SKS 1, 20–1 / EPW, 64–5. SKS 8, 15–16 / TA, 12–13. SKS 15, 98–9 / BA, 13. SKS 15, 93 / BA, 7.

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with authors like andersen is that they see the individual’s history as being determined by the interplay of indelible character traits and external circumstances, particularly “disastrous convulsions.”24 in Only a Fiddler andersen depicts a passive hero who is buffeted by the vicissitudes of fortune. similarly, in his critique of adler Kierkegaard complains that the problem with “premise authors” is that they do not really know what they want; they experiment with a multiplicity of interests, presuppositions, and perspectives.25 the amorphous premise authors wait for something outside of themselves to tell them who they are and establish the directionality of their writing. The possession of a genuine life-view enables an individual to stabilize this flux and regard his existence as something more than random, disconnected reactions to external circumstances.26 the attainment of a life-view enables a person to see his own subjectivity as free from determination by forces over which he has no control. Life need not be a construed as a welter of conflicting desires or as a battleground of the countervailing expectations and values of the environing society. individuals with life-views are liberated from the inconstancy of the demands of the age. an internal perseverance displaces the susceptibility to cultural fads and sensational issues.27 Consequently, a life-view can provide a stabilizing and unifying self-understanding. Kierkegaard asserts that an individual with a life-view knows who he is and what he wants, without needing to rely on external corroboration.28 along these lines Kierkegaard argues that the problem with magister adler was that, lacking a lifeview, he did not understand himself in his supposed revelation. in this sense, a life-view is a consolidating total survey of the individual’s own existence in all its aspects at any given time, and is a unique way of integrating and giving significance to the diverse cognitive, affective, and volitional components of a life.29 as such, it involves a distinctive way of thinking, feeling, desiring, hoping, and acting. accordingly, the life-view that Kierkegaard describes in A Literary Review of Two Ages has both attitudinal and intentional behavioral dimensions that function together simultaneously, uniting the various aspects of the main characters synchronically. A life-view also unifies the individual’s existence through the passing of time. it includes a retrospective construal and assessment of one’s past life, as well as a projection of a future trajectory.30 because of this comprehensive forward and backward orientation, life can become more than a congeries of atomistic episodes. the attainment of a life-view makes possible a long-term characterization of the individual, for an enduring demeanor informs everything that person does and undergoes. it is the presence of a life-view that forges the discrete episodes of an individual’s biography into a unified and cohesive history.31 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31

SKS 1, 53–4 / EPW, 98–9. SKS 15, 98–9 / BA, 13. SKS 8, 16–19 / TA, 14–16. SKS 15, 95 / BA, 9. SKS 15, 98–9 / BA, 13. SKS 1, 38 / EPW, 83. ibid. SKS 8, 17 / TA, 14.

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Closely related to this theme is Kierkegaard’s insistence that a life-view also possesses integrating power in regard to the various dimensions of actuality. in the review of Two Ages Kierkegaard stresses the fact that although the dispositions of the two heroines are initially developed in relation to romantic love; they are extended to embrace every aspect of life. a life-view is not restricted to just one of the interpersonal, the political, or the spiritual spheres. rather, such a life-view as that of the two heroines of Two Ages informs all varieties of human interactions and experiences. in this more normative use, a life-view must clearly be an intentional project. the unity that a life-view exhibits is not the spontaneous product of natural inclinations and predilections. an individual life could exhibit a kind of consistency that is exclusively due to the power of natural endowments, accidental circumstances, or dominating instincts. in critiquing andersen Kierkegaard declares that a lifeview is not just the unity of a pervasive poetic mood.32 in this sense, andersen’s mistrust of life, which does permeate his novel Only a Fiddler and gives it a kind of coherence, does not count as a life-view. being depressed by misfortune and then succumbing to bitterness is not a life-view in the same way that skepticism is not a theory of knowledge. the disposition of mistrust simply overcomes the protagonist of andersen’s novel; he does not deliberately adopt a policy of mistrust. rather than being the product of outer circumstances and inner temperament, a life-view is a self-imposed task of giving a specific directionality to one’s existence; it is an exercise in “being true to oneself.”33 Life-views in this honorific sense are also purposive. To live with a life-view is to orient one’s life toward a telos. in The Book on Adler Kierkegaard laments that the lives and literary works of “premise authors” do exhibit movement, but have no conclusion, only an ending.34 in fact, it is the cultivation and preservation of the lifeview itself that furnishes the telos. the goal of a life-view is to become a particular sort of person, defined by certain virtues and dispositions. The presence of such a purpose determines whether there was meaning and directionality in the person’s life or not.35 although life-views are not a congeries of fragmentary emotional episodes, they are by no means devoid of passion. Kierkegaard insists that a life-view is not a sum of abstract propositions entertained with objective neutrality. pursuing a life-view is not a state of being satisfied with assertions about life that one has not personally experienced.36 a life-view is neither a speculative doctrine nor an empirical observation, such as the maxim that those who aspire to greatness always experience a downfall. rather, a life-view is a “transubstantiation of experience” in which a certain type of pathos pervades one’s life as a whole.37 Far from being

32 33 34 35 36 37

SKS 1, 34 / EPW, 79. SKS 8, 49 / TA, 49. SKS 15, 93 / BA, 7. SKS 15, 95 / BA, 9. SKS 1, 37 / EPW, 81. SKS 1, 32–3 / EPW, 76–7.

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dispassionate, a life-view involves a high degree of the very distinctive hopes, fears, and joys that typify that mode of existence. this pathos appropriate to any genuine life-view requires inwardness, a passionate concern about the quality of one’s own life. ephemeral passions directed toward external objects and states of affairs are not sufficient. The individual must care deeply about the sort of person that the individual is becoming. For example, in Two Ages the passionate relation to a single external object, the beloved, becomes reflexive as the two heroines strive to be worthy of love, faithful to the beloved, and diligent in the cultivation of love.38 in this sense, romantic love only becomes a lifeview when it motivates a profound interest, not only in the beloved, but even more intensively in the quality of the lover’s own life. in an even more restricted normative sense, Kierkegaard sometimes suggests that a life-view must include the recognition of the reality of suffering and must offer a strategy for understanding suffering and coping with it. in this vein Kierkegaard observes that a person with a life-view must pass over the “bridge of sighs.”39 Kierkegaard writes, “every life-view knows the way out (of the pain of actuality) and is cognizable by the way out that it knows….the life-view is the way out, and the story is the way.”40 in this context the adoption of a life-view is motivated by the breach with the immediate coherence of happiness and actuality.41 an actual breach may not be necessary for this to occur, for even the recognition of the possibility of disappointment may suffice. Kierkegaard observes approvingly that the life-view of A Story of Everyday Life does indeed bear “the marks of having been bruised.”42 Conversely, having no life-view is like being a sick person who knows of no solution to his malady.43 Continuing this trajectory, Climacus argues that suffering itself could be the most basic point of departure for a life-view.44 Here the inwardness that is constitutive of a life-view, unlike the frivolity of immediacy, comprehends suffering as essential. In spite of all these qualifications involving the need for intentionality and resolution, sometimes in Kierkegaard’s works even this more restricted sense of life-view does not necessarily involve the appropriation of an entirely new ideality, utterly discontinuous with the individual’s naturally evolving way of regarding life. For example, Kierkegaard insists that the life-view of Two Ages is not mediated by any attempt to instantiate an ethical concept like “duty.” in the case of this life-view, he observes, the ethical is not decisively contributory.45 in this sense, it is possible that a life-view could in some respects be described as being “immediate.”46 Kierkegaard describes thomasine gyllembourg’s life-view as a “battle-worn confidence in the world,” a confidence that “even in their most 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46

SKS 8, 49 / TA, 49. SKS 1, 22 / EPW, 66. SKS 8, 18 / TA, 15. SKS 8, 23 / TA, 20. ibid. SKS 15, 104 / BA, 17. SKS 7, 395 / CUP1, 434. SKS 8, 39 / TA, 39–40. ibid.

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trivial manifestations there is to be found, if one will only seek properly, a fullness, a divine spark, which, carefully tended, can make the whole of life glow.”47 rather than adopting some radically different existential possibility, a way of life governed by new ideals, the two heroines of Two Ages chose to preserve the selves that they are immediately.48 their task is not to become new creatures but to nurture and protect the capacity to love that has been given to them and is part of their immediacy. Consequently, they remain oriented toward actuality and do not perform a complete rupture with earthly joys. Theirs is certainly not the life-view of infinite resignation. rather, they exemplify a battle-scarred appreciation for the small joys of actuality, including the solaces of motherhood, the kindness of friends, and the profound value of everyday comforts. accordingly, the two heroines cultivate resignation, patience, gratitude, and sympathy, all of which in embryonic form had been their natural endowments. Kierkegaard can therefore describe this life-view as “immediate” in that a new possibility for life is not presented by reflection. The self in its actuality is chosen as a project rather than the enactment of a new ideal possibility. the description of this type of life-view upsets the view that Kierkegaard entertained a rigidly codified theory of the stages of life. This life-view does not fit into any stage or in any standard account of the progression through the stages. Kierkegaard describes it as being on “the boundary of the aesthetic and in the direction of the religious.”49 although in some sense it is “immediate,” it nevertheless possesses an “inwardness” and a “religious tinge.”50 the “incorruptibility of a quiet spirit” suggests that it approximates some of the characteristics of the religious sphere.51 Consequently, the life-view of thomasine gyllembourg could be described as an immediate pathway into the religious life. to conclude, Kierkegaard’s uses of “life-view” are multiple and sometimes divergent. His various employments of the concept are often more fluid and nuanced than his use of “stages of life,” at least according to the popular interpretation of what he meant by the stages. His willingness to employ the concept “life-view” suggests that, in general, he did not entertain any reductive morphology of the possible ways of constituting a life, nor did he envision any lock-step maturation through a circumscribed set of modes of existence. See also Aesthetic/Aesthetics; Ethics; Immediacy/Reflection; Inwardness/Inward deepening; novel; religious/religiousness; stages.

47 48 49 50 51

SKS 1, 21 / EPW, 65–6. SKS 8, 18–19 / TA, 15. SKS 8, 18 / TA, 14. SKS 8, 23 / TA, 21. SKS 8, 19 / TA, 16.

logic gabriel Ferreira da silva

Logic (Logik―noun) the danish word Logik is derived from the latin logica and the greek λογική (elliptical for ἡ λογικὴ τέχνη, with an adjective derived from λόγος). as molbech defines it, logic is the science or knowledge of thinking.1 in the words of Ordbog over det danske Sprog, logic is the science or knowledge of the principles and forms of human thinking, specifically of the rules of valid inferences.2 the most frequent occurrence of the term “logic” in Kierkegaard’s corpus is in The Concept of Anxiety, followed by the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. However, posthumous works such as The Book on Adler and “polemic with Heiberg”3 also have relevant occurrences. beside these, the journals and papers provide many fundamental notes on how Kierkegaard understood logic. although Kierkegaard did not have logic in itself as one of his main topics of interest, the concept of logic is present in his work not just because he used logical arguments against his adversaries and to sustain his own theses, but also because some topics of logic are very deeply linked with some of the most important themes in his thought. in order to understand Kierkegaard’s relation to logic, it is necessary to see it in the historical context of german and danish philosophy after Hegel, when there were reinterpretations of, as well as reactions against, Hegel’s logic. in the main, Kierkegaard’s concept of logic can be regarded as committed, on the one hand, to a general formalist position, very close to its classical conception, dating back to aristotle and practically unaltered until the nineteenth century. on the other hand, Kierkegaard employs (not without a greek bias) dialectical thinking, which cannot be thought in the context of nineteenth-century philosophy without reference to german idealism. Kierkegaard derives certain positions from this conception of logic that are specifically related to his own project and theses. In fact, as stated above, Kierkegaard did not have logic as his main focus; therefore, we do not have a specific treatise on his concept of logic and its characteristics. Nevertheless, there is a completely consistent concept of logic that emerges even from the few times that Kierkegaard writes about it, as well as, negatively, from his criticisms. Christian molbech, Dansk Ordbog indeholdende det danske Sprogs Stammeord, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1833, vol. 1, p. 669. 2 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 12, columns 1138–9. 3 SKS 15, 73–5 / R, supplement, 283–319. 1

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The best places to find a more developed Kierkegaardian notion of logic are in “a logical system can be given” in the “possible and actual theses by lessing,” in the penultimate section of chapter ii, part two of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and at the beginning of The Concept of Anxiety (together with some later excerpts). in the aforementioned section of the Postscript, Climacus sets out three conditions that should be met for building a logical system. regarding this, it is important to remember that Kierkegaard had worked on the manuscript of what would become the Postscript under the provisional title of Logical Problems (Logiske Problemer),4 and some drafts of the main topics of the book show even more explicitly logical contents.5 From there it is possible to extract (1) the main features of Kierkegaard’s view of logic, as well as to see (2) some characteristics of the historical framework that molded such a view. I. Kierkegaard’s Concept of Logic if it is true that logic does not occupy the foreground in Kierkegaard’s corpus, it is also true that some of the most important problems present in his thought are intimately connected with classical topics in logic. therefore, it is not surprising that, since the question of the relations between the realms of actuality and thought is so fundamental to Kierkegaard’s thought, he was interested in the problem of categories, which is traditionally related to that question.6 similarly, many of Kierkegaard’s main concepts, despite his existential approach, have a fundamental logical dimension, for example the modal concepts of possibility, necessity, contingency, and actuality. thus, we can extract the following three main ideas that form the basis of Kierkegaard’s concept of logic. A. The Domain of Logic as Opposed to the Domain of Actuality The first and main aspect of Kierkegaard’s conception of logic is one of his most fundamental metaphysical standpoints, which is the radical incommensurability between the realms of actuality and thought. if actuality is not a quality of something or conceptual mark but, instead, is a mode of being of something that is factual, it cannot be absorbed by thought as such: actuality [Virkelighed] cannot be conceptualized. Johannes Climacus has already shown this correctly and very simply. to conceptualize is to dissolve actuality into possibility―but then it is impossible to conceptualize it, because to conceptualize it is to transform it into possibility and therefore not to hold to it as actuality. as far as actuality is concerned, conceptualization is retrogression, a step backward, not a step forward. it is not as if “actuality” were void of concepts, not at all; no, the concept which is found by conceptually dissolving it into possibility is also in actuality, but there is still something 4 5 6

see SKS 27, 325, papir 317 / JP 5, 5786; Pap.Vi b 13. see Pap. Vi b 13. see, for example, Pap. Vi b 13; SKS 19, 406, not13:41 / KJN 3, 404.

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more―that it is actuality. To go from possibility to actuality is a step forward (except in relation to evil); to go from actuality to possibility is a step backward. but in the modern period the baleful confusion is that “actuality” has been included in logic, and then in distraction it is forgotten that “actuality” in logic is, however, only a “thought actuality,” i.e., is possibility.7

by transforming or “dissolving” actuality in possibility, thought works with actual elements not qua actual, but as concepts and notions. there is, therefore, a metaphysical condition of heterogeneity that forms a gap or fracture between thought and actuality, holding them apart. as one can easily see, Kierkegaard’s commitment to this metaphysical position sets the range or scope of logic and of its principles and rules: if logic deals with conceptual or mental entities that cannot be simply transposed to the realm of actuality, logical relations of inference and any conclusion for logical necessity cannot be directly applied to the sphere of existence. there is a discontinuity between these two fields―being and thought―whose regulating principles are not identified: “Being does not belong to logic at all”8 because “[e]very qualification for which being is an essential qualification lies outside of immanental thought, consequently outside of logic.”9 the standpoint stated above is also the cornerstone of all of Kierkegaard’s criticisms of a concept of logic that claims the unity or identity of those two fields (which can be generally identified with the positions of Hegel and some Hegelians). in this way, any attempt to explain qualitative changes or movements in the sphere of being exclusively by logic is completely false: “everything turns upon making the distinction absolute between quantitative dialectic and qualitative dialectic. all logic is quantitative dialectic or modal dialectic, for everything is and the whole is one and the same. Qualitative dialectic belongs in existence.”10 what Kierkegaard calls the “qualitative dialectic,” as belonging to existence, and the related exclusion of the realm of being qua actual being from the ambit of logic is one of the key concepts of his criticism directed, partially, at Hegel and partially at the danish Hegelians like Johan ludvig Heiberg, Hans lassen martensen, rasmus nielsen, and adolph peter adler. one aspect of the argument is mostly referred to as the problem of the intrusion of the concept of movement (and the related problem of negation as the impelling power11) into logic. the best places to see Kierkegaard’s objection are in the first two conditions for a logical system in the Postscript and in the introduction to The Concept of Anxiety. in both places, the core of the argument, which in the Postscript plays the role of the condition “α” (and part of “b”), is that the importation of movement into logic is the incorporation of something pertaining to the sphere of existence and, therefore foreign to logic: “it is indeed curious to make movement the basis in a sphere in which movement is inconceivable or to SKS 23, 72, nb15:103 / JP 1, 1059. SKS 19, 415, not13:50 / KJN 3, 413. 9 SKS 27, 269, papir 277:1 / JP 1, 196. 10 SKS 18, 304, JJ:492 / JP 1, 759. 11 the argument against the Hegelian understanding of negation as real opposition is also related with the same metaphysical starting point, since the emergence of contraries inside the sphere of thought needs an empirical intuition. 7 8

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have movement explain logic, whereas logic cannot explain movement”12 because “[i]n a logical system, nothing may be incorporated that has a relation to existence, that is not indifferent to existence.”13 as Vigilius Haufniensis puts it, “[i]n logic, no movement must come about, for logic is, and whatever is logical only is.”14 this is the reason for Climacus’ statement regarding all the qualitative changes in actuality as the effect of a free cause and not on a logical or conceptual ground.15 thus, it must be noticed that there is also a logical/metaphysical argument in Kierkegaard’s refusal to think the ethical as logically determined; the ethical actuality is the ambit of freedom and contingency, while the logical is the sphere of necessity.16 B. Logic as Organon Kierkegaard’s overview of logic is that it is an “organon,” or a science of the forms of thought with instrumental validity. this view is derived from aristotle and was the dominant approach until at least Hegel. it is important to notice that this position also completely fits into the nineteenth-century framework as one of the possible approaches to logic, against the background of a new reflection on its role and conception in the reaction after Hegel’s death. nevertheless it is not completely correct to assert that Kierkegaard had a strict formalist conception of logic, meaning that logical principles and rules lack any extra-mental relation. in fact, Kierkegaard recognized an objective and inter-subjective validity of those rules and principles because their descriptive characters are intellectually necessary. The first principles of identity and non-contradiction, which assert that tautology is the highest possible logical achievement,17 are true principles of knowledge and thus are objectively valid and inter-subjectively compulsory. in order to understand what Kierkegaard thinks, one must be aware of the distinction between reality (Realitet) and actuality (Virkelighed) that the danish philosopher accepts. the principles that rule thought have reality, that is, inter-subjective objectivity, by being universal and possible as intellectual entities, but do not have actuality.18 in fact, Kierkegaard’s view of the scope and function of logic is very sharp; he does not allege that logic is unreal or untrue by being universal and possible, but claims that all its laws are valid in the specific realm of thought which, although real, is not coextensive with actuality: “greek philosophy assumed as a matter of course that thinking has reality [Realitet]. In reflecting upon it, one must come to the same result, but why is thought-reality confused with actuality [Virkelighed]?”19 SKS 7, 106 / CUP1, 109–10. SKS 7, 107 / CUP1, 110. 14 SKS 4, 320 / CA, 13. 15 SKS 4, 275 / PF, 72. 16 see also SKS 15, 61–88 / R, supplement, 283–319. 17 SKS, 2, 47 / EO1, 38. 18 the problems concerning how these logical principles are inter-subjective are not a worry for Kierkegaard as they will be for Frege and Husserl in late nineteenth century. thus, one could say he assumes some level of innatism regarding these same principles. 19 SKS 7, 299 / CUP1, 328. Kierkegaard continues to draw this distinction in the next pages. 12 13

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the conception of logic as organon, which is also rooted in the metaphysical positions explained above, fits the Kierkegaardian view of non-existential knowledge. in one entry in his private papers, which develops a methodological reflection, Kierkegaard asserts what we could call the very core of the instrumental view of pure theoretical disciplines. although it does not cite logic explicitly, it can be perfectly applied to it. when talking about ontology and mathematics, Kierkegaard writes that “[t]he certainty of these is absolute―here thought and being are one, but by the same token these sciences are hypothetical.”20 therefore, Kierkegaard admits that logic is a descriptive science or knowledge; it describes certain modes or ways of correct thinking, but not all the structures of reality can be completely reduced to the laws of thought because some contain elements of actuality. C. Logic as Disinterested exactly because of this inter-subjectively constraining nature of the laws of logic, the most important mark of logic in Kierkegaard’s existential philosophy is its universality and possibility and, therefore, its lack of relation with individuals as such or, as the danish philosopher says, its “disinterestedness.” if every existing subjectivity has its own actuality as its highest interest,21 and if logic deals with possible universals, that gap between the two realms has an existential counterpart: “disinterestedness is the expression for indifference to actuality.”22 in fact, this disinterestedness is precisely the distinguishing trace of what Kierkegaard calls “non-essential knowledge.”23 because “[a]ll logical thinking is in the language of abstraction and sub specie aeterni,”24 the demands and difficulties of the actual disappear in abstraction: Here again, as shown previously, abstraction does not become involved at all in the difficulty that is the difficulty of existence and of the existing person. To think actuality in the medium of possibility does not entail the difficulty of having to think in the medium of existence, where existence as a process of becoming will hinder the existing person from thinking, as if actuality could not be thought, although the existing person is nevertheless a thinking person.25

but the fact that logic is not related to subjectivity has not only an existential consequence, but also a logical unfolding. in the condition “g” in the Postscript, starting from the point of the entity that thinks logic, Kierkegaard exhibits the effects of a finite subject performing such thinking. The fact that the one who thinks logic is a finite human being for whom actuality is the essential condition sets the insurmountable boundary to any logical enterprise which aims to claim any sort of panlogicism or, in other words, which intends to reduce even the existing individual 20 21 22 23 24 25

SKS 27, 271, papir 281 / JP 1, 197. see SKS 7, 288 / CUP1, 316. SKS 7, 290 / CUP1, 318. see SKS 7, 181 / CUP1, 197–8. SKS 7, 280 / CUP1, 307. SKS 7, 277–88 / CUP1, 316.

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qua actual to logic: “even if a man his whole life through occupies himself exclusively with logic, he still does not become logic; he himself therefore exists in other categories.”26 Clearly, Kierkegaard is recovering in some degree, against the idealistic position, the Kantian idea of finitude as limitation to thought: in order to shed light on logic, it might be desirable to become oriented psychologically in the state of mind of someone who thinks the logical―what kind of dying to oneself is required for that purpose, and to what extent the imagination plays a part in it….How, if at all, is the empirical I related to the pure I-I?27

this return to a critical standpoint leads us to some brief remarks about the historical context. II. The Historical Framework in order to make a correct evaluation of Kierkegaard’s conception of logic, one must consider his reflections against the wider historical framework of the reaction against Hegel’s concept of logic (and philosophy). the connection between Kierkegaard and this reaction is relevant, since one of the pivotal characters of this movement, Friedrich adolf trendelenburg (1802–72), is cited profusely by the danish philosopher almost every time he writes on logic.28 Kierkegaard himself acknowledged29 that SKS 7, 92 / CUP1, 93. SKS 7, 113 / CUP1, 117. 28 the following books by trendelenburg (whose name Kierkegaard often misspelled as “trendlenburg”) were found in Kierkegaard’s library: Platonis de ideis et numeris doctrina ex Aristotele illustrata, leipzig: Friedrich Christian wilhelm Vogel 1826 (ASKB 842), Logische Untersuchungen, vols. 1–2, berlin: gustav bethge 1840 (ASKB 843), Elementa logices Aristotelicae, 2nd revised and enlarged ed., berlin: gustav bethge 1842 (ASKB 844), Erläuterungen zu den Elementen der aristotelischen Logik. Zunächst für den Unterricht in Gymnasien, berlin: gustav bethge 1842 (ASKB 845), Die logische Frage in Hegel’s System. Zwei Streitschriften, leipzig: F.a. brockhaus 1843 (ASKB 846), Niobe. Einige Betrachtungen über das Schöne und Erhabene, vorgetragen im wissenschaftlichen Vereine zu Berlin, berlin: gustav bethge 1846 (ASKB 847), Geschichte der Kategorienlehre. Zwei Abhandlungen, berlin: gustav bethge 1846 (ASKB 848), Aristotelis de anima libri tres, ed. by Friedrich adolf trendelenburg, Jena: walz 1833 (ASKB 1079). 29 SKS 20, 93, nb:132 / JP 5, 5978: “there is no modern philosopher from whom i have profited so much as from Trendelenburg. At the time I wrote Repetition i had not yet read anything of his―and now that I have read him, how much more lucid and clear everything is to me. my relationship to him is very special. part of what has engrossed me for a long time is the whole doctrine of the categories (the problems pertaining to this are found in my older notes, on quarto pieces of paper). and now trendelenburg has written two treatises on the doctrine of categories, which I am reading with the greatest interest. The first time I was in Berlin, Trendelenburg was the only one I did not take the trouble to hear―to be sure, he was said to be a Kantian. and i practically ignored the young swede travelling with me who intended to study only under trendelenburg. o, foolish opinion to which i also was in bondage at the time.” 26 27

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some of his key arguments30 were borrowed from trendelenburg. despite the fact that Kierkegaard very often directed his criticisms against his countrymen, this broader framework, fundamental to the further developments of late nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophy, cannot be overlooked. see also actuality; being/becoming; Contingency/possibility; dialectic; existence/ existential; identity/difference; metaphysics; necessity.

arguments on the intrusion of movement, on the nature of negation and even on the necessity of intuition/imagination (which Kierkegaard knew also from schelling: see note 26 above and SKS 7, 102, 139n., 306 / CUP1, 105, 150n., 335) have their origin in trendelenburg’s works. 30

love william mcdonald

Love (Elskov—noun; elske—verb; Kjærlighed or Kjerlighed—noun) “love” translates a multitude of danish words: the nouns Elskov, Forelskelse, Kjerlighed, Forkjerlighed, Gjenkjerlighed, Faderkjerlighed, Moderkjerlighed, Selvkjerlighed, and the verbs at elske, at opelske, and at fremelske. the two principal noun forms, Elskov and Kjerlighed, are often translated as “erotic love” and “love” respectively, but this represents a tendency only, as both can be used with and without erotic overtones. they are derived, respectively, from old norse elsk(h)ugi (having love on the mind) and kærleikr (warm inner feeling for another person). Forelskelse is used exclusively of erotic love, to mean the state of having fallen in love. the other noun forms can be translated by means of adjectival qualification in the following ways: Forkjerlighed means preferential love, or predilection; Gjenkjerlighed means reciprocal love; Faderkjerlighed means fatherly love; Moderkjerlighed means motherly love; and Selvkjerlighed means self-love. the basic verb (at elske), however, covers the same lexical range as the english verb “to love,” including to show care and concern for, to feel strong, inner warmth for, to perceive something as especially good, beautiful or attractive, to set a high value on something, or to feel intense joy about something.1 the two derivative forms, at opelske and at fremelske, both mean to help something grow and thrive. Kierkegaard classifies love into two types: (a) those forms determined sensually (sandseligt) and psychically (sjæleligt); and (b) those which are essentially determined by spirit (Aand). the sensual, psychical forms of love are grounded in passion (Lidenskab), inclination (Tilbøielighed), and drives (Drifter), while spiritual, Christian love is grounded ontologically in a self-denying self, and deontologically in duty, discerned through conscience.2 whereas sensual, psychical love is an accidental feeling in the person, Christian love is an essential ontological structure of the ethical-religious self—which ultimately produces works of love.3 because the latter has chosen itself absolutely as ethical-religious, it subordinates everything in its life to divine command. Hence Christian love is a duty out of obedience to the

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 4, columns 308–11 (elske; Elskov); and vol. 11, columns 1156–62 (Kærlighed). 2 Cf. SKS 9, 145 / WL, 143. 3 Cf. SKS 22, 113, nb11:187 / JP 3, 2423. 1

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divine command: “You shall love.”4 Yet Christian love, for Kierkegaard, is supposed to be “concentric” with sensual, psychical love, in such a way that the latter is preserved in the former in a “higher immediacy.”5 much of Kierkegaard’s authorship is focused on the dialectic between these apparently opposed conceptions of love. Kierkegaard’s discussions of love are stretched between two main points of reference: plato’s Symposium and the new testament. these correspond to another classification of love into two types—pagan and Christian. These two types of love are distinguished in two ways: (1) pagan love is attributed to eros, while Christian love is attributed to Christ/god;6 and (2) pagan love—like sensual, psychical love— is immediate and happens to a person (when they fall in love), while Christian love is a higher immediacy and is a task. immediate love and the higher immediacy of religious love are separated by reflection, which in turn has to be penetrated successfully to gain resolution. the task of resolution is “to hold fast to love” and while the Christian resolve to love is galvanized by the passion of faith, it also places the individual “through the universal…in relationship with god.”7 in order to delve further into the meaning of the distinction between pagan and Christian love, and how they are related dialectically, we need to see how each is presented in Kierkegaard’s authorship. The first major discussion of love occurs in The Concept of Irony, in the form of an explicit academic reflection on Plato’s Symposium. the principal discussions of love in the pseudonymous authorship up to the Concluding Unscientific Postscript take plato’s Symposium as their structural model and source of themes. the most explicit of these is Stages on Life’s Way, whose first major section “In Vino Veritas” takes its title from a proverb cited in the Symposium, and which consists in a banquet held by a group of men who take turns discoursing on the nature of love. in fact the whole of Stages on Life’s Way is modeled on the Symposium and has a one-to-one correspondence of characters. Kierkegaard also reproduces plato’s device of nesting narrators within narrators and of presenting the discourses on love in the form of recollection. the system of narrative nesting also corresponds precisely to that of the Symposium, including Frater taciturnus’ discourse on love being presented indirectly in the words of Quidam, just as socrates’ discourse is presented indirectly as the wisdom of diotima. Stages on Life’s Way is also a reprise of the discussions of love in Either/Or. not only does it resurrect several of its characters, but originally “guilty?/not guilty?” was sketched simultaneously as a contrast to “the seducer’s diary.” its hero acted just as the seducer, except that when he won the girl he was undermined by his own depression. it was to be called “unhappy love.”8 Either/Or consists almost entirely of a succession of male reflections on love. The Diapsalmata exhibit SKS 9, 24 / WL, 17. SKS 3, 61 / EO2, 57; SKS 6, 151–2 / SLW, 161–2. 6 SKS 6, 115 / SLW, 122. Note that in his “Reflections on Marriage,” Judge William claims that while paganism had “a god for erotic love, and none for marriage; in Christianity there is…a god for marriage and none for erotic love” (SKS 6, 96 / SLW, 100). 7 SKS 6, 151–3 / SLW, 162–4. 8 Pap. iV a 215 / JP 5, 5628. 4 5

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melancholy self-love and include explicit reflections on concepts related to love, from the ephemeral nature of beauty to an “ecstatic discourse” on either/or choices like whether to marry or to trust a girl.9 “the immediate erotic stages or the musical-erotic” considers love in its sensuous immediacy (in the character of don Juan). this is followed by the determination of love by contradiction—just as eros is born of poros (wealth) and penia (poverty) in plato’s Symposium. Contradiction has tragic and comic forms, represented respectively by the tragic victims of seduction (margarete, elvira, antigone) and by the fatuously comic characters in scribe’s First Love. Contradiction gives rise to reflection and doubt (Faust), which alienates the self from its immediacy—in accordance with Hegel’s dialectic of the self in his Phenomenology of Spirit. Just as love is equated with desire in the Symposium, and essentially lacks the object it desires, the doubting, reflective lover desires his lost immediacy (personified for Faust in Margarete). The ultimate state of lost immediacy is represented in “the unhappiest one” and consists in a perpetual state of self-absence by virtue of a misrelation in one’s temporal categories. one hopes for that which can only be recollected, and recollects that which can only be hoped. Immediate experience is doubled in reflective imagination and reconstructed as a narrative that has ended. this is the process by which “a young man” becomes “poeticized.” the paradigmatic event of this sort from Kierkegaard’s life is his broken engagement to regine olsen: he recollected its demise before it occurred, and hoped for its continuation after its loss. the misrelation to time characteristic of unhappy love can only be remedied by entering into a proper relation with eternity. this, too, is an echo of diotima’s claim in the Symposium that the ultimate goal of all love is immortality. Humans strive for this goal, according to diotima, by reproducing themselves, either through bodily procreation or through artistic and intellectual creation. The “infinitizing” element in first love is an intimation of eternity and is that which inspires the poetry of love. But the poetic celebration of first love is also tempered with sadness over the transience of all things. Happiness (Lykke), as the intermediate goal of love, is undermined by knowledge of this transience, which is understood to depend on chance, opportunity, and contingent fortune (Lykke). as such, the happiness derived from the intensity of first love is out of the lovers’ control. The aesthete utilizes a range of strategies, such as the rotation of moods, the opportunistic conversion of chance into matters of interest, and the manipulation of circumstance in order to harness transience for the production of happiness. but he succeeds only in losing himself demonically in reflection. This self-absence is the condition of despair—the most demonic depiction of which we find in “The Seducer’s Diary.” The choice implicit in the title of Either/ Or is between passive persistence in this state of self-absence, or actively to choose oneself in one’s absolute validity.10 in Either/Or we are told that Christianity introduced sensuality into the world. This is because Christianity introduced the notion of spirit, which was defined in terms of the exclusion of sensuality as a principle. sensuality here is equated

9 10

SKS 2, 47 / EO1, 38. SKS 3, 209 / EO2, 218–19.

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with “the flesh,” which in turn is identified with selfishness.11 Christianity as spirit excludes selfishness. Pagan love, as sensual and psychical, is not intrinsically selfish since the principle of spiritual selflessness had not yet entered the world in the person of Christ. But pursuit of “the flesh” as the exclusion of Christian selfdenial invariably involves egoism and ego-projection. to love only what is similar to oneself, whether in seduction or innocent first love, is a form of narcissism. This is not really love at all. love, in both its pagan and Christian varieties, must be love of the other. this is what lies behind the intuition that love is grounded in contradiction. seduction, jealousy, and conquest in love fail to respect the otherness of the beloved. Christian love subverts self-love by virtue of resignation (a form of self-denial) and by regarding love as a duty. the understanding of Christian love is developed most fully in the “second authorship.” in particular, Works of Love explores the notion of love as a duty, while The Sickness unto Death focuses on the structure of selfhood. only the person who has resigned all egoistic motives has chosen himself or herself absolutely, and through humble self-denial has become as nothing before god; and only the one who regards love primarily as a duty can achieve the proper basis of selfhood for Christian love. even then the Christian is dependent on god to enter the selfrelationship (for selfhood is conceived as a relation) and to be the “third” in any love relation.12 plato, too, conceived of a “third” in the love relation—the “idea,” which mediates the noblest love between mentor and youth, and inducts the youth into concern for virtue. but Christian love is no mere idea; it is a way of being in the world.13 the subject of Christian love is not the ego, but a self become as nothing in resignation and self-denial, who is at best an instrument of god. the object of Christian love is not the object of desire or inclination, but the neighbor (Næste). Christian love is both a way of relating to another and the substantive god, both the relation and the “third” in the relation—so that one loves the other in god. Christian love is a gift (Gave) and a task (Opgave). as a gift, it lies outside all economies of exchange. it does not expect reciprocation. it indebts the giver, not the recipient—infinitely (and therefore can never be repaid).14 love is augmented by being given. love forgives injuries, rather than getting caught up in the exchange of an eye for an eye demanded by justice. because love is a duty, it is a task: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” the neighbor is the other human qua human— whomever we come face to face with.15 one’s spouse, one’s child, one’s friend, one’s self, the stranger are all to be loved equally as neighbors, before being loved preferentially. that is, duty has practical priority over preference. while the gift of love is given in time, its maintenance is a task demanded by duty, thereby placing it outside the realm of contingency. one is required to do one’s duty whatever the circumstances, at all times, which requires earnest resolution. as a task, love requires acts rather than feelings—hence the Christian emphasis on works of love. 11 12 13 14 15

SKS 3, 56 / EO2, 49. Cf. SKS 3, 61–4 / EO2, 55–8. or a set of practices, based on imitation of the life of Christ. Cf. Practice in Christianity. SKS 9, 176–7 / WL, 176–7. Cf. SKS 9, 28–9 / WL, 21–2.

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whereas pagan love and aesthetic self-love are characterized by contradictions, Christian love is characterized by paradox: the self becomes fully a self by becoming as nothing; love is a gift which indebts the giver; one has to choose despair in order to overcome despair; Christian love advocates transparency, but is itself hidden; one acts in time for the sake of eternity; one becomes a neighbor to oneself to become fully present to oneself. this is part of the effect of the sublation of pagan love in the “higher immediacy” of Christian love. that is, the characteristics of pagan love are both annulled and preserved in Christian love. erotic feelings can be preserved, but priority must be given to the demands of duty. Selfishness in love is annulled, but self-love is preserved equally with love for the other (since duty demands one love oneself also as a neighbor). the lex talionis of pagan justice is transfigured in the Christian like-for-like, in which god ensures that one’s outward acts are redoubled in one’s inner life. this ensures self-presence, a continuity of one’s inner and outer lives, unlike the spurious doubling of oneself in narcissistic reflection and the aesthete’s celebration of the difference between inner and outer. passion as selfish carnal drive is annulled in Christian love, but is preserved in spirit as the passion of faith. the unity of the tragic and the comic, characteristic of pagan love, is sublated into the unity of seriousness (Alvor) and jest (Spøg) in Christian love. in pagan love (conceived as desire) the intentional object is always absent; in Christian love the intentional object is never absent, since whoever is present is the neighbor. Furthermore, Christian love is augmented by giving love, so that pagan absence is annulled in Christian plenitude. the pagan notion of absence is transferred to the subject of love, who becomes as nothing in selfless love. the communication of love is not a matter of knowledge (Viden), but a matter of ability (Kunnen). according to Kierkegaard’s lectures on communication, the latter requires indirect communication.16 the prime work of love is to communicate love to another in such a way that the other becomes autonomous, enters a proper godrelationship, and acquires the ability to love in the Christian sense. but this work of love will be undone if the person thus helped recognizes that her autonomy is dependent on another person. therefore the communicator of love must withdraw into invisibility, become as nothing, and be a mere instrument of god. this poses a problem for the status of Works of Love. if the reader is asked, “is it a work of love?” that has helped her attain autonomy, love, and a proper god-relationship, she can answer either “yes” or “no.” if she answers “yes,” then the work of love has been undone, since she recognizes that she is dependent on the finite author søren Kierkegaard. if she answers “no,” then either she is right and it is not a work of love, or she is wrong and therefore deluded about what has helped her. because Christian love is also love of truth, it is incompatible with delusion. Kierkegaard’s solution is to try to disappear as a finite ego in his work as an author. He expresses this in Works of Love with the dash—a mark of punctuation under which his identity is meant to disappear.17 The penultimate section of the book ends, very significantly, with a dash. under the sign of the dash, søren aabye Kierkegaard becomes a mere instrument of the “governance” who steers his work as an author, so that the reader 16 17

SKS 27, 404–5, papir 367 / JP 1, 651. Cf. SKS 9, 273–7 / WL, 275–9.

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looks to god alone as the true author of all works of love. the “Conclusion” of the book, which follows the dash is not the work of s. Kierkegaard, but introduces the apostle John, who says “beloved, let us love one another.”18 “so faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest among these is love.”19 while faith, hope and love are all necessary to being Christian, love is the ground of the others. this is because god is love—and faith, hope and love are gifts of god’s grace. Faith is invisible and is only known by the work of love.20 Hope, in this context, refers to Christian hope—the hope beyond (worldly) hope. only if one has died to the world, by relinquishing one’s selfishness, can Christian hope appear. Indeed, this dying to the world is “the middle term” in every “Christian qualification.”21 Yet dying to the world in order to be reborn in spirit is precisely what it is to be saved by love. Selfishness is abandoned and replaced by selflessness. This is a mark of Christian love’s dialectical nature, since it only arises by means of a dynamic process in the ethical-religious task of becoming a self. another mark of this dialectical nature is found in the Christian exhortation to love one’s enemy. whereas the pagan loves his friend, the Christian is exhorted to love her enemy. since one spontaneously hates one’s enemy, it can only be for love of god that one can come to love one’s enemy.22 Yet another dialectical quality of Christian love is that it is “not a being-for-itself quality” but a quality “by which or in which you are for others.”23 that is, love relates one dynamically and constitutively to others, including god. love also begets love, builds it up and nurtures it in others, by presupposing it in others.24 by means of this presupposition, the beloved is transformed by the image beheld in the presupposition. similarly, the individual can be transformed by “a perfectly honest, deep, completely true, completely unsparing confession of sins [which] is the perfect love.”25 this disclosure of the self to another connects the individual, through god, to the universal, but also builds up the one confessing by means of faith in the love that forgives the sins confessed. indeed, the power of love to build up love is “love’s most characteristic specification” and makes of love “the source of everything and, in the spiritual sense… the deepest ground of the spiritual life.”26 see also Care/Concern; Christ; decision/resolve; desire; dying to/renunciation; Ethics; Faith; Forgiveness; Hope; God; Grace; Immediacy/Reflection; Mood/ emotion/Feeling; otherness/alterity/the other; paganism; passion/pathos; religious/ religiousness; self; spirit. ibid. note that the english translation omits this important dash from the end of the section entitled “praising love,” immediately prior to the beginning of the “Conclusion.” the latter takes up the words of the apostle John and leaves the name of s. Kierkegaard erased beneath the preceding dash. Cf. SKS 9, 367–8 / WL, 374–5. 19 1 Corinthians 13:13, cited in SKS 9, 227 / WL, 225. 20 SKS 22, 113, nb11:187 / JP 3, 2423. 21 SKS 13, 98ff. / FSE, 75ff. 22 SKS 21, 100, nb7:49 / JP 3, 2419. 23 SKS 9, 225 / WL, 223. 24 SKS 9, 225–6 / WL, 222–4. 25 SKS 11, 279 / WA, 143. 26 SKS 9, 218–19 / WL, 215–16. 18

lyric Nassim Bravo Jordán

Lyric (Lyrik―noun; lyrisk―adjective) From the latin lyricus, derived from the greek λυρικός and originally related to the ancient use of the lyre, the danish word refers to the genre of poetry that expresses strong feelings and moods, or to the poet who is driven by intense sentiments (Lyriker). in a more general sense, it also alludes to any person who is inclined to manifest his or her feelings.1 in its adjectival form, the most frequent occurrence of the word “lyric” is in Repetition, followed by Either/Or. both of these works are pseudonymous, published respectively by Constantin Constantius and Victor eremita in 1843. “lyric” as adjective is used throughout the authorship, usually as a synonym of “poetic” or “literary.” However, the concept of the lyric is further discussed in From the Papers of One Still Living of 1838, where, along with other aesthetic categories in Kierkegaard’s thought, the lyric is considered to be an existential determinant in the development of the individual. the word “lyric” is also the subject matter of several early journal entries from 1835, 1836, and 1837. Kierkegaard approaches the term “lyric” as (1) a literary genre; (2) an aesthetic category; and (3) an existential category. I. Literary Genre Kierkegaard was interested in the distinction between medieval lyric poetry and modern lyric poetry. according to a journal entry from march 1835, the lyric of the middle ages has an objective focus: its theme “is not the individual, it is man (adam, i.e., mankind),”2 whereas the modern lyric is based on the idiosyncrasy of the individual.3 this claim, that the medieval lyric has a more universal scope than the modern lyric, is later reaffirmed in another entry from 1845, where it is noted that the medieval sufferer, rather than talking about himself, “talks about universal man (this lyrical objectivizing).”4

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 13, columns 218–19. 2 SKS 18, 17, ee:37 / JP 1, 35. 3 ibid. 4 SKS 18, 270, JJ:387 / JP 1, 629. 1

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the theory that medieval poetry is objective compared with the subjectivity of modern poetry might have been influenced by the aesthetics of Friedrich von schlegel, who had earlier expressed similar views. strangely enough, in a third journal entry from 1848 Kierkegaard says that “the touching naïveté of medieval lyric poetry is rooted in the category of individuality,”5 thereby suggesting that the medieval lyric has a subjective character instead. II. Aesthetic Category the lyric is part of a dialectical triad that includes the epic, the dramatic, and the lyric. Kierkegaard relies heavily on the aesthetic theory of Johan ludvig Heiberg, who suggested a triad that represented the dialectical evolution of poetic genres. according to Heiberg, who probably drew upon Hegel’s aesthetics, the triad begins with the lyric, is mediated through the epic, and is unified in the synthesis of drama. in this schema, the lyric represents the immediate, subjective and positive stage, while the epic corresponds to the reflective, objective and negative stage. Perhaps unaware of Hegel’s own triad, which presents the epic as the immediate, objective stage of world history, and the lyric as the reflective, subjective stage, Heiberg reversed the order of these two moments. Kierkegaard seemed to agree at first with Heiberg’s formulation. With respect to the immediacy of the lyric moment, it is noted in a journal entry from 1835 that Don Juan, the paradigmatic figure of the immediate, should be interpreted lyrically.6 a year later, on august 19, 1836, Kierkegaard remarks that “when Heiberg transferred Hegelianism to aesthetics and believed that he had found the triad: lyric-epic-lyricepic (dramatic), he was right.”7 Kierkegaard accepts this particular order with some hesitation though, as he observes that the history of poetry indicates rather that it is the epic that comes first, not the lyric.8 nevertheless, he ultimately favored Heiberg’s version of the triad, as we can see from a diagram of the different poetic genres he sketched in January 1837, where the triad begins with the lyric and is followed by the epic.9 This is further confirmed in From the Papers of One Still Living, where Kierkegaard uses the same schema. to summarize, the lyric represents the subjective, immediate, and unreflective stage in the dialectic of poetry’s historical evolution. III. Existential Category in From the Papers of One Still Living, Kierkegaard transfers the aesthetic categories discussed above to the existential realm. Thus, the lyric corresponds to the first stage in the development of the individual. in a manner similar to its aesthetic counterpart,

5 6 7 8 9

SKS 20, 329, nb4:84 / JP 2, 2005. Cf. SKS 19, 94, not2:7 / JP 1, 1179. SKS 27, 143, papir 172 / JP 2, 1565. ibid. Cf. SKS 17, 113, bb:23 / JP 5, 5192.

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the lyric “existential stage” is characterized by a high degree of subjectivity, immediacy, and a lack of reflection. engaged in a discussion about Hans Christian andersen’s literary aptitudes, Kierkegaard argues that in order to become a good novelist (Romandigter), it is necessary to undergo a “proper epic development.”10 in fact, andersen’s early lyric work is praised, but it is underscored that he lacks an epic quality, here understood as a synonym for life-development (Livs-Udvikling).11 For Kierkegaard, a life development or epic development constitutes an “earnest embracing of given actuality”12 and a constant striving towards a single goal in life.13 but andersen has remained in his lyric stage, both in his personal life and in his literary career. Inasmuch as the lyric represents unreflective subjectivity, the conclusion is drawn that andersen might have isolated himself from the world through “lyric self-absorption” (Selvfortabelse),14 thus rupturing his relation with actuality. this “original elegiac mood,” Kierkegaard argues, degenerated into “a certain gloom and bitterness against the world.”15 Furthermore, since the lyric temperament does not have the basic unity and the strong link with actuality provided by the epic-development, it “volatilizes itself into fiction,”16 breaking into a multitude of arbitrary moods. the absence of reflection also means that the author cannot distance himself from his own personal situation in order to assume the proper vantage point needed to write a good novel; such a work is inevitably permeated by the bitterness and the unreflected life experiences of its author, and in consequence it should be “regarded more as an amputation than as a production from himself.”17 while the lyric, understood as an existential category, does not constitute in itself a detrimental quality, abiding too long in the lyric stage leads, in Kierkegaard’s view, to existential stagnation. see also aesthetic/aesthetics; epic; life-View; novel; objectivity/subjectivity; poetry; romanticism; stages; theater/drama; Vaudeville/Farce.

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

SKS 1, 26 / EPW, 71. Cf. SKS 1, 26 / EPW, 70. SKS 1, 26 / EPW, 71. Cf. SKS 1, 27 / EPW, 71. ibid. SKS 1, 28–9 / EPW, 73. SKS 1, 31 / EPW, 75. SKS 1, 39 / EPW, 84.

marriage deidre nicole green

Marriage (Ægteskab—noun) “marriage” refers to the condition of being a husband or wife; the relation of persons married to each other; and the state of matrimony.1 in danish, the lexical meaning of the word Ægteskab is the legal institution between a woman and a man, which includes living together in a mutual home, sexual intercourse, and nurture of spouses’ children.2 the concept of marriage pervades Kierkegaard’s authorship; he holds that marriage is a universal concern, even for those who choose to remain outside of it.3 extended treatments are found in Either/Or, Stages on Life’s Way, Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, and his journals. Kierkegaard’s decision not to marry regine olsen had a profound impact on his life and writing.4 He pens in his 1843 journal, “if i had had faith, i would have stayed with regine.”5 On the tenth anniversary of their engagement, he reflects that she could not have first priority in his life because God had first priority: “My engagement [Forlovelse] to her and breaking the engagement are actually my relationship to god, are…my engagement to god [Forlovelse med Gud].”6 The authorship reflects this tension about marriage, depicting it both as a religious and ethical requirement and as a lesser life one ought to sacrifice for absolute fidelity to the divine. Kierkegaard demonstrates the tension between positive and negative views of marriage at the outset of his authorship in his lack of clarity in defining the relationship of marriage and sin. in The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard writes that in the wedding ceremony Christianity pronounces the curse before the benediction,

The Compact Edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, vols. 1–2, oxford: oxford university press 1971, vol. 1, p. 1730. 2 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–27, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 27, columns 1239–43. 3 Pap. Vi–b 125:9 / TD, supplement, 137. 4 scholars as diverse as sylviane agacinski and walter lowrie agree that Kierkegaard’s failure to marry provides a key to understanding Kierkegaard’s work as an author. mark lloyd taylor, “a well-Considered occasion: Kierkegaard and the wedding Ceremony prescribed by the 1830 danish Altar Book,” in Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer 2006 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 10), p. 245. 5 SKS 18, 177, JJ:115 / KJN 2, 164. 6 SKS 25, 139, nb27:21 / JP 6, 6826. 1

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thereby placing everything under sin.7 Judge william elaborates in Either/Or, part two that the church declares that sin comes into the world along with marriage and yet permits it. although the church declares that sin came along with marriage, whether it teaches that sin was on account of marriage remains problematic.8 despite its ambiguous relation to sin, marriage is positively tied to one’s self-formation and identity. marriage, avers Judge william, is a school in which one is able to cultivate one’s character: it is a “genesis of character.”9 Yet, to be truly efficacious, character development cannot motivate one to marry.10 beyond highlighting the efficacy of marriage for personal formation and averring that it is a universal ethical duty,11 william sets out to defend the aesthetic validity of marriage, which is that a husband’s sole task is to hold fast to his wife.12 the marital union preserves the aesthetic quality of erotic love through ethical duty.13 marriage gives rise to freedom, liberating one from enslavement to whims by binding one to another human being, thereby becoming accountable to another.14 Marriage transfigures erotic love,15 the definitive element of marriage,16 and makes possible its aesthetic, ethical, and religious expression.17 it presupposes erotic love, adding the missing elements of the ethical and religious. william maintains that marriage belongs to Christianity, despite the circuitous path Christianity took to recognize the beauty, truth, and profundity contained in it.18 marriage is based on resignation, which is lacking in erotic love. this resignation entails a double movement: the pagan movement, to which erotic love belongs, and a Christian movement expressed by marriage.19 Christianity validates all the beauty that inheres in erotic love in paganism to the extent that it is combined with marriage.20 in Either/Or, part one, a uses antigone as an example of ancient tragedy precisely because she does not marry, instead choosing loyalty to her deceased father, Oedipus. As the bride of sorrow, she sacrifices her life for the great idea. a explains that she “dedicates her life to sorrowing over her father’s fate, over her own.”21 Her attachment to her father and the secret that she carries preclude the possibility of her marrying her beloved.22 Nicolaus Notabene iterates the conflict 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

SKS 1, 323–4 / CI, 288–9. SKS 3, 93–7 / EO2, 91–4. SKS 3, 71 / EO2, 66. ibid. SKS 3, 233–4 / EO2, 245. Pap. V b 76 / P, supplement, 111. SKS 3, 283 / EO2, 299. SKS 3, 72n. / EO2, 67n. SKS 3, 39 / EO2, 31. SKS 3, 40 / EO2, 32. SKS 3, 71 / EO2, 65. SKS 3, 36 / EO2, 28–9. SKS 3, 44 / EO2, 36. SKS 3, 20 / EO2, 10. SKS 2, 156 / EO1, 158. SKS 2, 162 / EO1, 164.

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between devotion to the idea and connubial commitments in Prefaces, deeming authorship the worst kind of marital infidelity.23 antigone’s tragic devotion to guilt meets an important counterpoint in Fear and Trembling, where Johannes de silentio lauds sarah of tobit, who allows the beloved to risk death to marry her. Her temerity in risking the beloved for the marital bond evinces not so much a commitment to ethical duty, but great religious faith.24 beyond attesting the necessity of faith in marriage in Fear and Trembling, Johannes de silentio portrays the faithful relationship of the individual to god as marriage. silentio observes, “in this life i am content to be wedded to the left hand, faith is humble enough to demand the right.”25 Johannes Climacus also employs marital metaphor to depict a human being’s relation to god in Philosophical Fragments. He describes a king who desires to marry a maiden as parallel to Christ’s desire to be united to human beings through the incarnation. the union is a triumph: love is “jubilant” when it unites equals and “triumphant” when it makes equal in love that which was previously unequal.26 the king wants the maiden to forget the discrepancy in their social status so that she can feel confident in her love. No person is destined to suffer the grief of wanting the relationship to be severed due to lower social status. Just as the king does not wish to be the maiden’s benefactor but her equal in love, god loves the learner, desiring to raise her to equality with god.27 asserting that a married man must stay within the universal at all costs, 28 A Married Man―the author of “Some Reflections on Marriage in Answer to Objections”―repeats the theme of risk and faith in marriage in Stages on Life’s Way. a married man holds that he who invests his whole life in his identity as a married man ventures most of all.29 He maintains that absolute faith is all that is required in marriage: it compensates for everything and is the sole attribute that makes a married man loveable.30 Risking everything for marriage proves beneficial since marriage is the most important voyage of discovery a human being makes—it offers the deepest knowledge of life’s meaning and manifests proper immersion in life.31 a married man further observes that conversely to paganism, in Christianity there is a god for marriage, but none for erotic love. danger threatens marriage from two sides: one cannot enter into marriage without placing oneself in faithful relationship to god, but if one has become totally spiritual, one cannot enter into a marital relation either.32 marriage is the highest telos of individual life such that

SKS 4, 474 / P, 10. SKS 4, 191–3 / FT, 102–4. see Hugh pyper, “ ‘sarah is the Hero’: Kierkegaard’s reading of tobit in Fear and Trembling,” in his The Joy of Kierkegaard: Essays on Kierkegaard as a Biblical Reader, oakville, Connecticut: equinox publishing 2011, p. 121. 25 SKS 4, 129 / FT, 34. 26 SKS 4, 234 / PF, 27. 27 SKS 4, 234–6 / PF, 27–9. 28 SKS 6, 168 / SLW, 181. 29 SKS 6, 110 / SLW, 116. 30 SKS 6, 88–9 / SLW, 90–1. 31 SKS 6, 87 / SLW, 88. 32 SKS 6, 96 / SLW, 100. 23 24

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“anyone who evades it crosses out the whole of earthly life in one single stroke and retains only eternity and spiritual interests.”33 to do so expresses an unhappy life.34 Falling in love is taken up into resolution as one wills to marry. the erotic aspect of falling in love and the resolution of marriage must occur simultaneously in the moment of decision. the will to marry, then, entails that “the most immediate of all immediacies must also be the freest resolution.”35 both elements are required: just as the immediacy of falling in love does not make one a husband, so too a relationship in the absence of erotic love is not a marriage.36 outside of marriage love is mere flirtation or seduction—being in love finds true expression only within it.37 analogous to Kierkegaard’s assertion in Works of Love that if love does not abide eternally it was never actually love,38 a married man opines that if the union of two lovers is not a marriage from the beginning, it never becomes such.39 the resolution of marriage is the only adequate form of being in love.40 as resolution, marriage is always reflective, and as such its task is concretion.41 the centering effect of marital resolution extends beyond the self to others and the divine. in marital resolution, falling in love is “deposited as a trust fund, and love has precisely the power to draw down the resolution maker…beside the beloved in time.”42 erotic love is transformed into an eternal duty by resolution in the moment at the wedding ceremony when the groom is enjoined to love his wife with the imperative, “You shall love her.”43 marriage thus allows a man to stand beside the beloved with the eternal in temporality.44 because marriage stands at the center of existence, each spouse must be seen in relation to it.45 a married man underscores william’s discussion of personal formation. as the synthesis of resolution and falling in love, marriage proves most formative of individuality.46 the failure to encounter god in the resolution is tantamount to the failure to legitimize one’s existence.47 one comes to understand god in marriage because it is through resolution in the universal that one relates to god. in the resolution, one finds that one is just like other human beings: one is in relationship with god by faith and by the resolution in one’s common humanity. it is in the resolution that the husband becomes worthy of the divine gift of falling in love.48 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48

SKS 6, 97 / SLW, 101. ibid. SKS 6, 98 / SLW, 102. SKS 6, 100 / SLW, 105. SKS 6, 119 / SLW, 126. SKS 9, 301 / WL, 303. SKS 6, 101 / SLW, 105. SKS 6, 146 / SLW, 156. SKS 6, 150 / SLW, 160. SKS 6, 105 / SLW, 111. SKS 6, 106 / SLW, 111. SKS 6, 106 / SLW, 112. SKS 6, 136 / SLW, 145. SKS 6, 104 / SLW, 109. SKS 6, 105 / SLW, 110. SKS 6, 153 / SLW, 164.

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“marriage is the deepest, highest, and most beautiful expression of love. love is the gift of the god, but in the resolution of marriage the lovers make themselves worthy of receiving it.”49 the centrality of marriage to the religious life is underscored by the fact that it places one in proper relationship to the divine and the whole of reality: although it remains dubious as to whether falling in love is religious or of divine origin, marriage is “unconditionally of religious origin.”50 He who is not loyal to the marriage vow not only makes himself and the beloved miserable, he actually “places life in contradiction with itself, he places god in contradiction with himself.”51 the resolution of marriage allows one both to understand and take one’s place in the world. insofar as it belongs to the ethical, marriage requires openness and honesty. Frater taciturnus could not marry because concealing his depression would prove inappropriate in a marital context.52 even if the beloved were to accept such an arrangement, it would degrade her.53 marriage requires making a vow that is mutually binding and requires mutual understanding. because taciturnus’ beloved does not understand him, he cannot make a vow to her, for it would prove mere profanation.54 His “inclosing reserve” creates an absolute misrelation, so that her relationship with him would become a misalliance for her.55 Yet, he concludes that he should have remained faithful to her: “it would have been greater if my spiritual existence had countenanced everyday use in a marriage, and i would have understood life more surely and easily.”56 These reflections suggest that honesty and vulnerability characterize marriage and open a reality and self-understanding that remains closed otherwise. this resounds in Johannes Climacus’ comment on Either/Or in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript: Judge william teaches that the expression that emphasizes the difference between the aesthetic and the ethical is that it is every human being’s duty to become open. william decries the hiddenness that is typical of the aesthetic, lifting up marriage as the most profound form of life’s disclosure.57 perhaps the clearest exposition of a positive view of marriage is Kierkegaard’s signed discourse, “on the occasion of a wedding,” which emphasizes both the eternal nature of marriage and the freedom the marital union provides for the lovers.58 Here, Kierkegaard underscores that marriage requires honesty and earnestness. earnestness is learned in life, but it is most certainly learned in the “god-pleasing state of marriage.”59 without internal earnestness marriage is doomed to divorce—a couple fails to belong to each other if they do not belong to each other in earnest. the lack of earnestness would be manifest in one’s going on “living unconcerned 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59

SKS 6, 139 / SLW, 148. SKS 6, 166 / SLW, 178. ibid. SKS 6, 330 / SLW, 355. ibid. ibid. SKS 6, 347 / SLW, 373. SKS 6, 368 / SLW, 396–7. SKS 7, 230 / CUP1, 254. SKS 5, 419–20 / TD, 43. SKS 5, 434 / TD, 60.

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about the most sacred commitment…without earnestly caring about it.”60 the earnestness of resolution is the highest blessedness, performing the miracle in the wedding ceremony: “the resolution of marriage is that love [Kjærlighed] conquers everything.”61 through resolution, marriage removes romantic illusion and offers a secure abode for erotic love “within the impregnable fortress of duty.”62 this duty comes about because a religious authority performs the marriage. the authority conveys the earnestness of marriage to the single individual—the ceremony places under sin the person bound by it. in fact, it places everything under sin.63 even happy love requires the buttressing effect of the marriage ceremony.64 in the resolution, the earnestness of marriage, one finds a true conception of oneself—the inwardness of this conception is the earnestness.65 that a true conception of life and of oneself is required for the resolution of marriage implies the second great requirement: a true conception of god.66 the conception of god “crowns” all that is present in the understanding.67 the relation between god, who “is only in the internal,”68 and the one to be married requires the language of resolution, which is the only language through which god becomes involved with human beings.69 resolution is the beginning, containing a true conception of life, oneself, and god. amid the various manifestations of married life, the resolution that love conquers everything is common to all.70 beyond providing a proper conception of god, marital love requires primary commitment to god. in Works of Love, Kierkegaard writes that marriage makes love a matter of conscience, qualifying that this love may only be erotic love (Elskov) and not necessarily Christian love (Kærlighed).71 each spouse is to recognize as first and foremost the relation to God before each relates to the other—they must consult with god and with their conscience.72 Christianity requires that each wife and husband love each other primarily as neighbor and secondarily as the beloved.73 the relationship of each spouse to god ought to take priority over their relationship to each other. as Kierkegaard’s thought progresses, the priority of the god-relationship increases to the point of precluding marriage. in his later years, Kierkegaard advocates circumventing marriage for a direct relationship with god, contending 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73

SKS 5, 435 / TD, 61. SKS 5, 436 / TD, 62. SKS 5, 431 / TD, 56. SKS 5, 432 / TD, 57. ibid. SKS 5, 432 / TD, 58. SKS 5, 437 / TD, 63. ibid. SKS 5, 438 / TD, 64. SKS 5, 437 / TD, 63. SKS 5, 440 / TD, 67. SKS 9, 141 / WL, 138. SKS 9, 140 / WL, 139–40. SKS 9, 143 / WL, 141–2.

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that a single life devoted to god transcends the marital relation. in the Postscript, which marks the pivotal point between the aesthetic and the religious writings and poses the issue of becoming a Christian,74 Climacus opines that marriage is a jest to be treated with earnestness. this is an earnestness in which devotion for the spouse is not inherent in the marriage itself, but merely reflects the earnestness of the god relationship—which is the absolute telos of each spouse.75 Climacus writes, “marriage is not the absolute τέλος, and therefore what is absolutely true of the absolute is only imperfectly true of marriage.”76 this anticipates Kierkegaard’s ultimate conclusion: one ought to forfeit marriage in favor of a direct relationship to the absolute. rather than being formative of the self, as presented earlier in his thought, marriage evades the task of becoming a human being.77 in Practice in Christianity, anti-Climacus opines that women and erotic love appeal to a man’s weaker elements. For this reason, Christianity desires a single person of whom it can require the most. regrettably, Christendom mitigates the requirement by using marriage to avoid offering the absolute suffering and sacrifice that Christianity requires.78 similarly, Kierkegaard writes that the essentially Christian is the single state. although Christianity has nothing against marriage, marriage must be seen as an indulgence in a Christian sense.79 in later writings, Kierkegaard distances himself from the defender of marriage who authored the early works. He proclaims in “an open letter” in Fædrelandet that pastor rudelbach, who lauds Kierkegaard for defending marriage in Christianity, erroneously lumps together “all those numerous, qualitatively different pseudonymous works all the way from Either/Or, and…all my variegated upbuilding works” as Kierkegaard’s.80 distancing himself from this position, Kierkegaard advocates the rigor of celibacy in his later religious writings. Kierkegaard reflects that to act for the sake of one’s spouse and children is to secularize one’s existence and become hypocritical.81 in his attack on bishop mynster and established Christendom in Judge for Yourself!, Kierkegaard sarcastically states that one should not preach that Christianity prefers the single state until one is married so that one’s “life guarantees that the proclamation is an artistic work.”82 Faulting martin luther for depicting marriage as progression in the religious life,83 Kierkegaard contends that luther married not out of love but in order to defy the SKS 16, 17 / PV, 31. SKS 7, 414 / CUP1, 456. 76 SKS 7, 374 / CUP1, 412. 77 SKS 18, 304, JJ:494 / KJN 2, 280. 78 SKS 12, 124–5 / PC, 117–18. 79 Pap. X–6 b 116 / CUP2, supplement, 158. 80 SKS 14, 111 / COR, 51. rudelbach was a pastor of st. mikkels in slagelse, denmark who wrote Om det borgerlige Ægteskab (on Civil marriage) in 1851, which provided the occasion for Kierkegaard to write “an open letter,” (see COR, xxxvii). see andreas gottlob rudelbach, Om det borgerlige Ægteskab. Bidrag til en alsidig, upartisk Bedømmelse af denne Institution, nærmest fra Kirkens Standpunkt, Copenhagen: otto schwartz 1851 (ASKB 752). 81 SKS 22, 235, nb12:146 / KJN 6, 236–7. 82 SKS 16, 192 / JFY, 139. 83 SKS 23, 368, nb19:57.b / JP 3, 85. 74 75

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pope, the devil, and the world; one might as easily say to the beloved that his decision not to marry is not because he does not love her, “but to defy satan, the public, the newspapers, and the whole nineteenth century, i cannot marry.”84 He further argues that luther’s marriage ought to be viewed as an exception and a corrective to asceticism.85 For luther, the scandal of marriage serves as religious trial, but because marriage is not seen as incommensurate with the religious life in the nineteenth century, one must correct his reaction to asceticism.86 For Kierkegaard, the higher Christian life of remaining unmarried contains sufficient reality to fill a life.87 those truly devoted to religion will remain unmarried despite the fact that Christianity blesses marriage.88 Unmarried life better reflects the rigor of true Christianity, which calls for martyrdom. to be decisively religious, Kierkegaard’s own life precludes marriage in favor of an honest relationship with god.89 although marriage belongs to Judaism, which extends the command to multiply and be fruitful, it ought not to belong to Christianity, which is identified with virginity and proclaims that its kingdom is not of the world.90 Far from wanting to concretize existence through marriage, Kierkegaard holds that to be Christian is to be spirit.91 Finally, he states that even if there were no other hindrance to marriage in Christianity, the Christian does not have time to marry because he or she is “committed to god to such a degree that there can be no thought of time for delay because of marriage.”92 across the authorship, Kierkegaard depicts marriage variously as the central institution of civic and ethical life that proves itself to be indispensable for becoming a self and relating to god, the manifestation of freedom and the eternal in love, and that which should be rejected for a higher life of Christian devotion, and in Kierkegaard’s case, authorship. this tension may be accounted for by a heterogeneous authorship, a progression in Kierkegaard’s thought and an attempt to assuage and justify his broken engagement and unmarried life.93 perhaps the view that a married man attributes to socrates in Stages on Life’s Way, famously articulated by a in Either/ Or, best encapsulates this tension: “marry or do not marry—you will regret both.”94 see also Conscience; desire; duty; earnestness; ethics; exception/universal; Faith; Freedom; love; martyrdom/persecution; monasticism. SKS 24, 367, nb24:75 / JP 3, 90–1. SKS 25, 400, nb30:22 / JP 3, 100. 86 SKS 23, 323, nb18:101 / JP 3, 82. 87 SKS 20, 232, nb2:245 / KJN 4, 232. 88 SKS 21, 63, nb6:83 / KJN 5, 64. 89 SKS 22, 115, nb11:192 / KJN 6, 112. 90 SKS 25, 364, nb29:102 / JP 2, 509. 91 SKS 25, 365, nb29:102 / JP 2, 510. 92 SKS 25, 427, nb30:52 / JP 3, 146. 93 alastair Hannay argues for continuity in Kierkegaard’s position on marriage by positing the possibility of a repetition whereby society could resurrect marriage from a higher point of view. see “a Question of Continuity,” in his Kierkegaard and Philosophy: Selected Essays, london and new York: routledge 2003, p. 104. 94 SKS 6, 146 / SLW, 156. see also SKS 2, 47 / EO2, 38. 84 85

martyrdom/persecution Jack mulder, Jr.

Martyrdom (Martyrium—noun); Persecution (Forfølgelse—noun) Martyrium comes to danish from its cognate in latin, and from the greek μαρτύριον. in greek the term simply meant “testimony,” and the word μάρτυς, “martyr,” meant “witness” (a fact that carries some interest for us below) but came to be applied to those Christians who suffered and died for their faith. in danish, the word martyr itself carries this latter meaning as its primary one. a secondary meaning of martyrium is to be persecuted and suffer, but perhaps not finally to die directly for one’s religious conviction (as in the old Christian term “confessor”), or indeed for a less religious reason (for example a “political martyr”).1 Forfølgelse comes from the old danish forfylghe and from the middle low german vorvolgen, corresponding to the High german verfolgen. its primary meaning is simply to follow after, as in a chase. a secondary meaning is to follow after with hostile intent.2 these two words are invested with a great deal of meaning for Kierkegaard, though the former is perhaps the more important of the two,3 and is mentioned far more often. a preliminary note may be in order. in Hans lassen martensen’s 1854 funeral address, martensen eulogizes the deceased bishop Jakob peter mynster, calling mynster a “truth-witness” (Sandhedsvidne). this sent Kierkegaard into something of a frenzy. In response, Kierkegaard’s long definition of a “truth-witness” notes that such a person will be “unfamiliar with everything called enjoyment”4 and culminates in the claim that A truth-witness, one of the authentic truth-witnesses, is a person who is flogged, mistreated, dragged from one prison to another, then finally—the last advancement, by which he is admitted to the first class in the Christian order of precedence among the authentic truth-witnesses…is crucified or beheaded or burned or broiled on a grill.5

Kierkegaard goes on still further at some length. to Kierkegaard’s surprise, Martensen replied, suggesting that Kierkegaard was conflating “truth-witness” Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 13, column 1035. 2 ibid., vol. 5, column 474. 3 see SKS 25, 304, nb29:12 / JP 3, 2546. 4 SKS 14, 124 / M, 5. 5 SKS 14, 124–5 / M, 6. 1

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with “martyr,”6 a complaint that Kierkegaard suggested might have been justified, had Kierkegaard not made a distinction between “truth-witness” and “one of the authentic truth-witnesses,” though evidently, according to Kierkegaard, mynster’s life fell short on both counts. Kierkegaard also suggests a distinction between “truthwitness” and “blood-witness,”7 and this distinction provides us with an interesting way to consider Kierkegaard’s understanding of the term “martyr,” which seems to sit uneasily between the former two concepts. at times Kierkegaard suggests that anything less than physical death is not martyrdom. at other times he and his pseudonyms use the term in quite different, and sometimes idiosyncratic, ways. in what follows, i will discuss some of the different ways in which Kierkegaard uses the term “martyrdom.” after that, we will look at some of the ways in which Christianity, according to Kierkegaard, invites persecution, and consider how Kierkegaard would answer some questions that will arise for his views. (1) There is first a kind of epistemological martyrdom, which is discussed in at least two places, both pseudonymous. The first is in Fear and Trembling, where Johannes de silentio claims that the “spurious knight” is unable to endure the “martyrdom of misunderstanding.”8 similarly, in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Johannes Climacus mocks “speculative thought” and its perceived attempt to opt out of “the martyrdom that always remains, even if no external persecution is inflicted…the martyrdom of believing against the understanding.”9 although this “martyrdom” is without external sign, it does, to these pseudonyms, involve a conflict between worldly understanding and the mind of faith, which is exemplified by all forms of martyrdom. (2) in Kierkegaard’s own texts, which are our main concern here, it is not easy to spot just what distinguishes a genuine martyr from a fraudulent martyr, because Kierkegaard asserts that some surprising features belong to martyrdom’s essence. For example, martyrdom itself has a certain “impetuosity,”10 “recklessness,”11 “restlessness,”12 and even “impatience.”13 the most direct statement from Kierkegaard on a fraudulent martyr, a “mimic,” suggests that the distinction may be that the true martyr is devoted to an idea while a fraudulent martyr may take curious delight in “being worsted.”14 this entry is important, but it does not encapsulate all the ways in which Kierkegaard could see martyrdom as fraudulent, such as actually seeking out one’s death,15 and a perhaps less suicidal but still fraudulent enthusiasm for a “helter-skelter” martyrdom “the sooner the better.”16

6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

SKS 14, 129 / M, 9. Pap. Xi–3 b 82 / M, supplement, 492. SKS 4, 171 / FT, 80. SKS 7, 211–12 / CUP1, 232. see also SKS 7, 460 / CUP1, 508. SKS 22, 259, nb12:188 / JP 1, 387. SKS 21, 98, nb7:43 / JP 1, 488. SKS 25, 399, nb30:22 / JP 3, 2550. ibid. SKS 27, 130, papir 129 / JP 1, 245. SKS 22, 75, nb11:125 / JP 6, 6418. SKS 21, 325, nb10:136 / JP 1, 497.

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(3) the extent to which Kierkegaard viewed martyrdom as voluntary brings additional nuance to his understanding of the concept. in discussing antoninus, a stoic, Kierkegaard notes that Christian martyrdom must spring from contending with the world, not suicidal resolve.17 However, some of the later entries get a bit more problematic on this front. in 1854, Kierkegaard writes: “the Christian must go out into the world in order to be sacrificed.”18 also in 1854, one entry appears to suggest that the apostles themselves had departed from the Christian ideal precisely because they did not go into the world with this intention.19 the reason for the change probably has something to do with Kierkegaard’s late view that Christianity regards martyrdom as a good “in and for itself,”20 as something having “intrinsic worth.”21 (4) Kierkegaard also distinguishes between the martyrdom of immediacy and the martyrdom of reflection.22 the temptation here is to regard the martyr of immediacy as a fraudulent martyr, but that does not appear to be what Kierkegaard means. Kierkegaard elsewhere distinguishes between “short-run martyrs” and “longdistance martyrs,”23 and he may intend something similar by the distinction between immediacy and reflection. The martyr of immediacy is always treated as an artifact of times when and places where Christianity was or is more obviously persecuted and being a Christian was or is “a matter of life and death.”24 with a sudden martyrdom, there is always a question of one’s relative impulsiveness. with a more protracted martyrdom of reflection, one’s sincerity is tested constantly, though the persecution is generally of a less overt or immediate sort. one suspects, for example, that st. thomas more’s martyrdom is an interesting hybrid of the two categories, and probably closer to the latter. it is no surprise that in his thoughts regarding this category it eventually becomes necessary for Kierkegaard to introduce the concept of a “bloodless martyrdom,” though it is doubtful that a martyrdom of reflection need be bloodless.25 At one point, Kierkegaard suggests that a martyr of reflection might even die from “spiritual over-exertion” and “soul-suffering,” though in order to qualify as a martyr of reflection, it seems unlikely that these will be privately induced.26 Kierkegaard also uses “the martyr,” “martyr of the future,” and “the missionary” somewhat interchangeably as variants for a sort of martyr of reflection, with which he seems to all but identify himself. this sort of martyr will know “the times from the bottom up” and “succeed in falling at the right spot” to assure that “his death wounds at the right spot.”27 SKS 21, 137, nb7:112 / JP 4, 3898. SKS 26, 331, nb34:20 / JP 4, 4057. 19 SKS 26, 183, nb32:94 / JP 4, 3836. 20 SKS 26, 95, nb31:126 / JP 3, 2665. 21 SKS 26, 331, nb34:20 / JP 4, 4057. 22 on this concept, in addition to the other entries cited, see SKS 27, 494–5, papir 419 / JP 3, 2646 and SKS 22, 405, nb14:101 / JP 4, 4457. 23 SKS 24, 48, nb21:69 / JP 3, 2661. 24 SKS 23, 417, nb20:46 / JP 3, 2659. 25 ibid. 26 ibid. 27 Pap. iX b 63:12 / JP 3, 2648 and Pap. iX b 63:13 / JP 3, 2649. 17 18

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(5) the martyrdom of laughter that Kierkegaard discusses, both in relation to himself,28 and in relation to his age of Christianity,29 is actually intended in a strict sense, even though it makes few appearances. Kierkegaard notes that “not everyone who suffers being laughed at, even for an idea, is therefore a martyr of laughter in the strict sense.”30 the idea seems to be that one needs to be able, through a “superlative sense of comedy,” to “direct the laughter” upon oneself, as Kierkegaard seems to think is the case with him.31 (6) Martyrdom of the numerical is a final term that appears, especially in relation to socrates.32 Kierkegaard does not develop this at length, but does suggest that Christianity fixes concepts with determinate meanings, whereas “in everything human lurks the transformation of concepts by numbers [of people].”33 the result, we are told, is that those who hold fast to Christianity’s views, especially concerning what Christianity is, will find that “it is outright martyrdom to break with the majority and the large audience who will immediately persecute the one who does.”34 (7) Kierkegaard’s understanding of his own life in relation to martyrdom is complex and perhaps inconsistent over time. at times, he claims he is not a martyr,35 at times he claims to have only the “most distant possible relation” to the historic martyrs of the Christian Church,36 and at times he claims that his is a martyrdom of reflection,37 and that this is a particularly stressful sort of martyrdom. we have seen that he also claims that he suffers a “martyrdom of laughter.” at length he seems to despair of categorizing his own martyrdom and simply says that it is of a “new type,”38 though this new description seems like a qualification of the martyrdom of reflection. we need to move from martyrdom’s usages to the factor necessary for martyrdom to occur in most of these senses, namely, persecution. in the pseudonyms, whose job it seems to be to chart something of a phenomenological course to Christian religiousness, we have seen that martyrdom is seen as a kind of inward and even epistemological fact. similarly, in the Postscript, Climacus notes that inward suffering is the real mark of religiousness, and that even the physical suffering visited upon the persecuted apostles did not count as true religious suffering.39 the Christian pseudonyms and the signed authorship treat the matter differently, as when this very same apostolic suffering is treated as “essential” suffering.40 this suggests that Kierkegaard himself, certainly in his later authorship, believed that external 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

SKS 21, 279, nb10:42 / JP 6, 6348. SKS 26, 294, nb33:51 / JP 3, 2993. SKS 21, 279, nb10:42 / JP 6, 6348. ibid. SKS 23, 78, nb15:112 / JP 4, 4277. SKS 26, 389, nb35:26 / JP 3, 3005. SKS 20, 152, nb2:29 / JP 2, 2148. SKS 22, 36–7, nb11:53 / JP 6, 6407. SKS 21, 359, nb10:191 / JP 6, 6389. SKS 21, 69, nb6:96 / JP 6, 6244. see also SKS 23, 417, nb20:46 / JP 3, 2659. SKS 26, 110, nb31:148 / JP 6, 6906. SKS 7, 411–12 / CUP1, 452–3. SKS 8, 217 / UD, 115.

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suffering is essential to Christian discipleship, a suggestion that is amply confirmed. thus, Kierkegaard writes, “if [Christianity] did exist in its truth, persecution would instantly follow upon this treason against what it is to be human.”41 indeed, Kierkegaard will go further and say “being a Christian is neither more nor less, without a doubt neither more nor less, than being a martyr; every Christian, that is, every true Christian, is a martyr.”42 thus, Kierkegaard thinks persecution will always travel with Christian faith. but why? why must Christian faith always be greeted with persecution as a matter of necessity, and not just historical circumstance? there are at least three different responses Kierkegaard will give to that question, which shows why he thinks the logic is so inexorable. The first response seems to be that there is a real conflict between what the world erroneously sees as being human and what the Christian knows is human.43 although this is controversial, the texts in question strongly support the claim that this conflict is generated by the renunciation of the world that Kierkegaard terms dying to,44 and that this is troublesome to the world in part because Kierkegaard unflinchingly presents his handiest exemplar of this as Abraham the patriarch in his near-sacrifice of Isaac.45 the “world” sees danger here, and if it understood itself, it would persecute those who esteem this as an element of Christianity. the other two responses Kierkegaard will give are more decidedly Christian. The first is scriptural: it is that Kierkegaard believes the necessity of persecution is simply what the new testament teaches.46 The final major response Kierkegaard gives is Christological. Kierkegaard holds that “Christ can never express something accidental,”47 and this is given as a reason to think that his persecution, and indeed, death, cannot be accidental.48 a somewhat speculative way to develop this would be to say that anything accidental in Christ goes to making him exceptional. but whatever in Christ is exceptional is not something that can be imitated by the ordinary run of humanity.49 if persecution is accidental, then it may be exceptional, but then the requirement for imitation is scaled back, and at this Kierkegaard will instinctively recoil. why does Kierkegaard sometimes make the stronger claim that being a martyr, in the garden-variety sense, is necessary for every true Christian? Kierkegaard’s denmark, of course, was not really in the business of persecuting Christians, so how could it be that martyrdom awaited them all? Kierkegaard’s first response to this is invariably that Christianity does not exist in truth, and so it is no surprise SKS 16, 194 / JFY, 141. SKS 20, 392, nb5:48 / JP 1, 481. see also SKS 21, 91, nb7:28 / JP 6, 6253. 43 SKS 16, 193 / JFY, 140. 44 SKS 16, 185 / JFY, 131. 45 SKS 13, 100–101 / FSE, 79. 46 Pap. Xi–3 b 58 / M, supplement, 480–1. 47 SKS 20, 156, nb2:37 / JP 1, 305. 48 even though Christ is not a martyr, because he is the truth to which martyrs witness (SKS 21, 278, nb10:41 / JP 3, 2651). 49 SKS 20, 53, nb:62 / JP 1, 1077 is of some help in motivating this extension of Kierkegaard’s position. 41 42

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that its impostor is not persecuted.50 press Kierkegaard still further, and ask if he really means that true Christians must be martyrs, since in the logical sense, while everyone could be a Christian, not everyone can be a martyr (someone will have to commit suicide or languish alone). to this, Kierkegaard will have an imagined god curtly respond “leave that to me.”51 indeed, anti-Climacus even relies on god’s foreknowledge to guarantee that this situation will not happen.52 when pressed very hard, however, anti-Climacus and Kierkegaard will concede that in the logical sense not everyone can be a martyr, but that at minimum one must experience a “martyrdom in possibility.”53 Finally, under what circumstances would one be permitted to undergo this suffering and death? this little noticed but important question is discussed at length by the pseudonym H.H., with whose views Kierkegaard was quite sympathetic,54 in his essay “does a Human being Have the right to let Himself be put to death for the truth?” H.H.’s surprising answer is that letting others become guilty in this way is almost never allowed. For even human persons (much less Christ) would only be saddened by opposition, and not directly contend with it unless necessary.55 H.H. notes that one must be concerned about one’s persecutors, and try to avoid staining their consciences with a murder unless this is absolutely unavoidable. the unavoidability comes when one is in absolute possession of the truth and must choose between compromising the truth or letting others become guilty of a murder.56 but letting them become so guilty, says H.H., is the “strongest expression of absolute superiority over others.”57 H.H. argues that the difference between Christians and “pagans” is absolute in this way, or the martyrs themselves are guilty (which he cannot accept).58 Yet a Christian, he claims, dare not take this position against her fellow Christian.59 if Kierkegaard accepts this, as it seems he does,60 it puts him in a curious position. if he claims that his persecutors are Christians, then he should not let himself be martyred by them. but if the ready explanation for the lack of persecution is always that Christianity does not exist, then it is not clear why martyrdom does not follow upon his own modest profession of Christianity. perhaps the thing to do at that point is simply to accept that most of us fall somewhere in between the martyr-saint that

SKS 23, 382, nb19:82 / JP 4, 4655. SKS 26, 422, nb36:23 / JP 3, 2668. 52 SKS 12, 216–18 / PC, 222. perhaps there is a logically possible world in which human beings are not sinful, but i do not think this sort of possibility concerns Kierkegaard. 53 SKS 12, 220–1 / PC, 226. see also SKS 22, 100, nb11:170 / JP 1, 504. 54 see SKS 22, 152, nb12:12 / JP 6, 6447. 55 SKS 11, 69 / WA, 63–4. 56 SKS 11, 87–8 / WA, 83. 57 SKS 11, 88 / WA, 84. 58 SKS 11, 90 / WA, 86. 59 SKS 11, 91 / WA, 86. 60 Consider Kierkegaard’s approval of st. basil’s remark at SKS 24, 276, nb23:143 / JP 1, 399, but then also consider the position of pascal and bernard if they were to defy the pope as Kierkegaard imagines at SKS 25, 482, nb30:119 / JP 2, 1930. 50 51

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Kierkegaard looks for and the hardened enemy of god, the good, and Christianity. at his better moments, i suspect Kierkegaard would agree. see also absolute; apostle; death; dying to/renunciation; exception/universal; suffering; suicide; witness.

mediation/sublation Jamie turnbull

Mediation (Mediation—noun); Sublation (Ophævelse—noun; ophæve—verb) the danish noun Mediation comes from medieval latin mediatio. it does not appear in the Ordbog over det danske Sprog,1 but it is in ludvig meyer’s Fremmedordbog, where it is listed as a synonym for the words Mellemkomst, Mægling, Forliig, Forbøn.2 these terms mean primarily mediation in the sense of mediating between parties in order to bring about an agreement or reconciliation. the danish word for sublation is Ophævelse, which comes from the verb ophæve.3 this did not really exist as a noun before Kierkegaard’s time, but it was rather an attempt to imitate in danish the german word Aufhebung, or in verbal form aufheben. Kierkegaard mentions this linguistic oddity in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript.4 as he notes with a play on words, Ophævelse usually means a swelling or something that is raised up. the philosophical use of the term came from german philosophy and was introduced into danish by Johan ludvig Heiberg.5 the closely related notions of mediation and sublation are central to Kierkegaard’s thought and are intimately connected to many other concepts in his work, such as his view of human reason, necessity, and contingency, and his conception of Christianity. mediation appears more frequently than sublation in Kierkegaard’s work, and so this will be the predominant focus of this article, which aims to give the reader an overview of the place and role that mediation plays in Kierkegaard’s thought, and so a sense of the importance of this concept to understanding Kierkegaard. i will begin by sketching a brief background to Kierkegaard’s fascination and concern with the concepts of mediation and sublation. Having done this, i will examine Kierkegaard’s treatment of mediation with respect to his concerns with the nature of human beings, the Christian-god relationship, and the relationship between philosophy and theology. as we shall see, these concerns are repeatedly evident in Kierkegaard’s Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56. 2 ludvig meyer, Fremmedordbog eller kortfattet Lexikon over fremmede, i det danske Skrift- og Omgangs-Sprog forkommende Ord, Kunstudtryk og Talemaader, 3rd ed. by F.p.J. dahl, Copenhagen: J.H. schubothes boghandling 1853, pp. 479–80. 3 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vol. 1, vol. 15, columns 841–7. 4 SKS 7, 202–3 / CUP1, 222. 5 see Heiberg’s Speculative Logic and Other Texts, ed. and trans. by Jon stewart, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 2006 (Texts from Golden Age Denmark, vol. 2), p. 50, § 15 and the corresponding note on pp. 242–3. 1

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remarks about mediation across his different treatments of it, which can be found in Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Kierkegaard’s concern with the notions of mediation and sublation stemmed from his interest in a debate about the nature of mediation and its consequences for Christian theology, which took place among some of the leading danish intellectual figures of his day. Kierkegaard followed this debate as a student6 and makes explicit reference to it in the Postscript.7 the debate itself originated from the reception of georg wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s criticisms of classical aristotelian logic and specifically from his criticism of the law of the excluded middle: that everything must either be p or not-p, and that there can be no third or intermediary state between them. in his criticism of this law, Hegel claims that it amounts to no more than an abstract identity, and that it is premised on an untenable notion of difference, in which the first term is merely contrasted with an abstract negation of itself. In contrast, Hegel claimed that genuine difference is that in which the first term is negated by a concrete and genuine other; and that in such cases a third, middle, or mediatory term is possible.8 in the danish reception of Hegel’s thought, debate ensued about how Hegel’s criticism of the law of the excluded middle applied to traditional Christian notions such as the doctrine of the incarnation and whether the notion of mediation could be considered a Christian principle.9 Hegel’s criticism of the law of excluded middle, and his alternative principle of mediation, sparked controversy in the danish context because it drew into question the notion of absolute difference; and, contrapositively, it suggested that apparently contradictory predicates might attach to one and the same subject. this criticism was controversial because it suggested that “god” and “man” are not absolutely different and mutually exclusive predicates, but might in principle attach to one and the same subject. this suggestion, if correct, had profound consequences for understanding the incarnation, Christology, the relationship between faith and reason, as well as the very identities of philosophy and theology. generally put, at issue in this debate are two views of the world. First, a world in which god and man exist in two different realms: in which man exists in this world and god (and what is of god) lies in a transcendent and supernatural world beyond, or over and above, our own. second, a world in which there is no transcendent, or supernatural, world beyond this one, but in which “god” and “man” describe different predicates of one and the same thing; a world that is both immanent and transcendent, both human and divine. put otherwise, at issue was the difference between a world in which divinity exists in a metaphysical realm beyond our own, and one in which “god” is a more secular and naturalistic expression of man himself. in this debate Kierkegaard adopts the position that a Hegelian logic of mediation cannot be applied to Christian doctrine, for to do so would corrupt the essence of see Jon stewart, “introduction,” to Mynster’s “Rationalism, Supernaturalism” and the Debate about Mediation, ed. and trans. by Jon stewart, Copenhagen: museum tusculanum press 2009 (Texts from Golden Age Denmark, vol. 5), p. 32. 7 SKS 7, 277 / CUP1, 305. 8 stewart, “introduction,” to Mynster’s “Rationalism, Supernaturalism,” p. 17. 9 ibid., p. 21. 6

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Christianity. where “mediation” or “sublation” appear in Kierkegaard’s work, these appearances often constitute claims or positions that he seeks to argue against, and so by paying attention to the claims made on behalf of them we can gain a general picture of the view that Kierkegaard takes issue with; and, by contrast, his own positive views. writing in a context in which he takes the difference between the above two world-views as divisive, and in seeking to defend the former, Kierkegaard charges the latter with corrupting the true nature of Christ, misrepresenting the theological nature of human beings, and distorting how human beings stand to each other qua Christians. against this background we can understand both Kierkegaard’s concerns with the concepts of mediation and sublation, as well as why such notions should be central to his attempt to defend, or reintroduce, Christianity to Christendom. For as the central operations of Hegelian reason and logic, Kierkegaard is concerned with exactly how mediation and sublation are supposed to function, whether they can be applied to Christian theology and the theological natures of human beings and, if not, precisely where their limits of application lie. one of Kierkegaard’s main concerns with the application of the concept of mediation to Christian doctrine is that it is thought to make the incarnation a matter of necessity. in tracing the historical movement of thought and reality in terms of a logic of mediation, the incarnation is conceived as a point or moment at which reality achieved a certain level of self-consciousness. in this the incarnation is held to be necessary simply in virtue of the internal relations between the concepts involved (which implies that it has nothing to do with the actions of a transcendent god sending his son to save mankind).10 in this way Kierkegaard also complains that while mediation makes the incarnation a matter of necessity, it also makes it accidental (because it implies that human beings can reach this level of consciousness independently of Christianity—that is, merely by tracing the movement of reason, and independently of the intervention of a transcendent god). For Kierkegaard conceiving of the incarnation as a matter of necessity in this way corrupts our understanding of the nature of Christ, the theological nature of human beings, as well as the nature of Christianity itself. For if the incarnation can be understood in terms of the principle of mediation, and as such conceived to be necessary, then it is simply tautological to hold that Christ was both god and man. moreover, given that Christ is merely the point in the movement of thought at which reality becomes conscious of itself as both human and divine, then to conceive of Christ as necessarily both god and man in this fashion is to make it tautologically true that both reality as such and human beings per se partake of both humanity and divinity in the same way. the problem with applying mediation to the incarnation for Kierkegaard is that it appears to make the person and individuality of Christ accidental to Christianity. For if it is tautological that Christ is god, and the incarnation merely a point in history at which human beings recognized that their own nature is divine, then one can come to stand in relation to Christ (and fulfill one’s own nature as a Christian) simply 10 on this point see Jon stewart, A History of Hegelianism in Golden Age Denmark, tome ii, The Martensen Period: 1837–1842, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 2007, p. 331.

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by becoming conscious of the incarnation. one does this simply in the process of becoming a conscious and acculturated member of a rational and Christian society, and so in virtue of coming into relation to Christ qua man. in this picture of what it is to stand in the correct relation to god, and become a Christian, Christ plays no continuing and active role as an agent of forgiveness and salvation. simply being born into a Christian society and culture are thought ipso facto to make one a Christian. “Christian” obtains simply in virtue of certain cognitive and societal relations obtaining, and wholly independently of coming into relationship with a transcendent god through a relationship of faith and grace in Jesus Christ. the consequences of applying the principle of mediation to Christology for Kierkegaard are the reduction of Christ’s divinity to his humanity, the reduction of “Christian” to human nature, and the reduction of Christianity to human culture. For Kierkegaard, in contrast, Christ is not a tautology but an absolute paradox. while it is true that one comes into relation to Christ qua man in virtue of history, culture, and society, this is a necessary but not a sufficient condition of becoming a Christian. to be a Christian one has to respond to the Christian message, Christ’s claim to be god, in either faith or offense; and if in faith, then one must receive the gift of grace from a transcendent god. thus while mediation makes the person and individuality of Christ accidental to Christianity, in Kierkegaard’s alternative conception Christ is required to play a necessary and continuing intermediary though non-mediatory role between man and god. Having outlined a general overview of the role that the concept of mediation plays in Kierkegaard’s thought, let us look at the main treatments of the concept in Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. as already mentioned, what unites these different treatments is a concern with necessity, the consequences of mediation for the Christian-god relationship, as well as its significance for the relationship between philosophy and theology. In Either/ Or, Part Two we find the Judge proposing a conception of the scope and limits of mediation in terms of a two-world view (“the spheres of thought and freedom”). this is simultaneously a view of the limitations of logical necessity and of philosophy (which applies to the sphere of thought, but not to that of freedom). For “[t]he spheres with which philosophy properly has to deal, the spheres proper to thought, are logic, nature, and history. Here necessity rules, and therefore mediation has its validity.”11 in contrast, “[p]hilosophy has nothing at all to do with what could be called the inner deed, but the inner deed is the true life of freedom. philosophy considers the external deed.”12 “the inner deed” escapes the necessity of thought and mediation, and so is not a sphere with which philosophy has to deal. a focus on the ability of philosophy to understand the deeds of the individual also lies at the heart of the remarks on mediation found in Fear and Trembling. the issue in this text is with applying the concept of mediation to the pre-incarnation figure of Abraham, and specifically God’s command to him to kill his son, and the universality and intelligibility that result. as absolute, god’s command to abraham to kill isaac relativizes his ethical duty not to murder him. For “[t]he story of abraham 11 12

SKS 3, 170 / EO2, 174 (my emphasis). ibid.

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contains…a teleological suspension of the ethical. as the single individual he became higher than the universal. This is the paradox, which cannot be mediated.”13 in virtue of his immediate and essentially first-person relationship to God, Abraham’s ethical status is relativized or “suspended.” the issue, then, is with whether the necessity of mediation might be applied to the figure of Abraham, the suggestion being that he cannot be incorporated into, or understood in terms of, a logic of mediation. the point of contention in examining abraham is whether his relationship to god (the absolute) is mediated by the universal, which is to say by the domain of what is public, rational, and in principle intelligible to us all, or whether his god relation is essentially private and incommensurable with the universal. in other words, in dispute is whether abraham can be encompassed under the domain of societal and ethical relations, or whether he transgresses them in the name of a higher end. “the paradox of faith, then, is this: that the single individual is higher than the universal, that the single individual…determines his relation to the universal by his relation to the absolute, not his relation to the absolute by his relation to the universal.”14 if abraham’s duty to god is absolute “then the ethical is reduced to the relative…. This is the paradox that cannot be mediated.”15 abraham’s relation to god cannot be understood in terms of the mediatory power of human reason, and so he must remain an object of faith. In the final chapter of the Postscript, “the issue in Fragments,” Kierkegaard returns to the matter of the “teleological suspension of the ethical” of Fear and Trembling (or the relation between human being and god, and human being and human being)—although this time in the guise of the absolute relation to the absolute telos. we read: it may be very commendable for a particular individual to be a councilor of justice, a good worker in the office, no. 1 lover in the society…a noble and respected father―in short, a devil of a fellow who can both–and and has time for everything. but let the councilor take care that he does not become too much a devil of a fellow and proceed to do both all this and have time to direct his life toward the absolute τέλος.16

the phrase “both–and” is a reference to the combining power of mediation. in portraying this “devil of a fellow” the target is what is taken to be a logical consequence of mediation: the idea that the absolute relation to the absolute (an individual’s relation to god) might be conceived of on the same scale as other social relations; indeed, that what it is to be Christian might be reducible to a matter of social role. on this point the Postscript proposes a distinction to limit the scope of mediation (in a similar fashion to the Judge in Either/Or, part two). For “[w]hen it is a matter of relative elements, mediation can have its significance (that they are all equal before mediation), but when it is a matter of the absolute τέλος, mediating means that the absolute τέλος is reduced to a relative τέλος.”17 13 14 15 16 17

SKS 4, 159 / FT, 66. SKS 4, 162 / FT, 70. ibid. SKS 7, 365 / CUP1, 401. SKS 7, 364 / CUP1, 400.

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Kierkegaard spends a significant portion of the Postscript discussing the relationship between the mediation of speculative thought and Christianity, and whether Christian doctrine can be accounted for by “Christian speculative thought.”18 once again, the concept of mediation is closely related to the question of the boundary or distinction between philosophy and theology and whether the concept of mediation allows human reason and philosophy the ability to understand and explain the truth of revelation. it is in regard to the explanatory power of speculative thought that the Postscript also remarks upon sublation, or the Aufhebung of the concept. Specifically, Kierkegaard asks, “Does explaining something mean to annul it? i do know that the word aufheben has various, indeed opposite, meanings in the german language.”19 in answering this question, and commenting upon the equivocal nature of Aufhebung, Kierkegaard suggests that the proposed sublation of the essence of Christianity by the concept does nothing to preserve its essence or meaning, but rather wholly negates it. see also absolute; absurd; approximation; atonement/reconciliation; Concrete/ abstract; Contradiction; dialectic; exception/universal; identity/difference; immanence/transcendence; logic; necessity; paradox; philosophy/philosophers; Qualitative difference; speculation/science/scholarship; teleological suspension of the ethical; transition; understanding/Comprehension/Confusion.

18 19

SKS 7, 344 / CUP1, 378. SKS 7, 202 / CUP1, 222.

melancholy steven m. emmanuel

Melancholy (Melancholi—noun; Tungsind—noun) the danish word Melancholi derives from the late latin melancholia, based on the ancient greek medical term μελαγχολία (formed of μελαν-, “black,” and χολή, “bile”). Hippocrates used the term to describe a condition characterized by irascibility and depression, believing that these symptoms were caused by an excess of black bile in the body. in english translations of Kierkegaard, “melancholy” answers to two closely related danish words: Melancholi and Tungsind. Christian molbech, in his 1833 danish lexicon, treats these words as synonyms denoting sadness or a burdened mind.1 However, contemporary danish lexicographers treat them as etymologically distinct terms with overlapping meanings. Tungsind (from the danish tung, “heavy,” “sad”; sind, “mind”) is defined as a prolonged or recurring mental state, which may be characterized by sadness, depression, despair, despondency, hopelessness, or melancholy.2 the danish etymological dictionary notes that Tungsind is comparable to the german Schwermut.3 there is a discernible pattern in Kierkegaard’s deployment of these terms. He tends to use Tungsind in descriptions of his own psychological and religious development, as well as when discussing his relationship to his father or the events surrounding his broken engagement to regine olsen. in these contexts, Tungsind often points beyond mere sadness or low mood, describing something closer to clinical depression. while the word Melancholi is sometimes also used in these contexts, it has a separate and more specialized use in discussions of music and in poetic descriptions of mood and atmosphere.4 Here it carries the same sense as the danish Veemod, which means “sadness” but is sometimes rendered in english

Christian molbech, Dansk Ordbog, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1833, vol. 2, p. 28 and p. 541. 2 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 24, column 1056. Cf. the entry for Melankoli, vol. 13, columns 1233–4. 3 Dansk Etymologisk Ordbog, 4th ed., ed. by niels Åge nielsen, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1966, p. 466. 4 see, for example, SKS 2, 385 / EO1, 397; SKS 2, 422 / EO1, 435; SKS 17, 9, aa:1 / JP 5, 5094; SKS 17, 43, aa:23 / JP 3, 3551. 1

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translation as “melancholy.” thus: “Here around lake gurre there rests a quiet melancholy [Veemod]; the region lives, so to speak, more in the past.”5 when employed to describe a psychological state, Melancholi is more suggestive of a deeply reflective mood than a mental disorder. In this context it is associated, for example, with Romantic longing: sadness at the fleeting nature of youth and beauty,6 nostalgia for the past, or a sense of dissatisfaction with the present.7 english translations vary, sometimes widely, in the way they attempt to capture the nuances of Kierkegaard’s usage. For instance, the Hongs translate a line in Either/Or, part one as follows: “my depression [Tungsind] is the most faithful mistress i have known; no wonder, then, that i return the love.”8 However, david and lillian swenson9 and alastair Hannay10 render the key term in that passage as “melancholy.” subtleties of connotation are especially evident in cases where both terms are used in the same sentence. in Either/Or, part one, the Hongs give us the following: “grief and pain do not have the implicit contradiction characteristic of melancholy [Melancholi] and depression [Tungsindighed].”11 but swenson renders the same passage as “sorrow and pain have not the contradiction in them which is characteristic of melancholy [Melancholi] and heaviness [Tungsindighed].”12 melancholy is a prominent theme in Kierkegaard’s private writings, where he refers to it variously as the “quiet despair,” the “eternal night,” and his “thorn in the flesh.” From these writings we learn that melancholy was decisive in his early development, and to some extent defined the trajectory of his life and career. “My life began,” he observes, “with a frightful melancholy [Tungsind], basically disturbed from earliest childhood, a melancholy which plunged me into sin and dissipation for a time, and yet, humanly speaking, almost more deranged than guilty.”13 though Kierkegaard described his melancholy as a “misrelation” between mind and body, he did not regard it as an affliction of the spirit. Having consulted with a physician, who declared it impossible to “convert or transform this misrelation by willing it,”14 Kierkegaard resigned himself to bearing it as his “thorn in the flesh, my limitation, my cross.”15 eventually he came to view his melancholy in a providential light. He believed that god had endowed him with a “mental-spiritual”16 capacity unequalled among his contemporaries. the agony of his melancholy was meant to serve, on the one hand, as a check to his ego, and on the other, as a motivation SKS 17, 11, aa:1 / JP 5, 5095. SKS 2, 385 / EO1, 397; SKS 2, 422 / EO1, 435. 7 SKS 3, 290 / EO2, 307. 8 SKS 2, 29 / EO1, 20. 9 Either/Or, part one, trans. by david F. and lillian marvin swenson, princeton, new Jersey: princeton university press 1971, p. 20. 10 Either/Or: A Fragment of Life, abridged and translated by alastair Hannay, london: penguin books 1992, p. 44. 11 SKS 2, 82 / EO1, 76–7. 12 Either/Or, part one, trans. by swenson, p. 75. 13 SKS 20, 363, nb4:159 / JP 5, 6135. 14 SKS 20, 36–7, nb:34 / JP 5, 5913. 15 ibid. 16 ibid. 5 6

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to devote himself, in the manner of a religious penitent, to serving the truth of Christianity.17 Kierkegaard attributed the depth of his melancholy to a combination of congenital factors and religious upbringing: From the very beginning i have been in the power of a congenital mental depression. if i had been brought up in an ordinary way—well, it stands to reason that i then would hardly have become so melancholy [tungsindig].…but familiar as i was in the very beginning with the Christian concept of the thorn in the flesh, that such things are part and parcel of being Christian—i discovered that there was nothing to be done, and in any case my depression found acceptance in this entire outlook.18

melancholy was the secret pain Kierkegaard shared with his father. in a journal entry dated 1844 we find an ostensibly autobiographical story about a father and son who were “two of the most melancholy [tungsindigste] human beings who ever lived in the memory of man.”19 one day the father turned to the son and said: “poor child, you live in quiet despair.”20 That was the first and only time the subject was ever broached between them. tragically, each one believed he was responsible for the other’s melancholy. Kierkegaard interprets the father’s remark as an outburst of his own melancholy.21 this entry, written under the heading “Quiet despair, a narrative,” later appears as part of Frater taciturnus’ imaginary construction in “‘guilty?’ / ‘not guilty?’”22 After his father’s death, Kierkegaard turned in earnest to God, affirming his trust in god’s unconditional love but “blessedly assured” that his melancholy would forever be his cross to bear.23 it was his melancholic disposition that Kierkegaard cited as the reason for calling off his engagement to regine olsen. according to his account of the matter, however, he also went to great lengths to conceal this reason from her: “i would have had to initiate her into terrible things, my relationship to my father, his melancholy, the eternal night brooding within me.”24 alongside his problematic relationship with regine and persistent concerns about money, Kierkegaard cited melancholy among the major reasons for becoming an author.25 indeed, he suggests that it shaped his mode of production as a writer:

ibid. SKS 23,193–4, nb17:45 / JP 6, 6603. Kierkegaard did not equate Christianity with melancholy. as he explains elsewhere: “Christianity certainly is not melancholy [Tungsind]— on the contrary, it is the glad news for those who are melancholy. it certainly is not glad news for the thoughtless and light-minded; it wants first of all to make them earnest” (SKS 20, 225, nb2:219 / JP 3, 2689). 19 SKS 18, 212–13, JJ:226 / JP 1, 745. 20 ibid. 21 ibid. 22 SKS 6, 187 / SLW, 199–200. 23 SKS 20, 360, nb4:158 / JP 5, 6135. 24 SKS 18, 177, JJ:115 / JP 5, 5664. see also SKS 19, 229, not8:15 / JP 5, 5517. 25 SKS 20, 357, nb4:152 / JP 5, 6132. 17 18

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Steven M. Emmanuel i am submerged in the deepest suffering of despondency, so tied up in mental knots that i cannot get free, and since it is all connected with my personal life i suffer indescribably. and then after a short time, like an abscess it comes to a head and breaks—and inside is the loveliest and richest creativity—and the very thing i must use at the moment.26

despite his view of divine providence, Kierkegaard still at times expressed the hope that he could possibly overcome his melancholy. in an entry dated 1847 he worries that his writing has become an obstacle to his spiritual progress. He declares that he must put off the impulse to travel or to start a new book and instead try to find myself and, here where I am, to think through the idea of my melancholy together with god. in this way my melancholy may be lifted and Christianity may come closer to me. up to now i have armed myself against my depression with intellectual activity which keeps it away—now, in the faith that god has forgotten in forgiveness whatever guilt i have, i must try to forget it myself, but not in any diversion…but in god.27

in another entry from the same year, Kierkegaard notes that his melancholy (Tungsind) expressed itself in a form of self-alienation that led him to take refuge in a world of imagination; and that this was partially what he was working out in the pseudonyms. in his melancholy he was merely “related to possibility.”28 by trying to find himself in God, Kierkegaard believed that he could move beyond possibility to confront the actuality of his guilt, and thereby experience the fullness of god’s forgiveness. He entertained this hope as late as 1848: “now, by the help of god, i shall become myself. i now believe that Christ will help me to triumph over my melancholy, and then i shall become a pastor.”29 in the published writings, Tungsind and Melancholi do some important conceptual work. in Either/Or, part one, for example, the aesthete is portrayed as a melancholic figure whose existence is defined by the category of possibility. The aesthete militates against the idea of a life bound by rules and commitments. sensuous pleasure is the highest goal, while boredom and routine are to be avoided at all costs. indeed, the fear of boredom is the very source of the aesthete’s creativity. where the limits of creative powers are reached, there is only despair. in the end it is this despair that the aesthete fears and from which he seeks to liberate himself. but because he cannot outrun despair, the aesthete clings to melancholy and is eventually consumed by it. in Stages on Life’s Way, melancholy (Tungsind) is specifically described as the concentration (Fortættelse) of possibility.30 in the second volume of Either/Or, Judge william connects Tungsind with the deep sense of unrest one experiences at failing to become a self: “what, then, is depression [Tungsind]? it is hysteria of the spirit.”31 as the Judge explains, depression is a sign of the ripening of immediacy: the spirit’s need to move from immediacy to 26 27 28 29 30 31

SKS 21, 48, nb6:65 / JP 6, 6230. SKS 20, 194–6, nb2:136 / JP 5, 6043. SKS 20, 27, nb:141 / JP 5, 5980. SKS 20, 357, nb4:152 / JP 5, 6132. SKS 6, 393 / SLW, 424. SKS 3, 183 / EO2, 188.

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something higher, to gather itself out its dispersion and relate to itself as spirit. “the personality,” he says, “wants to become conscious in its eternal validity.”32 if this does not happen, then the consequence is depression. Unlike sorrow or worry, which have specific objects that can be articulated, depression (Tungsind) does not have clear boundaries: “if a depressed person is asked…what it is that weighs [tynge] on him, he will answer: i do not know; i cannot explain it. therein lies the limitlessness of depression.”33 However, while sorrow remains even after its source has been identified, the Judge notes that depression may be lifted as soon as one recognizes its cause. properly understood, the sickness of depression is sin: “but depression is sin, is actually a sin instar omnium [that stands for all], for it is the sin of not willing deeply and inwardly, and this is a mother of all sins.”34 depression is a manifestation of the sin of not willing to be a true self. as soon as the decisive movement toward selfhood takes place, as soon as one chooses oneself, “the depression is essentially canceled”35—though not completely so, according to Judge william, since there will always be a residual trace of depression due to hereditary sin, which prevents a human being from ever becoming completely transparent to himself.36 in The Sickness unto Death, melancholy is associated first with a form of despair defined as losing oneself in possibility: “Melancholically enamored, the individual pursues one of anxiety’s possibilities, which finally leads him away from himself so that he is a victim of anxiety or a victim of that about which he was anxious lest he be overcome.”37 However, even where the individual fully confronts the reality of sin, there is the danger that he will at this most critical moment sink into the deepest despair, clinging to his sin in the selfish belief that God’s forgiveness is not possible.38 it is for this reason, as Kierkegaard observes in his self-diagnosis, that the possibility of overcoming melancholy depends on coming to terms with the actuality of sin, together with complete acceptance of god’s forgiveness and grace. see also actuality; anxiety; despair; mood/emotion/Feeling; trial/test/tribulation.

32 33 34 35 36 37 38

SKS 3, 183 / EO2, 189. ibid. SKS 3, 183 / EO2, 189. SKS 3, 184 / EO2, 189. SKS 3, 184 / EO2, 190. SKS 11, 153 / SUD, 37 SKS 11, 224 / SUD, 112

metaphor Frances maughan-brown

Metaphor (Metaphor—noun; overføre—verb) the noun Metaphor is derived from the latin metaphora, taken from the greek μεταφορά (formed of μετά, “over, beyond,” and φορά, “carrying”). its lexical meaning in Danish is “a transferred figural expression.”1 the verb overføre is derived from the german überführen. its lexical meaning in danish is the action by which one changes place or relation or finds new use for something; a qualification of this sense is the action of convincing someone (conveying some idea to them). it can also mean to transport to a different place, particularly by water.2 in the middle of Works of Love, in the essay “love builds up,” Kierkegaard makes a striking analysis of metaphor. “all human speech, even the divine speech of Holy scripture, about the spiritual is essentially metaphorical [overført, carried over] speech.”3 there are not many places in which Kierkegaard claims anything about metaphor explicitly, and so the statement that all speech about the spirit is metaphorical is particularly dramatic. what Kierkegaard means by the metaphorical, or what Kierkegaard’s concept of metaphor is, however, is not immediately clear. to start with, Kierkegaard does not use the danish word Metaphor in this passage.4 instead he uses overført Tale—“carried over” or “transferred” speech or discourse. this linguistic transport is the concept that will form the root of a theory of metaphor in Kierkegaard; but we will have to look to his metaphors themselves too, of course, and to his analysis of them. Kierkegaard’s characterization of metaphorical speech as “secret” will frustrate any attempt to explain the overført directly, and so this article will reach to another signed text— For Self-Examination—and the metaphor of a letter from the beloved. reading metaphor, i suggest, is really to read the love letter.

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 13, columns 1406–7. 2 ibid., vol. 15, columns 1445–7. 3 SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209. 4 His use of the noun Metaphor is extremely rare: it appears in a passage describing lessing’s use of the word “leap” (SKS 7, 97 / CUP1, 98) and once in a journal entry stating that claims to “have gone beyond Hegel” should be “regarded as a bold metaphor” (SKS 17, 262, dd:141 / KJN 1, 252). 1

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I. Handling metaphor in philosophy means starting with aristotle, who (“in his immortal Poetics”5) characterizes metaphor as “the application of a noun,6 which properly applies to something else. the transfer may be from genus to species, from species to genus, from species to species, or by analogy.”7 this aristotelian “transfer”—ἐπιφορά—is what argues so convincingly for the translation of Kierkegaard’s danish word overført by “metaphor.” metaphor is exactly a linguistic carrying-over: but the question is by what means or, how this carrying-over happens. the most important mechanism for aristotle is the last mentioned here, analogy, in which a resemblance is discovered between two expressions, such as life’s “old age” and the day’s “evening”: thus “old age is to life as evening is to the day; so one may speak of evening as the old age of the day (as empedocles does).”8 aristotle goes on to say: “the most important thing is to be good at using metaphor. this is the one thing that cannot be learned from someone else, and is a sign of natural talent; for the successful use of metaphor is a matter of perceiving similarities.”9 but this notion of analogy does not seem to be present in Kierkegaard’s concept, nor is it replaced by anything else. “perceiving similarities” is not mentioned anywhere in the passage which declares that all speech about the spirit is metaphorical. instead Kierkegaard explains, the transfer happens by an “awakening” of the speaking person. No one starts out as spirit; the first “portion” of our life is lived sensate-psychically and spirit only comes as an awakening: But this first portion is not to be cast aside when the spirit awakens….On the contrary, the first portion is taken over [overtage] by the spirit and, used in this way, is thus made the basis—it becomes the metaphorical. therefore, in one sense the spiritual person and the sensate-psychical person say the same thing; yet there is an infinite difference, since the latter has no intimation of the secret of the metaphorical words although he is using the same words, but not in their metaphorical sense. there is a world of difference between the two; the one has made the transition [Overgang] or let himself be carried over [føre over] to the other side, while the other remains on this side; yet they have the connection that both are using the same words.10 SKS 4, 173 / FT, 83. aristotle makes the noun the key element in metaphor, whereas Kierkegaard moves without remark between “words,” “phrases” and “discourse” as we have already seen. paul ricoeur, in The Rule of Metaphor, places great importance on the shift from a theory of metaphor whose element is the word to one which deals in discourse, and perhaps a more detailed analysis of Kierkegaard’s concept of metaphor would be able to invoke ricoeur to make greater sense of the claim: all speech about the spirit is metaphorical (paul ricoeur, The Rule of Metaphor, trans. by robert Czerny, toronto: university of toronto press 1977). 7 aristotle, Poetics, trans. by malcolm Heath, london: penguin 1996, section 57b. all references to aristotle’s Poetics are to this edition. 8 ibid. to call analogy a matter of resemblance is to over-simplify the matter, as it is to call it simply the most important means of transfer, but there is no space here for a detailed reading of aristotle, who nevertheless provides a basic theory of metaphor and one with which countless later philosophers and theorists have begun. 9 aristotle, Poetics, 59a. 10 SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209. 5 6

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the transfer, the carrying-over, is from the sensate-psychical to the spirit. but before it is a matter of words, it is a matter of the person herself: the spirit awakens in a person, it takes her over, takes over the sensate-psychical, carries it over. our sensatepsychical life is “transported” into the spiritual as the spiritual awakens within us. our sensate-psychical life becomes metaphorical. so our words about the sensatepsychical are carried over and take on a carried-over sense: they become metaphors. aristotle’s theory of metaphor, and those which have followed his, have been theories about words. so calling the sensate-psychical itself metaphorical is not easy to assimilate (except perhaps metaphorically!). However it does explain the transfer when it comes to language: a person speaking sensate-psychically uses a word to mean something, and a person speaking metaphorically (which we may take to be synonymous with “spiritually”) uses the same word to mean something different. the transfer of meaning happens by a spiritual awakening. that seems reasonable at first: some novels, for instance, one picks up too early, and years later the novel may be a surprising source of pleasure. what had been closed to youth unfolds, in the same words, beautiful worlds. Kierkegaard says “the secret lies in [the language of the spirit’s] using the same word as the child and the simpleminded person but using them metaphorically.”11 only once we are of age will we be able to understand metaphor, only with an awakening to spirit. there seems to be a strong case for arguing that spiritual awakening is for Kierkegaard “the one thing that cannot be learned from someone else,” so he must agree with aristotle then that being good at making metaphors is not the kind of thing that can be taught. but Kierkegaard’s reason appears to be quite different. metaphor is not a matter of “natural talent…for perceiving similarities.”12 the two accounts diverge here, perhaps irreconcilably. For aristotle, analogy is what makes the metaphor move, the ἐπιφορά is a matter of resemblance. For Kierkegaard, the carrying-over is a matter of awakening. but the awakening does not describe any linguistic mechanism of transfer, it just shows the transfer itself. For aristotle, there is one noun, used in two places, and the displacement from the proper place to the other place is made by resemblance. “lion,” for instance, is used of huge felines with sandy bellies, and also of heroic men: the displacement, the transfer, works because the men in their courage resemble the cats. Kierkegaard does not explain any mechanism for transfer from one meaning to the next, but he just stipulates that the condition for speaking—and hearing—metaphorically, is spiritual awakening. but the matter is still more severe: Kierkegaard not only gives no account of the means of transfer, but he also suggests that it is something we cannot account for: “Just as the spirit is invisible, so also is its language a secret.”13 Confronted ibid. see note 8. 13 SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209–10. Vanessa rumble writes about this passage: “literal and metaphorical meaning are to be understood as simply disparate; no analogy draws us from the one to the other. not only are the psychical and spiritual ‘roots’ of metaphor posited as unrelated to one another…but the power of metaphor to simultaneously reveal two disparate realms is denied to those lacking prior acquaintance with the spiritual. spiritual meaning is said to be 11

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with such a concept of metaphor, metaphor as secret, hermeneutics reaches its limit, interpretation flails. The capacity to make metaphor cannot be taught, but neither can metaphor, once made, be explained: its meaning is hidden, the transfer, the overført is existential not linguistic and so “unrecognizable to all except the initiates of the spirit.”14 II. Kierkegaard says “all speech about the spiritual…is metaphorical speech” at the beginning of the discourse “love builds up.”15 this discussion of metaphor precedes and introduces an instance of metaphor. in fact it purports to have as its aim just our preparation (as the readers) for (what might otherwise be considered merely an example) the phrase “love builds up.” insofar as this phrase is about the spiritual, it is metaphorical. but we will see that the metaphor is not terribly secret—or, at least, it can be revealed and is revealed by Kierkegaard himself in his explication of the phrase in its carried-over sense. “Love builds up,” says Kierkegaard. He asks, to begin with, what this means sensate-psychically. presumably he investigates the sensate-psychical only in order to help understand the spiritual sense: but if this is the case, the transfer from literal to figurative, what is overført from sensate-psychical to spiritual, would be recognizable and analyzable rather than secret. ordinary speech talks not of building up by love, Kierkegaard says, but of building up by bricks: we “build up” a house when we build it from the ground up (not when we add on, not when we build down, as in sinking a well). He adds, when we build up a house, it must have solid foundations—“we dig deep”—he says, in order to build up.16 Kierkegaard proceeds (as we would expect if he had not called the overført hidden) to explain how we are to interpret the metaphor of the building up of a house from sturdy foundations: “but what, in the spiritual sense, is the ground and foundation of the spiritual life that is to bear the building? it is love.”17 love is the building we are to build, love is the process of building up, love is the foundation on which the building is secured. we love by presupposing love in others—the presupposed love is the foundation. the building that is built up in others is the love they feel, the new love they build, when we presuppose love in them. Kierkegaard explains the working of the metaphor in terms of resemblance and difference, invoking aspects of house building from the builder’s materials to his satisfaction with his work:

metaphor’s hidden secret. but metaphoricity itself is then hidden, suppressed, unrecognizable to all except the initiates of the spirit.” see her “the Christian ideal in Kierkegaard’s Works of Love,” in The New Kierkegaard: Continental Readings of Søren Kierkegaard, ed. by elsebet Jegstrup. bloomington: indiana university press 2004, p. 7. 14 rumble, “the Christian ideal,” p. 7. 15 SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209. 16 SKS 9, 214 / WL, 211. 17 SKS 9, 218 / WL, 215.

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a builder gives little thought to the stones and the gravel he is to use for the building… but someone who loves has only one course of action, to presuppose love….a person can be tempted to be a builder…because this seems to be ruling over others; but to build up the way love does cannot tempt, because this means to be the one who serves….the master builder can point to his work and say “this is my work”…but love that builds up has nothing to point to, since its work consists only of presupposing.18

although Kierkegaard does not say at any point explicitly “this is how the metaphor works,” or “you see here the resemblance, here the difference,” his discussion is certainly an interpretation in these terms. building up a house in bricks and mortar is a metaphor for the spiritual up-building of a person through love. we have quoted Kierkegaard saying: “in one sense the spiritual person and the sensate-psychical person say the same thing; yet there is an infinite difference, since the latter has no intimation of the secret of the metaphorical words, although he is using the same words.”19 the example is: in ordinary language a house is built up (“so it is with the expression in the literal sense”), and in the “metaphorical expression” we find that “ ‘to build up’ is exclusively characteristic of love.”20 as Kierkegaard shows by his meticulous comparison between the one who builds with love, and the house-builder, the movement between these two senses can be demonstrated. it is a poor secret if it is one that can be kept or given away by scholars of rhetoric, assistant professors, and paragraph gobblers. we have to ask then whether we are too quick to assume that the demonstration, the discourse, really helps us move from ordinary language to language of the spirit: whether we have really heard the metaphor, simply by reading the essay. III. if we take Kierkegaard seriously when he says that metaphorical language is secret, and the tone of Works of Love seems to demand this seriousness, we have to look again for the secret. “all human speech, even the divine speech of Holy scripture, about the spiritual is essentially metaphorical [overført, carried over] speech.”21 one place we might look is at Holy scripture, or at Kierkegaard’s account of how we are to read Holy scripture.22 this passage from Works of Love suggests that Kierkegaard instructs us to read the bible metaphorically as “metaphorical speech.” However, SKS 9, 220 / WL, 217. SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209. 20 SKS 9, 215 / WL, 212. 21 SKS 9, 212 / WL, 209. 22 This section is not intended as an argument for a definitive characterization of the secret in Kierkegaard’s concept of metaphor. instead it is a gesture towards one of very many places one might reach to for help in Kierkegaard’s writings. another place would have been, for instance, the essay on the difference between the genius and the apostle: SKS 11, 95 / WA, 93. Jamie lorentzen presents a different way of approaching the problem in his very convincing account of the literalization of metaphor: Jamie lorentzen, Kierkegaard’s Metaphors, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2001. see particularly “enacting Collisions of the self,” ibid., pp. 121–72. 18 19

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there are indications in both the pseudonymous and the signed works that this claim is too quick.23 in For Self-Examination, another signed work, Kierkegaard presents us with a “metaphor”24 for Holy scripture: a letter has come to a lover from his beloved… i assume, then, that this letter from the beloved is written in a language that the lover does not understand, and there is no one around who can translate it for him, and perhaps he would not even want any such help lest a stranger be initiated into his secrets. what does he do? He takes a dictionary, begins to spell his way through the letter, looks up every word in order to obtain a translation. let us assume that, as he sits there busy with his task, an acquaintance comes in. He knows that this letter has come, because he sees it on the table, sees it lying there, and says, “well, so you are reading a letter from your beloved”—what do you think he will say? He answers, “Have you gone mad? do you think this is reading a letter from my beloved! no, my friend, i am sitting here toiling and moiling with a dictionary to get it translated.”25

reading the letter is not the same as translating it, interpreting it, checking its every word. reading is not at all the same as this “toiling and moiling”! Kierkegaard proceeds to draw the lesson in relation to Holy scripture: “if you happen to be a scholar, then please do see to it that in all this learned reading (which is not reading god’s word) you do not forget to read god’s word.”26 what is the second reading, the reading that happens after translation? this is the reading of speech about the spirit, metaphorical speech. but is the translation in this story what is “carried-over,” what is overført? will translation be what initiates someone into the lover’s secrets, as Kierkegaard suggests here? surely not, if it is just moil and toil, and if anyway those who are not obsessed by “learned reading,” those who are not scholars, can skip it altogether and get straight to the reading itself!27 if the beloved requested something, Kierkegaard says, the lover must rush out immediately and do it: whether he understood what she wanted correctly or not is far less important than that he leap up and do it. “so, then, with regard to the letter from his beloved, the lover made a distinction between reading and reading; moreover, he understood reading to mean that if the letter contained a wish, one should begin to comply at once; there was not a second to waste.”28 perhaps then we may say that to read Holy scripture, which is metaphorical (and so to read the metaphorical in general), we must “begin to comply at once.” then the secret in the metaphor still is not a matter of analogy, but see, for instance, Johannes de silentio’s comment that luke’s awful command to hate even yourself must not just be explained away (SKS 4, 164 / FT, 72). see also the discourse on “every good gift” (SKS 5, 129–43 / EUD, 125–39). 24 SKS 13, 54 / FSE, 26. the danish word used here is Billede, more often and more literally translated as “image.” the Hongs translate Billede as “metaphor” in other places too see, for example, SKS 4, 30 / R, 154; SKS 1, 156 / CI, 100. i have not included a discussion of these instances here because they are quite distinct from the technical use of overført, however relevant they may prove for a fuller account of metaphor in Kierkegaard’s work. 25 SKS 13, 54 / FSE, 26. 26 SKS 13, 56 / FSE, 29. 27 ibid. 28 SKS 13, 56 / FSE, 28 (my emphasis). 23

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not because there is no analogy at work: there is, and toil can explain it. the secret of metaphorical speech is not revealed to the interpreter (the lover could have spared himself all the toil because his secrets would not be spilled to any stranger) because to read the letter is to comply. Kierkegaard describes a concept of metaphor at the beginning of “love builds up,” and in the same discourse he presents us with the metaphor of the building up of a house, interpreting it in detail in order to show what it means for love to build up. what could be thought of as the beginning of a theory of metaphor in this passage presents the extraordinary problem of denying access to the metaphorical for anyone who has not been spiritually awakened, that is, by characterizing metaphorical speech as secret. the concept of metaphor also seems to be contradicted by the very explication of the specific metaphor it introduces. But with the help of Kierkegaard’s analogy of the love-letter, we can draw a distinction between reading and reading: the reading of interpretation, an example of which is the explication of the metaphor of building up (this is based on analogy but Kierkegaard does not specify it explicitly in his introductory description of metaphorical speech); and a second reading, which is available only to those who are awakened, to the lovers themselves, a reading of immediate compliance, whose secret is what is really overført. this means that unless we are spiritually awakened, unless we comply as we read, we do not understand the discourse “love builds up” metaphorically even if we go through Kierkegaard’s interpretation. we have to see in a different way, to understand metaphor—and this changed point of view is not guaranteed by hermeneutics; it is made possible only by an awakening. the transport based on resemblance and difference that Kierkegaard shows us in “love builds up” is a metaphorical carrying-over rather than an actual one: for speech to be spiritual requires a “carrying-over” of our words for which analogy is only a metaphor. to summarize, Kierkegaard describes metaphorical speech as secret, but he also shows us metaphors and reveals their mechanisms. i have suggested the double reading of the love letter as the kind of resource that might help alleviate the tension between the theory and the example. see also allegory; authority; Communication/indirect Communication; language; poetry; rhetoric; scriptures.

metaphysics Corey benjamin tutewiler

Metaphysics (Metaphysik—noun) the danish word Metaphysik (modern spelling metafysik) derives from the medieval latin metaphysica, the neuter plural corresponding to the byzantine greek μεταφυσικά. the greek title τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά was originally attached to the work we know as aristotle’s Metaphysics to indicate that it came after the Physics. In this philosophical sense, metaphysics attempts to understand the first and final principles and concepts that most adequately fathom or represent the depths of reality, as well as to understand the basic properties or true nature of things.1 While Kierkegaard exhibits overt disdain for what he identifies as metaphysics, it is important to note that the meaning he ascribes to the term is indeed narrow, given the significance it has had historically. According to Kierkegaard, metaphysics always represents a movement away from existence, or an intellectual abstraction from existence, by which one attempts to relate to and understand existence from a removed perspective. needless to say, on this understanding of the term, Kierkegaard’s intellectual adversaries (the danish Hegelians) might arguably be viewed as metaphysicians par excellence. of course, some would say that metaphysics has not always been the reductive and disparaged science Kierkegaard takes it to be. it is, moreover, important to give consideration to the possibility that there may be room for a positive conception of metaphysics within Kierkegaard’s thought, given that one works from a broader understanding of what constitutes metaphysical science.2 with this said, the present article will focus strictly on Kierkegaard’s use of the term. The first section aims to clarify Kierkegaard’s conception of metaphysics. the following three sections endeavor to summarize three central points of Kierkegaard’s critique of metaphysical abstraction: existence itself is not reducible to metaphysical abstraction, metaphysical abstraction does not conform to the mode of existence of its thinkers, and metaphysical abstraction disregards the ethical, religious, and existential aspects of human life.

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1919–56, vol. 13, column 1407. 2 the “interlude” in Philosophical Fragments provides an excellent example of how Kierkegaard (through Johannes Climacus) might positively appropriate the metaphysical insights of aristotle, for instance. Cf. SKS 4, 272–86 / PF, 72–88. 1

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I. Kierkegaard’s Conception of Metaphysics in Stages on Life’s Way, Frater taciturnus describes the relationship between metaphysics and existence in the following manner: “the metaphysical, the ontological, is [er], but it does not exist [er ikke til], for when it exists it does so in the esthetic, in the ethical, in the religious, and when it is, it is the abstraction from a prius [something prior] to the esthetic, the ethical, the religious.”3 such a distinction persists throughout Kierkegaard’s corpus; metaphysics is conceived as an intellectual activity by which one abstracts from existence, and its purpose is typically an explanation of existence.4 by way of abstraction, the existential content of lived experience is separated out from existence and transformed into rational concepts befitting the ordering of logical completion or totalization. Metaphysical abstraction performs this transformation in order to be an infinitely self-consistent and fully comprehensive discourse.5 it is, moreover, marked by a deliberate attempt to bring thought and being into an absolute identity with one another.6 what is ultimately sought after by metaphysical explanation is a conclusive or finalized conception of existence, as conceived from the perspective of eternity (sub specie aeterni7), because “the agreement between thinking and being is always finished.”8 Johannes Climacus describes this process in the following manner: “Self-reflection keeps on so long until it cancels itself; thinking presses through victoriously and once again gains reality [Realitet]; the identity of thinking and being is won in pure thinking.”9 Since sights are set on infinite self-consistency and finality, metaphysical abstraction presupposes that “there is nothing incommensurable in a human life.”10 any perceived incommensurability in existence (for example, between inner and outer) is rather commensurability that has not yet been realized through the process of self-mediating dialectic. Hegelian metaphysics, in particular, attempts to annihilate all appearances of difference, all apparent instantiations of incommensurability. For dialectical metaphysics the commensurability of inner and outer and the identification of thought and being are both essential for the attainment of absolute knowledge and the anticipated result of the speculative system’s completion. as a consequence, in Hegelian metaphysics the realm of becoming is not merely relegated to a lower ontological status in relation to being; rather, “because abstract thinking is sub specie aeterni, it disregards the concrete, the temporal, the

SKS 6, 439 / SLW, 476. see SKS 7, 300 / CUP1, 328: “but from what does pure thinking abstract? From existence, consequently from what it is supposed to explain.” 5 SKS 1, 272n. / CI, 231n.: “[a] totally abstract, metaphysical position…regards everything only according to its infinite intrinsic consistency.” 6 Cf. SKS 7, 118 / CUP1, 123: “the systematic idea is subject-object, is the unity of thinking and being.” 7 SKS 7, 274, 277–8 / CUP1, 301, 305. 8 SKS 7, 174 / CUP1, 190. 9 SKS 7, 306 / CUP1, 335. 10 SKS 4, 160–1 / FT, 68. 3 4

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becoming of existence, and the difficult situation of the existing person.”11 any particular, accidental, or “definite something” in existence is excluded from the final conclusion, “since abstraction expressly prevents it.”12 the realm of becoming vanishes when metaphysical abstraction reaches its end—where “everything is and nothing originates.”13 II. Kierkegaard’s Critique: The Incommensurability of Life on Kierkegaard’s view, metaphysical abstraction, far from helping an individual attain an understanding or explanation of existence, is detrimental to such. existence cannot be absolutely mediated and represented by thought, but is instead immediately disfigured or “canceled”14 once one attempts to subordinate it to purely metaphysical concepts.15 why is it that existence cannot be represented through metaphysical conceptualization? It is because existence is not reducible to the infinitely self-consistent whole or closed totality of a metaphysical abstraction.16 Kierkegaard sometimes appeals to “the incommensurability of life, which is inaccessible to the abstract dialectic developing through the thought-knots of necessity.”17 with the language of incommensurability, Kierkegaard maintains that an understanding of existence cannot be absolute for the human thinker, such that thinking and being are brought to an identity. rather, existence will inevitably frustrate absolute knowing, because “existence has spaced and does space subject from object, thought from being.”18 For metaphysical abstraction, this incommensurability may appear as nothing, but, in truth, existence is too much for the pure intellect, “a higher concept than all demonstration on its behalf.”19 indeed, the pure metaphysician lives under the illusion that he can intellectually mediate existence without remainder, but Kierkegaard approves of the one who knowingly “lives in the abundance and is therefore sensitive to how much is always left over” after intellectual activity.20 any attempt to think existence must remain mindful of this incommensurability and endeavor to think within the difference that separates thinking and being.21 SKS 7, 274 / CUP1, 301. SKS 7, 275 / CUP1, 302. 13 SKS 7, 279 / CUP1, 307. 14 SKS 7, 278–81 / CUP1, 305–9. 15 Cf. SKS 7, 302 / CUP1, 331: “abstraction is easy enough, but one distances oneself more and more from existence, and pure thinking is most distant from existence.” 16 Cf. SKS 7, 317 / CUP1, 347. 17 SKS 19, 148, not4:20 / JP 5, 5272. emphasis added. 18 SKS 7, 118 / CUP1, 123. 19 SKS 7, 45n. / CUP1, 39n. 20 SKS 17, 235, dd:37 / JP 2, 1702. 21 Cf. SKS 7, 321 / CUP1, 351: “but the subjective thinker is an existing person, and yet he is a thinking person. He does not abstract from existence and from the contradiction, but he is in them, and yet he is supposed to think. in all his thinking, then, he has to include the thought that he himself is an existing person.” 11

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metaphysical abstraction attempts to understand reality under the aspect of absolute commensurability, and this is precisely why the cancelation or annulment of existence is a consequence of its discourse.22 that is, metaphysics’ inability to understand existence as existence attests to the truth of what Kierkegaard calls the incommensurability of life. Kierkegaard thus takes issue with the fact that the milieu of becoming is wholly subsumed into pure being within metaphysics, rather than being relegated to a lower—yet nevertheless actual—ontological status than being. Johannes Climacus claims that “Hegel is perfectly and absolutely right in maintaining that, looked at eternally, sub specie aeterni, there is no aut/aut in the language of abstraction, in pure thought and pure being.”23 the issue, however, resides in the fact that it is not appropriate to understand existence in such a manner.24 “it is,” he continues, “impossible to do this in existence, because then he cancels existence also. if i take existence away (if i abstract), there is no aut/aut; if i take it away in existence, this means that i take existence away, but then i do not cancel it in existence.”25 metaphysical discourse, therefore, “cannot be stopped and prevented from finally swallowing up all of the temporal,”26 in which case it is impossible for the thinker to appropriately acknowledge the difference between eternality and temporality—“to distinguish inter et inter [between one and the other].”27 III. Kierkegaard’s Critique: Human Nature and Thought For Kierkegaard, it is of utmost importance that existence is not diminished by thought. the form and content of philosophical discourse, therefore, should not betray the nature of its human thinker. epistemology gone awry leads to Kierkegaard’s despised “metaphysics.” “since the existing subject is existing,” Johannes Climacus writes, “his thought must correspond to the form of existence.”28 likewise, “to be a thinker should least of all mean to be a variant from being a human being.”29 this leads Kierkegaard, in Either/Or, Part One, to create the fictional “A” as a personification of the “metaphysical meaning” in the aesthetic life-view.30 a is absurd, “a caricature of a human being,” but this is no pedantic fortuity.31 Kierkegaard has not set up a literary straw man, placing aesthetic ideas in the mouth Cf. SKS 7, 318 / CUP1, 347–8. SKS 7, 277–8 / CUP1, 305. 24 For this reason, in The Concept of Anxiety, Vigilius Haufniensis refers to Hegel’s attempt to situate actuality within the realm of logic as a basic category mistake. Cf. SKS 4, 317–18 / CA, 9–10. 25 SKS 7, 278 / CUP1, 305. 26 SKS 4, 453 / CA, 154. 27 ibid. 28 SKS 7, 80 / CUP1, 80. 29 SKS 7, 276 / CUP1, 303. 30 Pap. iii b 177 / EO1, supplement, 526: “[t]hat which matters most to me about the whole of Either/Or is that it become really evident that the metaphysical meaning that underlies it all leads everything everywhere to the dilemma.” 31 SKS 3, 248 / EO2, 261. 22 23

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of a character merely incidentally ridiculous, but instead goes to great lengths to ensure a truthfully reveals the life an aesthetic metaphysics generates. if he is absurd, then, this is necessarily and inevitably so: A is a human parody because the aesthetic life-view has an inhuman metaphysics. similarly, the speculative, objective manner of thinking befits, not a human thinker, but a “monstrosity,” a “metaphysical I-I,”32 a “subject-object,”33 a “fanciful being.”34 any attempt to address the question of existence that relies on the identification of being and thinking, according to Johannes Climacus, “does not answer the question, because it does not answer the questioner.”35 this helps to elucidate the difference between Kierkegaard’s understanding of the relationship between thinking and being and that of the Hegelian perspective. in an early journal entry, written in 1840, he explicates the nature of this difference: the Hegelians distinguish between existence and reality: the external phenomenon exists, but insofar as it is taken up into the idea it is real. this is quite correct, but the Hegelians do not define the boundary, to what extent each phenomenon can become real in this way, and the reason for this is that they see the phenomenon from the bird’s eye perspective of the metaphysical and do not likewise see the metaphysical in the phenomenon from the perspective of the phenomenon.36

this quotation expresses that, although being and thought cannot be brought to an identity with one another for the existing subject, thought is nevertheless positively related to being. being or existence, moreover, always exceeds what thought can contain. it is for this reason that a so-called “bird’s eye perspective,” the perspective of eternity, cannot sufficiently ground the relationship between thought and being. such a perspective would negate the excessiveness of existence that is, to an extent, irreducible to absolute thought.37 it is necessary to see the metaphysical from within the phenomenon, from within the “intermediate”38 perspective of the existing individual. since it is a human being who strives to think existence, thought cannot be absolute, and it must be resituated within the existentially conditioned perspective of the human thinker. this is advocated over and against the model of “thinking [that] subsumes everything under itself.”39 metaphysics cannot deliver on its promise to elevate the human to the eternal perspective (“aeterno modo”40 or sub specie aeterni). For the human being, who is inextricably grounded in existence, the SKS 6, 445n. / SLW, 483n. SKS 7, 176–7 / CUP1, 192. 34 SKS 7, 317 / CUP1, 347. 35 SKS 7, 301 / CUP1, 330. 36 SKS 27, 233, papir 264:1 / JP 2, 1587. emphasis added. 37 Cf. SKS 7, 304 / CUP1, 333. 38 SKS 7, 301 / CUP1, 329: “existing is a somewhat intermediate state like that, something that is suitable for an intermediate being such as a human being is. How is it, then, with the presumed identity of thinking and being in relation to the kind of existence that is the existence of an individual existing human being?” 39 SKS 7, 276 / CUP1, 303. 40 SKS 2, 48 / EO1, 39. 32 33

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heights of metaphysical abstraction will only ever arouse an unnatural “dizziness,” which signifies that the human being is not at home with himself, not true to himself.41 “the individual dreams about himself metaphysically” and evaporates “in a brilliance of disintegration.”42 on the contrary, thought is at home with itself when it is rooted in existence, properly and yet paradoxically, in “an alien medium.”43 “all understanding comes afterward”—that is, true understanding depends upon the existential and flows from it.44 IV. Kierkegaard’s Critique: Concern for the Ethical, the Religious, and the Existential Finally, Kierkegaard’s disdain for metaphysics stems from its neglect of the ethical, religious, and existential aspects of human life, and this neglect should be recognized as a consequence of regarding everything under the aspect of absolute commensurability.45 the concerns that ought to occupy human beings, according to Kierkegaard, cannot be reconciled with the concerns of metaphysical abstraction in its “freedom from care.”46 the ethical and the metaphysical “are in a life-anddeath struggle with each other.”47 in contrast to ethical concerns, metaphysics is best regarded as “disinterested knowledge,”48 the questionable concern of which is to attain unworldly consistency or completion. From a rightly ordered human perspective, then, “as soon as interest steps forth, metaphysics steps aside.”49 only a seductive sophistry attempts to bring the two—metaphysical comprehension and religious appropriation—into a unity.50 the issue is heightened by the fact that metaphysical abstraction does not understand that the ethical, religious, and existential concerns of human life stand diametrically opposed to it.51 Abstraction, hence, simply removes the difficulty of any questions associated with human striving,52 “then boasts of having explained everything,”53 “combining everything (also the ethical and the religious) in the estheticmetaphysical.”54 this explanation, however, is dubious insofar as it “swallows the ethical,” rather than positively appropriating and adequately explaining it.55 that 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55

Pap. Vii b 256:19 / JP 4, 4437. SKS 7, 495 / CUP1, 545. SKS 7, 303 / CUP1, 332. SKS 7, 115 / CUP1, 119. Cf. SKS 7, 270n. / CUP1, 296n. SKS 6, 405 / SLW, 438. SKS 20, 44, nb:42 / JP 2, 1611. SKS 15, 57 / JC, 170. SKS 4, 324n. / CA, 18n. Cf. SKS 6, 447 / SLW, 486. Cf. SKS 7, 341 / CUP1, 375. Cf. SKS 7, 117 / CUP1, 121–2. SKS 7, 275 / CUP1, 302. SKS 7, 270n. / CUP1, 296n. SKS 7, 309 / CUP1, 338.

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is, metaphysical judgments are incapable of defining one’s relation to existence;56 “all finitude,” rather, “vanishes in the metaphysical contemplation that sees it as nothing.”57 Kierkegaard often draws attention to the fact that the metaphysical—instead of possessing the capacity to exceed and incorporate all becoming and human striving—falls short of the ethical, religious, and existential.58 metaphysics, insofar as it is a removal from life, is an “abbreviation of the pathological elements of life,” not their fulfillment.59 it is, furthermore, detrimental to human striving insofar as it abstracts from existence without ever making a return to existence. metaphysical abstraction, therefore, is essentially opposed to the infinite interest a human being ought to take in himself. taking issue with his contemporaries on account of the disinterested abstraction that is opposed to all ethical striving, anti-Climacus writes: Modern philosophy, being abstract, is floating in metaphysical indeterminateness. instead of explaining this about itself and then directing people (individual persons) to the ethical, the religious, the existential, philosophy has given the appearance [Skin] that people are able to speculate themselves out of their own skin [Skind], as they so very prosaically say, into pure appearance [Skin].60

to summarize, Kierkegaard is critical of any tendency to abstract from existence, such that existence is made reducible to purely speculative or logical concepts. Firstly, Kierkegaard explains that existence is incommensurable with understanding, with the result that it cannot be reduced to an absolutely commensurable and self-consistent whole or totality. secondly, Kierkegaard often urges that human knowledge conform to the mode of being for human thinkers. Finally, he takes issue with the metaphysical neglect of the ethical, religious, and existential dimensions of human life. see also actuality; being/becoming; Concrete/abstract; dialectic; immanence/ transcendence; inner/outer; mediation/sublation; repetition; self.

Cf. SKS 3, 237 / EO2, 248. SKS 1, 344 / CI, 312–13. 58 Speculative thought does not fulfill Christianity, but abolishes it. Cf. SKS 16, 112–13 / PV, 130. 59 SKS 6, 413 / SLW, 446. 60 SKS 12, 91–2n. / PC, 81n. 56 57

middle ages diego giordano

Middle Ages (Middelalder—noun) From the latin media ætas, medium ævum, its literal meaning denotes a central period of human history. the historical reference is to the middle or intermediate age between ancient and modern times. this period spans roughly a thousand years, from the fall of the western roman empire (476) to the discovery of america (1492) or the fall of Constantinople (1453). sometimes referred to as the “dark ages,” this period is generally subdivided into the Early Middle Ages (fifth century to the eleventh century)1 and the late middle ages (twelfth century to the sixteenth century).2 Kierkegaard talks about the middle ages in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, particularly in the section devoted to pathos, where he discusses the medieval tradition of monasticism.3 Here Kierkegaard enters into a long discussion of the relationship between mediation and telos. Briefly stated, “When it is a matter of relative elements, mediation can have its significance (that they are all equal before mediation), but when it is a matter of the absolute τέλος, mediating means that the absolute τέλος is reduced to a relative τέλος.”4 Consequently, in relation to existing in ethical and religious categories all talk of mediation is misplaced, since ethical and religious points of view entail relating oneself to an absolute telos. Nevertheless mediation was helped to flourish in the ethical sphere through the medieval monastic movement: “people were made to believe that the existing person’s absolute respect for the absolute τέλος would lead to entering the monastery.”5 but for Kierkegaard the monastic movement itself “was an enormous abstraction, monastic life a continued abstraction, so that life would be spent in prayer and singing hymns—instead of playing cards at the club.”6 For this reason he writes that if he had lived in the middle ages he could never have chosen the 1 the time of transition from Classical antiquity to the middle ages, in both mainland europe and the mediterranean world, is known as late antiquity. precise boundaries for the period are matter of debate, but generally it overlaps with the middle ages (from the second to eighth centuries). 2 Cf. Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, column 7. 3 Cf. SKS 7, 365–81 / CUP1, 401–19, and SKS 7, 428–37 / CUP1, 472–82. 4 SKS 7, 364 / CUP1, 400. 5 SKS 7, 365 / CUP1, 401. 6 ibid.

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monastery. in the middle ages anyone entering the monastery was regarded as a saint, and this was a deception: “but to me this seems the most dreadful of all and to be a profanation of the holy, to be treachery to an absolute relation to an absolute τέλος.”7 by contrast, in the nineteenth century secularism triumphs and priests even warn people against entering the monastery, trying to stop the monastic movement with “foolish talk about mediation.”8 For Kierkegaard this goes too far. He offers a reevaluation of the middle ages: in that period, the one and only true life (maintaining the relation with the absolute) was the monastic life of isolation from the world. they thereby avoided the risk of becoming worldly. Kierkegaard compares the middle Ages to Greek antiquity, affirming that people in both ages had a pure and heartfelt passion. in this sense, the monastic movement, too, represents a passionate decision, as is fitting in regard to the absolute τέλος, “and to that extent is far preferable in its nobility to the wretched broker-age wisdom of mediation.”9 moreover, Kierkegaard draws a parallel between the middle ages and paganism concerning risk. the inscription over the temple at delphi (in its latin version), ne quid nimis (nothing too much), is the antithesis of the Christian exhortation “absolutely to venture everything.”10 For the Christian, then, “[t]he first true expression of relating oneself to the absolute τέλος is to renounce everything.”11 but while for paganism the sense of such a renunciation is “not willing to venture everything,”12 the error of the middle ages consists in “misunderstanding the meaning of venturing everything,”13 interpreting absolute inwardness as an attitude better expressed by a distinctive form of outward appearance.14 according to Kierkegaard, this was precisely the exaggeration of the middle ages: it lacked complete faith in inwardness unless the latter became visible in the outer.15 thus, while Kierkegaard recognizes the merit of the monastic movement, he shows that the error of the middle ages was the lack of emphasis on interiority: life in the monastery was deemed a sufficient condition for faith. Kierkegaard also recognizes the religious awareness in the middle ages’ affirmation that there was something in the finite world that could not be thought SKS 7, 378 / CUP1, 416. SKS 7, 366 / CUP1, 402. 9 ibid. 10 SKS 7, 368 / CUP1, 404. 11 ibid. 12 SKS 7, 368 / CUP1, 405. 13 ibid. 14 SKS 7, 371 / CUP1, 408: “the absolute τέλος is the greatest plan to which a human being can relate himself, and therefore the middle ages wanted a little cubbyhole in order to be able to occupy itself properly with the absolute; but it was precisely by this that the absolute lost, because it still became something outward.” 15 SKS 7, 376 / CUP1, 413–14: “the middle ages was a distrustful inwardness that therefore wanted to see it in externals. it was to that extent an unhappy inwardness that resembled a love affair in which the lovers are zealous for the outward expression of erotic lover; thus it believed that god was zealous for expression in externals. true inwardness does not demand any sign at all in externals.” 7 8

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along with the thought of god, and that the passionate expression for this was to break with the finite. In other words, the Middle Ages made a forceful attempt, in existing, to think God and the finite together, but came to the following conclusion: “that it could not be done, and the expression for that conclusion is the monastery.”16 unlike the “religiousness of our times” (which “goes further”), what was venerable about the middle ages was that its people were seriously concerned with the problem of the existential relationship between God and the finite. But if the Godrelationship and the finite are to be held together in existing, then it is within the sphere of religiousness itself that the accord must find its expression. another discussion of the middle ages occurs in Either/Or, Part One, specifically in “the immediate erotic stages or the musical-erotic” in connection with don Juan (and other figures).17 The aesthete, A, identifies Don Juan as a figure originating in the Middle Ages, as “the incarnation of the flesh.”18 a also credits Christianity with introducing the idea of representation into the world,19 and the literature of the middle ages abounds in representative individuals (the knight, the scholastic, the clergyman, the layman, etc.), who are ordinarily paired opposite each other, exemplifying the great dialectic of life.20 in other words, the middle ages posits an individual as representative of an idea and then usually places another individual alongside him as a foil (the king has the fool by his side, don Quixote has sancho panza, don Juan has leporello).21 this relation is customarily a comic relation in which one individual makes up for the other’s disproportionate magnitude in life. according to Kierkegaard, this is possible since the middle ages had to make the discord between the flesh and the spirit that Christianity brought into the world the subject of its reflection, and to that end it sought to personify each of the conflicting forces.22 although there are only a few entries concerning the middle ages in Kierkegaard’s journals and papers,23 the points he makes there are generally consistent with the view we find in his published writings. see also History; monasticism; music; myth; religious/religiousness; paganism; worldliness/secularism.

Cf. SKS 7, 429–30 / CUP1, 473. SKS 2, 92–6 / EO1, 87–92. 18 SKS 2, 93 / EO1, 88. 19 SKS 2, 71 / EO1, 64. 20 SKS 2, 92 / EO1, 87: “the totality is represented in a particular individual, yet in such a way that it is only a particular aspect that is defined as the totality and that is now manifest in a particular individual, who is therefore both more than and less than an individual.” 21 SKS 2, 93 / EO1, 88. 22 Cf. SKS 2, 93–6 / EO1, 88–92. 23 Cf. SKS 17, 104–6, bb:14 / KJN 1, 399–401; SKS 23, 339–40, nb19:18 / JP 3, 2711; SKS 24, 89, nb21:143 / JP 3, 2712; SKS 27, 141, papir 164 / JP 3, 2698; SKS 27, 144, papir 174 / JP 3, 2699. 16 17

miracles Heiko schulz

Miracle (Mirakel—noun; synonyms: Under, Undergerning, Vidunder) derived from the latin miraculum, the danish word denotes a strange and unusual event or state of affairs, which calls forth surprise, astonishment, amazement or awe in a person who witnesses it. more technically, both the latin and the danish term refer to “supernatural” events, which as such supposedly defy all attempts at rationally explaining them and thus call for attributing their cause to some supernatural (namely, divine) agent.1 throughout the corpus of his writings Kierkegaard makes use of at least six different terms to express what in english is most naturally rendered as “miracle”: Vidunder, Under, det Vidunderlige, Vidunderlighed, det Mirakuløse, and Mirakel. A closer look reveals, first, that there is an overall and obvious preference for the term Mirakel in the journals and papers. second, a few exceptions notwithstanding, Kierkegaard seems to avoid the term in the edifying discourses, where a combination of Vidunder and Under dominates. third, within the pseudonymous authorship there is apparently no guiding principle of usage at work, either in terms of style or of content. although Under and Vidunder clearly outnumber Mirakel, the latter appears throughout these writings also. moreover, Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms frequently use, right next to each other and mostly synonymously,2 pairs of pertinent terms.3 in terms of a conceptual analysis one may start by saying that in Kierkegaard’s view a miracle is (a) an irregular event (in a sense yet to be specified), (b) brought about by god as its ultimate teleological and/or causal referent, which as such (c) defies all human attempts at rationally explaining its possibility and/or bringing it about. in what follows i will try to explain these three key elements by drawing on some paradigmatic references in Kierkegaard’s works. in the context of characterizing elvira’s attitude towards don giovanni after being seduced by him, the author of the “silhouettes” in Either/Or, part one declares that something “wondrous [Vidunderlige] has happened; the laws for the usual course of existence have been broken. He has seduced a young girl, but her life has not been see Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, columns 133–5. 2 see SKS 8, 287 / UD, 189 (Under/Vidunder); SKS 10, 126 / CD, 115 (Vidunder/Mirakel); SKS 27, 487, papir 408 / JP 2, 1125 (Mirakel/Under). 3 see SKS 4, 115 / FT, 18 (Vidunder and det Vidunderlige); SKS 8, 427 / UD, 336 (Mirakel and det Vidunderlige); SKS 4, 290–1 / PF, 93 (Vidunder and Vidunderlighed); SKS 5, 436 / TD, 62 (Mirakel and Under). 1

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extinguished, her beauty has not faded—she is transformed [forvandlet] and is more beautiful than ever.”4 Hence, there is obviously no miracle without (a) the breaking of some natural, moral or metaphysical law, and (b) without some radical change or transformation taking place in the non-human object or the human addressee of such transformation: “every qualitative change [Qvalitets-Forandring], every infinite change in quality, is…a miracle.”5 Kierkegaard considers faith6 and love7 to be examples par excellence for such miraculous transformations. both do not merely perform and perceive and identify miracles; rather, they are themselves precisely what they perform: a miracle. For love is, among other things, the capacity unconditionally to identify with the beloved, and this to such a degree that all apparently insurmountable obstacles of realizing a mutually loving relationship are miraculously transformed into means of its actualization.8 Consequently, the husband praising (marital) love in the second part of Stages on Life’s Way maintains that a loving decision to marry miraculously translates the poetry of being in love into the prose of everyday life and reality without sacrificing the former to the latter.9 likewise, Kierkegaard takes faith to be a miraculous transformation in this double sense: it can work miracles, and it comes about as a miracle.10 For faith is bestowed upon a person in conversion, and conversion, by literally “turning around” the sinful individual, is, according to Kierkegaard, an inner or spiritual or eschatological miracle,11 which as such can only be performed by god. Faith is conceptually important in yet another respect, namely, in terms of the latter’s function of either receiving and/or identifying or performing a miracle. the witness-related aspect seems clear enough: according to Climacus, “the wonder [Vidunderet] is…only for faith, inasmuch as the person who does not believe does not see the wonder.”12 but what about the function of faith in the miracle’s addressee or recipient? the key to a possible answer is the gospel narrative of the ten lepers (luke 17:11–19), on which Kierkegaard comments as follows: “the objective reality of Christ’s atonement, also independent of the subjectivity appropriating it, is very clearly indicated in the story….all of them were in fact cleansed, but only of the tenth, who gratefully turned back to give god the glory, is it said ‘Your faith has made you whole.’”13 in the margin he adds: “what then was it that saved the others?”14 taken together these two remarks suggest that Kierkegaard (a) identifies the “healing” of those who did not return to Jesus and the “saving” of the believer— it is the same kind of event, namely, the physical healing, which is at stake in both 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

SKS 2, 193 / EO1, 197. SKS 24, 59, nb21:90 / JP 3, 2721. see SKS 4, 159 / FT, 67; SKS 8, 334, 422, 424–5 / UD, 233, 331, 333–4. see SKS 4, 239 / PF, 33; SKS 5, 436 / TD, 62; SKS 9, 303 / WL, 305. see SKS 10, 300 / CD, 280. see SKS 6, 111 / SLW, 117. see SKS 4, 131 / FT, 36; SKS 4, 159 / FT, 67. see SKS 7, 169 / CUP1, 184. SKS 4, 290–1 / PF, 93. SKS 17, 262, dd:144 / KJN 1, 253. ibid.

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cases; furthermore, he at least (b) tacitly presupposes that faith, on the part of a miracle’s addressee, is a sufficient condition for miraculous events to happen, but not a necessary one.15 by contrast, god’s omnipotent decision seems necessary and sufficient. leaving the conceptual issue behind, we may now distinguish between two basic types of miracles in Kierkegaard. in a journal entry from 1850 he notes: that Christ makes something big out of something small, as at the feeding of the 5,000, is usually referred to as a miracle [Mirakel]. but Christ also works a miracle inversely— makes something big (everything that wants to be something) into something little, makes it infinitely nothing in humility. We may think that this miracle is much easier, but it is not so….a human being can perhaps point out another’s weakness, but to show it to be infinitely nothing, that only the divine can do, and man cannot by himself humble himself in this way.16

this passage implicitly suggests a distinction between two types of miracle: outward and inward, natural and spiritual, metaphysical and phenomenological, innerworldly and otherworldly.17 Kierkegaard quotes and interprets numerous old and new testament miracle stories as examples of the metaphysical type—for instance, and more generally, the miracles of creation and resurrection;18 more specifically, the virgin birth of Jesus, the feeding of the 5,000, the Cana miracle, the healing of Jairus’ daughter, the resurrection of lazarus, the healing of the congenitally blind19 and so forth.20 moreover, some passages underscore that both types of miracle may occur independently of each other.21 this notwithstanding, a deeper structural parallel between them is also striking, as indicated by the following examples: god has created the world omnipotently and thereby has created the greatest “something” that apart from himself can ever be conceived; and yet, the pinnacle of such greatness thus, Kierkegaard repeatedly draws on the mosaic water miracle (exodus 17:1–7), each time emphasizing that moses actually performed a miracle, though without faith (see SKS 4, 115 / FT, 18; SKS 5, 304 / EUD, 312). 16 SKS 24, 59, nb21:90 / JP 3, 2712. 17 as a corollary one may distinguish between outward miracles and miracles of faith; see, for instance, SKS 4, 115 / FT, 18: the outward miracle is that against all odds abraham’s wife becomes pregnant; the miracle of faith consists in the couple’s will and ability to cling to their wish for a child, despite all evidence to the contrary. 18 see SKS 7, 224 / CUP1, 246; SKS 8, 287 / UD, 189; SKS 7, 406 / CUP1, 447. 19 see SKS 5, 271 / EUD, 277; SKS 20, 225, nb2:218 / KJN 4, 224; SKS 23, 425–6, nb20:59 / JP 3, 2611; SKS 20, 101, nb:151 / KJN 4, 101; SKS 11, 123 / SUD, 7; SKS 20, 257, nb3:26 / KJN 4, 257. 20 Correspondingly, Kierkegaard introduces the notion of miracle into the realm of natural science also, namely as a boundary-concept, on which as such the latter founders, without being able completely to do away with it. see SKS 20, 63–7, nb:73 / KJN 4, 62–6; SKS 20, 70–1, nb:83 / KJN 4, 69–70. He also locates the miraculous within the ethico-religious sphere, more specifically in the idea of the teleological suspension of the ethical, which in his opinion precisely corresponds to what a miracle is in nature. see SKS 24, 290, nb23:177 / JP 4, 4744. 21 see SKS 4, 115 / FT, 18; SKS 5, 304 / EUD, 312, and SKS 20, 247, nb3:2 / KJN 4, 247. 15

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is to be found, paradoxically enough, in the creation of human freedom and thus in the ever fragile, yet miraculous capacity, deliberately “to be nothing” before him.22 Jesus feeds 5,000 hungry people and thus miraculously transforms lack into abundance; and yet, after having done so he has his disciples collect the crumbs and thus demonstrates his attention to and care for the small, seemingly insignificant things in the world.23 Finally, the incarnation itself: “Christ is born in a manger: how lowly—but then the star shines over it, and the kings come to worship, yet the lowliness is not removed….precisely this is the divine.”24 these and other (genuinely Christian) examples bear witness to a structural parallel between the first and the second type. All of them have to be interpreted as expressions of a paradoxical dialectic or synthesis between lowliness and loftiness (in lowliness), of smallness and greatness (in smallness), of lack and abundance (within lack), and so on. thus conceived, every Christian miracle, regardless of its type, establishes and preserves a paradoxical unification between the opposing elements just mentioned; for the “essentially Christian always has, first, lowliness— and then, second, a paradoxical expression for loftiness,”25 namely, loftiness in lowliness. accordingly, a miracle in the stricter, namely, Christian and/or religious sense may be described as a state of affairs, event or action, which violates a certain norm or rule (as a manifestation of “the universal”), yet in such a way as to imply that in doing so the violation paradoxically preserves and confirms as universally valid what has momentarily been suspended or violated.26 this also admits of specifying the relation between miracle and paradox. although Kierkegaard himself does not explicitly address the issue, it seems safe to conclude from what has been said so far that in his opinion every miracle is or entails some kind of paradox, but not vice versa; for only the instantiation of a “real,” that is, genuinely Christian and/or religious paradox can be considered truly miraculous.27 This brings us to a final aspect bearing on the conceptual issue: A miracle is “contrary to all rules [uden for al Regel].”28 this formulation suggests that Kierkegaard was aware of and actually subscribed to the infamous idea of miracles as a violation of a law of nature. Indeed, we find that, for instance, in his opinion it was against the order of nature (mod Naturens Orden) that John the baptist was born from a woman

see SKS 7, 224 / CUP1, 246. see SKS 10, 316 / CD, 294. 24 SKS 24, 249, nb23:84 / JP 4, 4738. 25 ibid. 26 the subjective expression of such a paradox being suffering—in particular, the infinite suffering of an individual “extra ordinem” (SKS 15, 137 / BA, addendum i, 163) like Jesus or st. paul. 27 invoking Climacus’ distinction between religiousness a and b (see SKS 7, 505–10 / CUP1, 555–61) we might as well say: a qualitatively radical transformation is constitutive for any religious miracle simpliciter (= religiousness a). the genuinely Christian miracle (= Religiousness B) amounts to a paradoxical unification of divine and human, lofty and lowly, etc., which as such admits of no speculative mediation (see SKS 24, 249–50, nb23:84 / JP 4, 4738). 28 SKS 8, 422 / UD, 331. 22

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of advanced age,29 whereas the virgin birth of Jesus was actually “above the order of nature [over Naturens Orden].”30 taken together, both expressions seem to point to a strictly deterministic view of natural laws, including the causation-principle, so that correspondingly a miracle appears to be a violation in the sense described. However, the impression of scientific determinism is rash and in fact misleading— assuming that the ontology of coming into existence, spelled out in the “interlude” of Philosophical Fragments, is to be considered authentically Kierkegaardian (as i think it is). according to this ontology, all “coming into existence [Tilblivelse] occurs in freedom, not by way of necessity,”31 since it is simply defined as “the change, in freedom, of becoming actuality.”32 thus, even within nature every nexus of cause and effect—as an instantiation of coming into existence qua movement in space and/ or time, of happening or of actualizing some possibility—is rooted, albeit in a very rudimentary way, “in a freely acting cause”33 and is thus to be considered a unity of conditional or “relative necessity”34 and relative freedom. as such, it points back to an absolutely free cause, god, as its origin and ultimate conditio sine qua non. as Climacus contends, the purportedly necessary “intervening causes are misleading in that the coming into existence appears to be necessary; the truth about them is that they, as having themselves come into existence, definitively point back to a freely acting cause.”35 now, this defense of freedom in nature seems to raise a serious dilemma: either “above or against the order of nature” means, for some event e, that the latter’s instantiation violates a law of nature; or event e cannot be a miracle. However, there is actually a third option and thus a way to avoid the dilemma to be found in Kierkegaard, namely, his notion of an event as being referred to (via faith) as directly caused by god and, precisely for this reason, as exceeding the human capacity both to understand its possibility and to bring it about. thus conceived, we simply do not need the idea of strictly deterministic natural laws in order to provide for and grasp the very kind of irregularity that is to be considered mandatory for a possible miracle. Necessary, and yet also sufficient, is the correlative idea of (mundane) relative necessity and (divine) absolute freedom. accordingly, all and only those events deserve to be called miracles, which are, in Kierkegaardian terms, possible “by virtue of the absurd that for god all things are possible.”36 it is precisely in this sense that claiming or perceiving something as a miracle is, religiously speaking, to trace it “immediately back to god and jump over the intermediate causes.”37 Finally, it will hardly come as a surprise that in Kierkegaard’s opinion neither miracles nor reports of miracle are meant to function as proofs—proofs, namely, even in such “weaker” cases we are rightly speaking of a miracle or more exactly a “marvel” (both SKS 4, 115 / FT, 18 and SKS 5, 271 / EUD, 277 use the term det Vidunderlige). 30 both expressions are used in SKS 5, 271 / EUD, 277. 31 SKS 4, 275 / PF, 75. 32 SKS 4, 277 / PF, 77. 33 ibid. 34 see SKS 4, 286 / PF, 88. 35 SKS 4, 275 / PF, 75 (my emphasis). 36 as to the correlation of absurdity and miracle see SKS 4, 55 / R, 185. 37 SKS 18, 202, JJ:192 / KJN 2, 186. 29

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for the truth or the moral supremacy of Christianity.38 by contrast, he repeatedly emphasizes that the genuine and in any case primary function of Christian miracles, and also of the corresponding reports of miracles, is to be located elsewhere. due to their deep semiotic ambiguity, they are supposed to elicit from their recipient (addressee and/or witness) the need for a personal response, by which one simultaneously reveals oneself: either as a believer or as being offended.39 in particular, the miracles performed by Jesus, according to the synoptic gospels, function in this way: they challenge their addressees or witnesses to believe or to reject them not only as miracles, but as miracles performed by the God-man who, as anti-Climacus explains, calls for being interpreted and appropriated as a “sign of contradiction.”40 see also absurd; being/becoming; Cause/effect; Faith; love; paradox.

38 39 40

see SKS 12, 40f. / PC, 26. see SKS 12, 131 / PC, 126. SKS 12, 129 / PC, 124.

mohammedanism diego giordano

Mohammedanism (Muhamedanisme—noun) From the old form Muhamedanismus (derived from Mahometismus/Mahomedismus), corresponding to german Mohammedanismus, and old english mahometism, this term is a synonym for Islam, which denotes the mohammedan religion.1 in all Kierkegaard’s published works the term “mohammedanism” occurs just twice, as a passing reference, in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. The first occurrence comes early in the Postscript, where Climacus discusses the objective problem of Christianity’s truth, or rather the historical proof of the truth of Christianity.2 Here Kierkegaard tries to demolish the thesis according to which the proof of the truth of a religion is given by the fact that it continues to exist despite the lapse of time. but if this is how things stand, the dependability of a religion—or better the eighteen centuries of Christianity—is nothing more than a deceit whereby the existing subject “is trapped and he enters the perdition of the parenthesis.”3 However, contrary to the view of Kant and Hegel, to be able to withstand time is not a proof of the truth of something but a mere hypothesis—a hypothesis that may become more probable by being upheld for three thousand years—but never a warranty of some “eternal truth,” decisive for one’s eternal happiness. by the same token, to claim that mohammedanism must be true because it has lasted for twelve hundred years is to reduce the religion of mohammed to a mere “hypothesis.” the other occurrence comes near the end of the Postscript, where Kierkegaard returns to the topic in a long explanatory note apropos of Philosophical Fragments.4 Here he affirms that it is not possible to know objectively what Christianity is, as though it were a matter of factual knowledge susceptible of being investigated or understood by rational means. Objectively, “it is not at all more difficult to find out what Christianity is than to find out what Mohammedanism and anything else historical are.”5 in this sense both Christianity and mohammedanism are historical religions, with the fundamental difference that Christianity is not a simple historical

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, column 439. 2 SKS 7, 52 / CUP1, 47. 3 ibid. 4 SKS 7, 525 / CUP1, 578. 5 ibid. 1

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fact because every Christian is nailed to the paradox of basing his eternal happiness on a relationship to something historical. Christianity goes against all reason.6 Kierkegaard seldom talks about mohammedanism in his journals and papers.7 The main entries where we find references to Islam as a monotheistic religion are from June 1837.8 according to Kierkegaard, mohammedanism is a religion suspended between the two magnets of Christianity and Judaism, since the divine did not become human (incarnation) and the human did not become divine (brothers and heirs in Christ). mohammedanism is neither an individualized polytheism, nor a concretized monotheism (Jehovah), but only an abstract monotheism. moreover, mohammed was neither an incarnation (the messiah), nor merely a prophet (like moses), but something approximating an incarnation. in the margin to this entry Kierkegaard reports a “scrap of paper” dated January 5, 1837, which he found in his desk drawer. in it he ironically compares mohammedans and Christians to “the moon, which borrows its light from the sun.”9 This remark confirms his theological view that mohammedanism not only does not achieve the state of a complete monotheistic religion (as Judaism does), but also that it essentially, as regards its doctrinal system, depends on Christianity. the consideration according to which mohammedanism is a weaker form of monotheism is made clear in the following entry (written on June 8, 1837),10 where even deism seems to be esteemed more than islam by the philosopher: in Judaism “god appears in his omnipotence as lawgiver” because “god is god, the almighty, against whom man must not strive.”11 “deism basically reverses the relationship” between man and god, “for while monotheism as such presupposes that god is god and therefore man is man,”12 mohammedanism develops a caricature of god because in it god’s omnipotence becomes arbitrariness, and his governance becomes fatalism.13 Finally, with regard to the remaining places where Kierkegaard discusses mohammedanism, two things in particular are worth noticing. First, mohammedHere we find an echo of Tertullian’s thesis credo quia absurdum. For a discussion of this idea in connection with Kierkegaard, see pierre bühler, “tertullian: the teacher of the credo quia absurdum,” in Kierkegaard and the Patristic and Medieval Traditions, ed. by Jon stewart, aldershot: ashgate 2008 (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, vol. 4), pp. 131–42. 7 SKS 17, 218–19, dd:7 / JP 3, 2734 (and additions in the margins); SKS 17, 220, dd:10 / JP 5, 5222; SKS 17, 262, dd:143 / JP 3, 2738; SKS 18, 47, ee:130 / JP 1, 447; SKS 18, 248–49, JJ:336 / JP 4, 4426; SKS 26, 332, nb34:22 / JP 3, 3044. 8 SKS 17, 218–19, dd:7 / JP 3, 2734, and additions in the margins: SKS 17, 218–19, dd:7.a / JP 3, 2735; SKS 17, 218–19, dd:7.b / JP 3, 2736; SKS 17, 218–19, dd:7.c / JP 3, 2737. 9 SKS 17, 218–19, dd:7 / JP 3, 2736. 10 SKS 17, 220, dd:10 / JP 5, 5222. 11 ibid. 12 ibid. 13 this entry has the title, written in german, “a parallel with the philosophy of religion of Karl rosenkranz.” in it Kierkegaard discusses the pattern of reduction framed by rosenkranz in order to classify the religions as those in which 1) man is god; 2) god is god; 3) god is man. 6

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anism, like Judaism, is always introduced for the purpose of clarifying what is distinctive about Christianity.14 second, Kierkegaard always treats islam with irony and never hesitates to belittle the religion. He does this not by being openly derisive, but in more subtle ways. For example, in one journal entry Kierkegaard draws a parallel between the figure of Mohammed and that of Napoleon, affirming that both were missionary leaders who proclaimed and fought for certain ideas.15 elsewhere, he remarks on the comparative historical roles played by the religions as follows: “Christianity is the actual proprietor who sits in the carriage; Judaism is the coachman; mohammedanism is a groom who does not sit with the coachman but behind.”16 see also Christendom; god; History; immanence/transcendence; Judaism; religious/religiousness.

in a journal entry dated 1854 Kierkegaard observes: “the ethical situation in Christendom is not the same as it was in paganism, Judaism, mohammedanism” (SKS 26, 332, nb34:22 / JP 3, 3044). 15 SKS 17, 262, dd:143 / JP 3, 2738. 16 SKS 18, 47, ee:130 / JP 1, 447. 14

moment william mcdonald

Moment (Øieblik—noun; Moment—noun) the danish word Øieblik is derived from the word for “eye” (Øie) and the word for “glint” or “glance” or “twinkle” (Blik) and means: a very short interval of time, commensurate with the twinkling of an eye—an instant.1 the danish word Moment is ultimately derived, via the French moment, from the latin movere—to move. among its danish meanings are something with the power to move (cf. momentum); a relationship or circumstance of great importance (cf. momentous); a turning point in a development, which is of decisive importance; and a brief period of time, which is of decisive importance.2 this article will focus primarily on Kierkegaard’s uses of Øieblik, with occasional references to his uses of Moment. However, the connotations Moment has of decisive importance and the power to move are incorporated into Kierkegaard’s ethical and religious applications of Øieblik. the expression “the moment,” in Kierkegaard’s work, is multivocal, multivalent, and multi-referential. its meaning is sometimes tied crucially to its etymology, as the metaphorical “glint of an eye,”3 or it can mean a more or less extended present,4 or an ephemeral instant,5 or a timely occasion.6 its significance for time-consciousness differs vastly depending on the existential sphere through which it is experienced: for the aesthete it is an undifferentiated point in a boring temporal succession, or an occasion for cultivating a diverting mood;7 for the ethicist it offers the decisive possibility for ethical action;8 and for the religious person its significance resides in the resolute task of grasping the eternal in time.9 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 27, columns 1518–27. note that Øieblik is often translated into english as “instant,” but perhaps the most accurate translation would be “twinkling of an eye.” 2 ibid., vol. 14, columns 312–14. note that in The Concept of Anxiety, Kierkegaard asserts that the latin movere “by derivation expresses the merely vanishing” (SKS 4, 391 / CA, 88). 3 SKS 4, 390 / CA, 87. 4 SKS 9, 246 / WL, 246. 5 SKS 9, 249 / WL, 249. 6 SKS 13, 402 / M, 338. 7 SKS 2, 288 / EO1, 299. 8 SKS 23, 208, nb17:62 / JP 3, 3711. 9 SKS 7, 272 / CUP1, 298–9. 1

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moreover, its reference varies among: (1) the title of Kierkegaard’s pamphlet, in which he launched his urgent attack on the leadership of the danish people’s Church; (2) the objective point at which eternity intersects with time, in the incarnation of Christ; and (3) a temporal element in subjective time-consciousness for human beings. the moment as subjective time-consciousness, in turn, has two different referents: the (vanishing) point between past and future, and the (expansive) point when eternity intersects time. in the former case it is an atom of time;10 in the latter it is an atom of eternity.11 As an atom of time, the momentary twinkle reflects only desire and forgetfulness in sensuous enjoyment;12 as an atom of eternity, the momentary glint either reflects the past and serves as an occasion for assimilating it to oneself in recollection,13 or anticipates the future and opens the self for the other— in faith, repetition and in the fullness of time.14 in addition to these complexities, the connotations of “the moment” are informed by what it is the moment of, for example, the moment of death,15 the moment of seduction,16 the moment of conversion,17 the moment of abnegation,18 the moment of decision,19 the moment of grace,20 the moment of weakness,21 the moment of repentance,22 and the moment of sin-consciousness.23 there is also the moment (of incarnation), which is the most abbreviated expression of the Christian paradox.24 The significance of the moment differs between existential spheres largely on the basis of the presence or absence of spirit. For plato the moment was “the sudden” (τὸ ἐξαίφνης) and lacks spiritual significance because the Greeks lacked “the concept of spirit.”25 it is a vanishing moment and as such is invisible. the momentary visibility in the glint of an eye helps distinguish the spiritual significance of the moment in Christianity from the vanishing point of the sudden in greek thought, though both ancient and modern notions of the moment address the same problem of change in time. whereas the vanishing moment indicates emptiness,26 the scintillating moment heralds fullness of time.27 the glint of an eye simultaneously points inwards and outwards, at the ambiguous interface between objectivity and subjectivity. 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27

Pap. V b 55 / JP 3, 2740. SKS 4, 391 / CA, 88. SKS 3, 220 / EO2, 230. SKS 4, 391–2 / CA, 88. Cf. SKS 7, 246–7 / CUP1, 272. SKS 23, 438, nb20:80 / JP 1, 724. SKS 2, 432 / EO1, 445. SKS 15, 30, nb15:42 / JP 2, 1136. SKS 22, 59, nb11:105 / JP 6, 6414. SKS 4, 260–1 / PF, 58. SKS 22, 363, nb14:33 / JP 6, 1472. SKS 23, 85, nb15:122 / JP 1, 516. SKS 8, 131–2 / UD, 16–17. SKS 25, 133, nb27:17 / JP 4, 4903. SKS 4, 255 / PF, 51. SKS 4, 391 / CA, 88. SKS 4, 385n. / CA, 82n. SKS 24, 249, nb23:84 / JP 4, 4737.

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in its silence it does not betray the ineffability of the transcendent and does not merely unburden the heart of feelings that can then be relegated to the past, as a sigh or a word might.28 the glint effulges the inner passion and also anticipates the coming light. However, even after the historical advent of spirit with Christianity, the moment continues as the sudden in the figure of the demonic.29 The sudden is a figure of discontinuity, which abruptly breaks off the present moment from the past and isolates the demonic within itself, outside of (ethical) community and in “anxiety about the good.”30 that is, the demonic uses the suddenness of the moment to interrupt any possibility of opening the self to another, instead choosing to recoil into “inclosing reserve.”31 the moment for spirit, on the other hand, is the moment of decision or resolution—when the moment presents doing good as a possible task. the good demands opening oneself to continuity with the other, the stranger, the neighbor—in love, faith, and hope. The aesthete is the first character to indicate that the moment is inextricably bound to “being-for-other.”32 but ironically the aesthete misunderstands its significance, since he defines woman as being-for-other in order to exploit her for his own gratification, regardless of the consequences for others.33 He can recognize the quality of being-for-another in others, but cannot be-for-others himself. instead, he cultivates his “sidelong glance” as a means of seduction.34 this glint in his eye is alluring in its ambiguity, both penetrating the other and reflecting her image, but in the moment of vision the aesthete fails to become more than an observer and fails to observe more than an object for his desire.35 the moment of seduction, which should be the culmination of Johannes the seducer’s painstaking preparations, is so momentary it is elided by the reader’s glance between Johannes’ diary entries of september 24 and september 25.36 it is thereby assimilated to plato’s vanishing moment as spiritless. this invisible ambiguity of the moment characterizes both irony and humor, and thereby renders them merely spiritless adumbrations of the transfiguring moment of insight. Each can be discerned, like the objects of religious faith, only by those with the requisite insight; but since neither irony nor humor is essentially characterized by spirit, they must be revoked as analogies to faith. For the ethicist, the moment offers the possibility of choice. rather than drift in immediacy, according to the vicissitudes of fate or chance, the ethicist assumes responsibility by choosing to choose. in every moment, the ethicist is faced with the possibility of choosing the good (or of choosing his or her self in its eternal 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

SKS 4, 390 / CA, 87. SKS 4, 430ff. / CA, 129ff. SKS 4, 420 / CA, 118. SKS 4, 430 / CA, 129. Cf. SKS 2, 419 / EO1, 432. SKS 2, 420 / EO1, 433. SKS 2, 305–6 / EO1, 315–16. SKS 3, 17 / EO2, 7–8. SKS 2, 432 / EO1, 445.

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validity).37 each moment of decision enables the individual to build a history, which can function as the self’s narrative identity to be recollected and judged in eternity.38 but this history begins only with the decisive moment in which the individual chooses to lead a life whose value is governed by ethical values. In “first ethics” the criteria of goodness are limited to those determined by social mores; in “second ethics” they are expanded to include appeal to the transcendent goodness of god, whose only perfect incarnate model is Christ.39 However, the ethical task is overwhelming.40 Continuity of choice creates character,41 but every moment also poses dangerous trials and temptations, to which even a martyr might respond out of character, through weakness of will or despair, and risk losing himself.42 Whereas the aesthete finds continuity only for the duration of a mood, the ethicist strives for continuity of character for the whole of life, and for the sake of eternal salvation.43 but it is an impossibly heavy burden to have one’s eternal salvation depend on striving in every moment to be good.44 either the individual falls into the despair of (merely) willing to be oneself,45 or acknowledges ultimate dependence on god in striving to choose the good. the latter is the moment of faith, which in turn is dependent on the moment of sinconsciousness. sin-consciousness is an acknowledgment of human frailty.46 sin-consciousness enters the individual in a moment of conscience, with a double-aspect like the glint of an eye. on the one hand, sin-consciousness looks inwards, at the individual’s moral failings, in repentance; on the other hand, it looks outwards, through faith, to the possibility of forgiveness. the earnestness of the individual character demands repentance, while belief in the sacrifice of Christ, as a divine act of atonement for human sins, underpins faith in the possibility of forgiveness. but the individual is unable to attain sin-consciousness by himself. with sin-consciousness comes an essential change in the subject, who thereby becomes “a person other than he was.”47 sin-consciousness, then, is much more than an acknowledgment of human frailty; it is a key to solving the ancient problem of movement through time, in which a subject can undergo essential change in order to become something else. this change happens, according to Kierkegaard, when the human subject realizes in the twinkling of an eye that “he has become a sinner.” at this moment, “dreaming spirit” awakens to the possibility of freedom to posit itself as a synthesis of the

37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47

SKS 3, 198 / EO2, 206. ibid. Cf. SKS 4, 328 / CA, 20–1. SKS 3, 221 / EO2, 231. SKS 22, 81, nb11:136 / JP 4, 4991. SKS 25, 468, nb30:101 / JP 4, 3903. SKS 3, 219–20 / EO2, 229–30. SKS 25, 476, nb30:112 / JP 3, 2551. SKS 11, 130 / SUD, 14. SKS 3, 99 / EO2, 97. SKS 7, 250 / CUP1, 584.

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temporal and the eternal.48 this moment of insight, and the condition for recognizing its significance, must come from “the god in time”49 in “the fullness in time.”50 Once this moment of insight has occurred, and its significance is acknowledged, it changes everything. not only does the person become a new person, but also various concepts in Christian dogma become intelligible. without the acknowledgment of the decisive transfiguration of identity in the moment of sin-consciousness, when the significance of the eternal pervades time, and without the acknowledgment that the origin of this moment of insight is god, “the concepts of conversion, atonement, and redemption are lost” and “the concepts of resurrection and judgment are destroyed.”51 “it is only with Christianity that sensuousness, temporality, and the moment can be properly understood, because only with Christianity does eternity become essential.”52 sin-consciousness allows one to become conscious of oneself as spirit; and spirit, understood from the Christian perspective, excludes sensuousness and temporality. spirit becomes conscious of itself by means of what it excludes (sin, sensuousness, temporality, worldliness, selfishness). Spirit chooses itself at every moment it strives to do its duty, to love the good, to love the neighbor, to love God, to have faith, to hope, and to sacrifice selfish concerns for the sake of another. each moment then becomes a possible turning point, of staying resolutely in spirit or of falling away in sin. Each moment that is not filled with an expression of love is a moment lost, which breaks “the chain of eternity”53—and to lose the decisive moment in which time is pervaded with the significance of eternity is “to become [merely] momentary.”54 there is a moment of sin-consciousness for human beings in general, as well as for each individual. the moment of sin-consciousness in general occurs when Christ dies to atone for the sins of all human beings. this is when (sacred) history begins for human beings in general.55 this event can then be used by each individual to leverage personal sin-consciousness in every moment of conscientious reflection. It is also a moment of transfiguration since it offers the possibility of saturating temporality with eternal significance. The eternal enters time-consciousness in every moment the individual resolutely focuses on (Christian) love, faith and hope. nothing focuses the conscience more than the moment of death. two deaths in particular have this power: one’s own death, and the death of Christ. the moment of death is a decisive point of transition, an analogy with rebirth as spirit. it marks the end of earthly existence and the moment of eschatological judgment. by keeping the moment of death alive in consciousness during life, Kierkegaard suggests that we SKS 4, 393 / CA, 90–1. SKS 7, 250 / CUP1, 584. 50 SKS 4, 393 / CA, 90. the phrase “the fullness of time” comes from paul’s letter to the galatians 4:4–5 and refers to the perfect timeliness of the incarnation of Christ: “but when the fullness of time had come, god sent forth his son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons.” 51 ibid. 52 SKS 4, 385n. / CA, 84n. 53 SKS 9, 183 / WL, 183. 54 ibid. 55 SKS 4, 392 / CA, 89. 48 49

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can distance ourselves from worldliness.56 thereby we enter more fully into the life of spirit, to which we are reborn in faith. while the moment of one’s own death can serve to focus consciousness intensively on what is most urgent and important in one’s life, the moment of Christ’s death marks the point of transference from Christianity as god’s interest to Christianity as “man’s interest.”57 The significance of Christ changes from prototype to redeemer, and his life and death express the atonement of the heterogeneity between himself and every human being.58 this heterogeneity and atonement represent, respectively, sin-consciousness, and forgiveness of sins. Christ’s incarnation is the moment in which eternity intersects time. as such, it provides the condition for human consciousness to learn that eternal truth can enter time. That condition consists in the fact that through the sacrifice of Christ, God forgave human beings their sins. thereby sin-consciousness entered the world, and with it the significance of temporality with respect to eternal salvation. The moment of incarnation is also the moment as the “fullness of time.”59 this is the objective moment of intersection of eternity and time, but human beings can only relate to it with the subjective passions of faith or offense. it is like the Kantian thing-in-itself (Ding-an-sich), in being inaccessible directly to reason, the understanding and sense experience. nor can it be represented, though it might be indicated figuratively, as the dreadful transfiguration of the relationship between ingeborg and Frithiof is indicated in ingeborg’s glance, which contains an eternal longing in the momentary trace of the other.60 However, if the incarnation is believed to be the objective intersection of eternity and time, then it can serve as a regulative ideal for actual ethical-religious behavior. the moment of the incarnation presents a possible task for human beings: imitation of Christ in performing works of love. every moment is a possible task, or resolution—including the possible resolve to repeat the last moment’s resolve (cf. the minimal task of hoping, which is to bear suffering with patience).61 with this attitude towards the moment, every moment of suffering can be viewed as a task, or as a spiritual trial that will only make faith stronger. every moment also offers the possibility of taking offense, but that is also an opportunity to renew one’s faith. whereas eternity intersects time objectively in the incarnation of Christ, eternity is only accessible to human beings in consciousness. the moment, for the (temporal) human being, is the point where the consciousness of eternity comes into time, and enables the transfiguration of the self through the awakening of spirit. Finally, Kierkegaard attacks what he perceives to be the lack of spirit at the heart of the very institution that should have been responsible for keeping spirit alive: the danish people’s Church. in his polemical pamphlet, The Moment, Kierkegaard launched an acerbic attack on the leadership of the state church for embracing worldly values of comfort, prudence, and social status—in short, forms of sensuous 56 57 58 59 60 61

SKS 23, 438, nb20:80 / JP 1, 724. SKS 24, 491, nb25:72 / JP 2, 1911. ibid. Cf. SKS 4, 226 / PF, 18. SKS 4, 390 / CA, 87. Cf. SKS 8, 375–6 / UD, 279–80.

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and temporal self-interest that are the antithesis of spirit—rather than striving for the eternal in every moment, as genuine witnesses to the truth, with the attendant risks of humiliation, suffering and martyrdom. in this pamphlet, Kierkegaard abandoned his previous painstaking care about literary expression, because the urgency of the situation required instant action. However, this instant intervention was not meant to be ephemeral; on the contrary, he meant it to be fully informed by eternal ideals “against the illusions.”62 this timely intervention was driven by Kierkegaard’s perceived need to act now, to become visible in the moment of action (before death deprived him of the possibility), in an attempt to awaken his contemporaries to the potential in the moment for ethical-religious transfiguration. Now is not a vanishing moment, but a task for consciousness to look to eternal values. see also Christ; Church; death; decision/resolve; demonic; Faith; History; leap; Offense; Repetition; Sin; Stages; Time/Temporality/Eternity; Transfiguration.

62

SKS 13, 141 / M, 101.

monasticism Curtis l. thompson

Monasticism (Munkevæsen—noun) the word “monasticism” corresponds to the danish Munkevæsen, and “monastery” or “cloister” to the danish Kloster. a cloister is a building or house that is a residence for a community of monks or nuns, and it sometimes refers to this community itself.1 Kierkegaard gave considerable attention to the monastic movement, and his dialectical account of it is utilized to criticize the Christendom of his time. one of his pseudonyms, Johannes Climacus, which was also the title of an unpublished work, comes from the name of a monk (c. 570–649) who wrote the book Ladder of Paradise, whose thirty chapters describe the steps of the ladder to perfection.2 in his published writings, Kierkegaard gives his readers the fullest analysis of monasticism through the pen of Johannes Climacus’ Concluding Unscientific Postscript. He provides much briefer treatments of this notion in Either/Or, For Self-Examination, and Judge for Yourself! passing references to monasticism can be found in The Concept of Irony, Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, Stages on Life’s Way, Practice in Christianity, The Point of View, as well as in Kierkegaard’s early and late polemical writings. we can also learn much about his understanding of the concept in the close to fifty journal entries in which he discusses it. For Kierkegaard, the monastery is closely tied to the category of individuality.3 Human beings are by nature animal-creations, which means that all human effort is in the direction of the herd, wherein one is free from the criterion of the individual and of the ideal.4 awaking to the need for rest for the soul in unpolluted air, monastic aspirants departed from the sinful world to find peace in the tranquil confines of a Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 10, column 1928. 2 PF, x. in addition, the editor of Either/Or is Victor eremita (“eremita” means “hermit), who also appears as a participant in the dialogue entitled “in Vino Veritas” included in Stages on Life’s Way. there Victor states (SKS 6, 65–6 / SLW, 65): “so, then, am i perhaps preaching the monastery, and am I justifiably called Eremita? By no means. Away with the monastery. it, too, is still only an immediate expression of spirit, and spirit cannot be expressed immediately….the person for whom every immediate expression is only forgery, he and he alone is better safeguarded than if he entered the monastery; he becomes an eremita even if he rides the omnibus night and day.” 3 SKS 20, 148, nb2:19 / KJN 4, 146. 4 SKS 25, 272, nb28:71 / JP 3, 2968. 1

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religious order with its cloister and gardens.5 the middle ages actually believed that one would achieve the ideal by entering the monastery.6 the monks rebelled against the earthly, identifying their enemy as the sensate, without full awareness that gaining a victory over the sensate does not come easily because it is hard not to incite it in wanting to annihilate it.7 what began as an expression of solitariness, a search for the ideal, and breaking with the world eventually became an expression of community, flight from the ideal, and aligning with the world. At first the monks lived completely outside the world, but then they lived in the world, reconciled with it, as seen, for example, in the Jesuits.8 Monasticism reflected on the teaching that the one who loses all, gains all, but then it broke off its reflection too soon and the question concerning diligent repetition appears.9 its premature break lies in reducing the task of relating absolutely to the absolute telos to merely tending to relative ends.10 in Kierkegaard’s context of golden age denmark, monasticism was held up for criticism by a protestantism shaped by the reformation that had abolished the monastery.11 preachers railed against this movement.12 after all, unlike monastics, protestants remain in the world,13 living out their vocations, 14 and in that sense they are following Christ who ministered in the world rather than retreating to a monastery.15 to be sure, the abuses of monasticism are many, and Kierkegaard makes plenty of allusions to them. the hair shirt of sufferings16 is special attire for the exception, but clearly “monastic flagellation” does not represent genuine Christian asceticism.17 Furthermore, the whole movement was an “enormous abstraction,” as life was spent in praying and singing hymns.18 “the monastery’s debauchery”19 and “the corruption of monks”20 are singled out. abusive elements of misguided monastic imitation are enumerated: “some of the actions they hit upon were strange, that it could think that in itself fasting was Christianity, that entering the monastery, giving everything to the poor, not to mention what we can scarcely mention without smiling—scourging oneself, crawling on one’s knees, standing on one leg, etc.—that

SKS 18, 43, ee:115.a / KJN 2, 39; SKS 6, 185 / SLW, 197. SKS 22, 366, nb14:41 / KJN 6, 371. 7 SKS 6, 167 / SLW, 180. 8 SKS 27, 138–9, papir 154:1 / JP 3, 3805; SKS 15, 49 / JC, 158; SKS 18, 31, FF:81 / KJN 1, 192. 9 SKS 4, 409 / CA, 106–7. 10 SKS 7, 368–9 / CUP1, 405. 11 SKS 21, 130, nb7:101 / KJN 5, 135–6. 12 SKS 7, 436 / CUP1, 481. 13 SKS 25, 452–3, nb30:82 / JP 3, 2764. 14 SKS 23, 467, nb20:140 / JP 4, 5014. 15 SKS 21, 157, nb8:29 / KJN 5, 164. 16 SKS 6, 169 / SLW, 182. 17 SKS 22, 432–3, nb14:148 / KJN 6, 439. 18 SKS 7, 365 / CUP1, 401. 19 SKS 21, 157, nb8:28 / KJN 5, 163–4. 20 SKS 24, 398, nb24:122 / JP 3, 2759. 5 6

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this was supposed to be true imitation. this was an error.”21 acknowledging these abuses, however, ought not blind us to the worth of monasticism. the monastic movement is marked by ambiguity, for it is valuable in some ways, even while it is finally flawed. The Postscript pseudonym Johannes Climacus claims that the penance of the Middle Ages made guilt finite by making it commensurable, but still monasticism is to be respected because it is an “enthusiastic venture in greatness”; though childlike, it is to be praised for taking seriously the ideal and the reality of god.22 in fact, monastic life outranks certain forms of modern life that are even more out of touch with existence: we smile at monastic life, and yet no hermit ever lived as nonfactual a life as is being lived nowadays, because a hermit admittedly abstracted from the whole world, but he did not abstract from himself. we know how to describe the fantastical setting of a monastery in an out-of-the-way place, in the solitude of the forest, in the blue of the horizon, but we do not think about the fantastical setting of pure thinking. and yet the recluse’s pathos-filled lack of actuality is far preferable to the comic lack of actuality of the pure thinker, and the recluse’s passionate forgetfulness that takes the whole world away is far preferable to the comic distraction of the world-historical thinker who forgets himself.23

so often passion and earnestness animated those going into the monastic world; therefore, even though it was clearly an improper move of resignation, it is worthy of respect.24 Yes, monasticism represented a fleeing from the real world to a world removed from life’s earthly struggles. despairing people headed to the monastery to find peace.25 the young Kierkegaard depicts this as an option for those who “could withstand life’s dialectic no longer.”26 The flight to the monastery could be viewed as an act of cowardice, but then it could also be taking place because the person does not want to disturb those to whom he would be an affliction.27 such a retreat might also be a condition for being able to be a witness to the truth.28 protestants urge the faithful not to drop out of normal life by going to the monastery, but instead to remain in the world; an 1854 journal entry finds Kierkegaard stating that “this watchword led to the protestantism of denmark becoming Christendom.”29 this is because for him, at least as he was viewing things near the end of his life, the monastery, despite its faults, represents solitude, individuality, and ideality; to remain in society is to move away “from the criterion of the individual and of the ideal.”30 monasticism displays an intriguing relation between the inward and the outward. the absolute nature of its inwardness is questionable, “because its inwardness 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30

SKS 16, 238–9 / JFY, 192. SKS 7, 492 / CUP1, 542. SKS 7, 291 / CUP1, 319–20. SKS 7, 365, 378, 381 / CUP1, 401, 416, 419. SKS 6, 185 / SLW, 197. SKS 14, 25 / EPW, 21. SKS 25, 319–20, nb29:36 / JP 3, 2761. SKS 25, 345, nb29:85 / JP 3, 2762. SKS 25, 452–3, nb30:82 / JP 3, 2764; SKS 26, 80, nb31:107 / JP 3, 2765. SKS 25, 272–3, nb28:71 / JP 3, 2968.

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created for itself a conspicuous and very distinct outwardness.”31 the error of the middle ages and its monastic movement is that it thought its absolute interiority could receive appropriate expression in a distinctive separate outwardness, whereby the expression lost its absolute quality: “as soon as interiority is supposed to be decisively and commensurably expressed outwardly, we have the monastic movement.”32 the middle ages wanted a little cubbyhole to occupy itself properly with the absolute, and this externality was thought capable of expressing absolute inwardness.33 proper religiosity recognizes the absolute difference between god and the human being and results in humility; the monastic movement with its enthusiastic attempt to be like god, forgets this categorical distinction and fantastically wants to be more than a finite human being.34 as a lutheran, Kierkegaard discusses good works and merit. He is not against good works, by any means; faith has its place for good works. However, in monasticism grace was changed into a new, more rigorous law, as religion’s life became tortured labor rather than joyous and free: voluntary entrance into the monastery became bondage insofar as “everything became works.”35 the error was not in the works but in the “exaggeration with regard to works,” so that one’s justification was based not only on faith but on works as well.36 one’s venturing with absolute passion and renouncing everything, for Kierkegaard, ought not acquire the appearance of meriting, but that is what it did in monasticism.37 in the idea of merit they thought their good works earned them merit with god and earned them so much merit that others too could receive benefits from it.38 the idea of merit arose because the notion of imitation, which should have been maintained simply as the requirement of the Christian life, took shape as the requirement for the extraordinary: those who live their lives in imitation of Christ are the extraordinary, and they are worthy of merit.39 Christianity calls its adherents to a form of life that takes seriously the ideal. in monasticism, it was believed that the ideal could be met. one of monasticism’s major missteps was identifying its participants as extraordinary people: “in the middle ages it was thought that in choosing the monastery one chose the extraordinary and became an extraordinary person oneself; from the altitude of the monastery one looked down proudly, almost pityingly, on the ordinary people. no wonder that people flocked into the monastery when they could become extraordinary persons at such a bargain!”40 this far-reaching delusion allowed admiration to be reaped for doing the “extraordinary,” and the reception of the admiration immediately made the admired one homogeneous with everything else worldly.41 Creating this 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

CA, explanatory notes, 248, n. 53. SKS 7, 368–70 / CUP1, 404–7. SKS 7, 371 / CUP1, 408. SKS 7, 445–6 / CUP1, 492. SKS 13, 44 / FSE, 15. SKS 16, 240 / JFY, 193. SKS 7, 368 / CUP1, 404. SKS 16, 239 / JFY, 192. SKS 25, 19, nb26:10 / JP 2, 1914. SKS 3, 309 / EO2, 327. SKS 24, 513, nb25:100 / JP 3, 2760.

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new class of Christian emaciated the religion. the reduction of Christianity went hand-in-hand with the emergence of the extraordinary Christian: “instead of there being, Christianly, only one requirement for all of us, there was a progression: the Christian who was directly honored by admiration came to be the extraordinary, and the ordinary Christians became plain worldliness.”42 If the first blow bringing Christianity’s falsification and demolition came when the emperor became a Christian, the second far more dangerous blow “came when the category of the directly recognizable extraordinary Christian emerged.”43 the error was “not in entering the monastery but in this title of extraordinary Christian, which was directly honored with admiration by the contemporaries.”44 monasticism’s voluntary poverty and the like cannot bring forth the extraordinary Christian, on Kierkegaard’s view; rather, it is only through the Christian’s immediate god-relationship that Christianity can admit to extraordinary Christians.45 Kierkegaard contends that, theologically, there is much to criticize about monasticism. First, criticism can be leveled against it in relation to worship.46 the human being expresses herself most perfectly when she expresses the absolute difference between god and the human, and this she does in worship. the human’s relationship with God is maximized in worship, which signifies that for her God is absolutely everything; but monasticism relinquishes this absolute differentiation by insisting on outward expression of the inward reality. second, luther’s criticism against monasticism’s exaggeration with regard to works is still relevant. Here, though, his followers need to be careful not to interpret him as dismissing the categories of imitation and the voluntary altogether.47 Imitation must be affirmed, for only imitation can tie the knot at the end in the sense of bringing faith to its full actuality.48 third, criticism should be made of monasticism’s “youthful adulthood” that led it to affirm a loftiness of God and Christ that can become so infinite that “there is no longer any sort of actual Christian life”; the scriptures call the Christian to suffer as Christ did, that is, not suffering in the ordinary human form of losing one’s spouse, fortune or health, but in the deeper form of witnessing to god’s truth by supporting it over against the world’s truth.49 Fourth, monasticism does not recognize deeply enough the extent to which god indeed has use for human beings; the monks did not think god adequately enough “in human fashion”: this entails living like the apostles did, by personally associating with Christ, living with him as a human being, even while remembering the infinite qualitative difference between the god-man and other human beings.50 SKS 24, 514, nb25:100 / JP 3, 2760. ibid. 44 ibid. 45 SKS 25, 18–19, nb26:10 / JP 2, 1914. 46 SKS 7, 375 / CUP1, 412–13. the next two sentences are also dependent on this passage. 47 SKS 16, 239–40 / JFY, 193. 48 SKS 16, 241–2 / JFY, 195–6. 49 SKS 21, 237, nb9:64 / KJN 5, 247. 50 SKS 21, 238, nb9:64 / KJN 5, 248. 42 43

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at many points in the authorship, Kierkegaard juxtaposes monasticism to the modern secular mentality. since the modern age is ashamed of the monks and nuns of the middle ages,51 and since monasticism’s market value has fallen in modernity,52 the monastery has been abandoned by the age.53 in modernity, the only move left to the person who has chosen the monastery is—“the movement of the absurd.”54 this viewpoint predominates because in the modern era people “are born more worldly-wise than in the old days,”55 but “the greater number of them are born blind in relation to the religious.”56 piety in modernity no longer “seeks a solitary hiding place…to serve god alone in deep stillness”;57 modern piety does it differently— striving to make “careers in the world, scintillate at parties, make an ostentatious display in the world”58—and defining “oneself and one’s life in complete conformity with a secular mentality,”59 and thus “becomes pure, unalloyed worldliness.”60 in the modern mind-set “decisive action…is not needed anymore.”61 that is because mediation has become the new monasticism. both mediation and monasticism end up exhausting themselves in the relative.62 in the middle ages “monastic-ascetic Christianity” dominated; in modernity “professional-scholarly Christianity” dominates: “Just as in the middle ages not all entered the monastery, but all stood in relation to the monastery and saw the true Christian in one who entered it, so in our day all stand in relation to the professor—the professor is the true Christianity.”63 mediation, speculative thinking, has conquered the day, and its victory has produced “Christians with a secular peace of mind” for whom imitation has no place.64 given the situation of his time, where all are Christians and Christianity has largely been lost to Christendom, Kierkegaard wonders: with no monastery to which he could flee, how does he protect what he concealed in his innermost being, the little bit of earnestness of his inwardness?65 this raises the question of whether monasticism is needed again.66 in an 1847 journal entry he writes: of this there is no doubt, our age and protestantism in general could be in need of the monastery again, or of it being there. “the monastery” is an essential dialectical element in what is Christian. we therefore need it out there as a navigational beacon, in order to

51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66

SKS 17, 201, CC:12 / KJN 1, 192. SKS 3, 309 / EO2, 327. SKS 4, 190 / FT, 101. ibid. SKS 4, 408 / CA, 106. ibid. SKS 16, 217 / JFY, 168. ibid. ibid. ibid. SKS 16, 240 / JFY, 194. SKS 7, 369–70 / CUP1, 406–7. SKS 16, 241 / JFY, 195. SKS 25, 19, nb26:10 / JP 2, 1914. SKS 12, 222–3 / PC, 228. SKS 21, 171, nb8:59 / KJN 5, 178.

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see where we are—even though i myself would not enter it. but if there really is true Christianity in every generation, there must also be individuals who have this need.67

in 1854, nearer the end of his life, when he anguishes even more deeply over his religion having been emaciated by the forces of danish culture, Kierkegaard states, “Back to the monastery, from which Luther broke away, is the first cause for Christianity to take up.”68 Here his assessment of monasticism is less balanced, but it can be said that throughout his authorship it plays a fairly important role. see also asceticism; earnestness; Humility; individual; inner/outer; middle ages; protestantism/reformation; rigorism.

67 68

SKS 20, 247, nb3:4 / KJN 4, 247. SKS 25, 403, nb30:26 / JP 3, 2763.

money gabriel guedes rossatti

Money (Penge—noun) in etymological terms, the danish word penge was coined from the plural of penning, which is of uncertain origin (compare english “penny,” german Pfennig),1 although molbech, in the nineteenth century, conceived of either Penning or Pending as coming from old danish.2 In any event, his definition of “money” stipulates that it is “a minted, stamped piece of metal upon which generally a particular value is bestowed.”3 it is worth noting that Kierkegaard also refers to paper money.4 the most frequent occurrences of the word “money” in Kierkegaard’s published works are to be found in both Works of Love and the articles published under the common title The Moment, followed by Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, and then Stages on Life’s Way. this pattern shows that the topic of “money” in the works of Kierkegaard coincides with the “Corsair affair” which, by bringing Kierkegaard to a more mature socio-political understanding of the age, also brought him to a more acute understanding of the importance of money in modern societies. However, Kierkegaard problematized money as a cultural issue, more from a psychological point of view than from an economical one. thus, one should not rely solely on the presence of the word “money” (or of synonyms such as “wealth” or the more biblical “mammon”) in Kierkegaard’s works in order to investigate or understand his position towards it, but rather keep in mind that money is often implied by Kierkegaard’s problematization of secular mentality and the conceptual constellation attached to it (“comparison,” “double-mindedness,” “sagacity” etc.). apart from that, one should be aware that the topic of money was also problematized by Kierkegaard in various private annotations, which are even more numerous than the appearances of the word in his published works. in them, indeed, the proportion of entries containing references to money written after the “Corsair affair” is even greater than in those written before it. In sum, one can safely affirm that money, as a theoretical question (as well as a personal problem, though my analysis here will

1 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 16, columns 640–6. 2 Christian molbech, Dansk Ordbog indeholdende det danske Sprog Stammeord, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen, gyldendalske boghandlings Forlag 1833, vol. 2, p. 179. 3 ibid. 4 e.g. SKS 8, 72 / TA, 74–5.

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not take this into consideration),5 is most closely associated with Kierkegaard’s socalled “second authorship,” that is, the one that took shape after the “Corsair affair.”6 However, precisely for these reasons, it is worth seeing how it appears in the “first authorship,” that is, in the works closely associated with the pseudonymous authors. I. The Treatment of Money in the “First Authorship” while, on the one hand, Kierkegaard wrote retrospectively that “i was born in 1813, in that bad fiscal year when so many other bad banknotes were put in circulation, and my life seems most comparable to one of them….a bad banknote like that sometimes becomes a family’s misfortune,”7 on the other hand, a problematization of money was not forthcoming in the entire first part of his authorship. Hence money as a theoretical question, if not as an object of criticism, usually remains opaque both in the pseudonymous works, as well as in the series of edifying discourses published between 1843 and 1844. in the latter, the word scarcely appears. a perfect sign of such “opacity” is to be found in the preface to Fear and Trembling, where the pseudonymous author Johannes de silentio introduces the work with the following words: not only in the business world but also in the world of ideas, our age stages ein wirklicher Ausverkauf [a real sale]. everything can be had at such a bargain price that it becomes a question whether there is finally anyone who will make a bid. Every speculative monitor who conscientiously signals the important trends in modern philosophy, every assistant professor, tutor, and student, every rural outsider and tenant incumbent in philosophy is unwilling to stop with doubting everything but goes further.8

as we can see, money (implied through the use of the terminology of economics) in this passage is only a metaphor that Johannes de silentio employs in order to discuss issues which belong more properly to the realm of the spirit. in this sense, he seems to maintain a pattern which had already been employed by Kierkegaard in a private note from around 1836–37 and in which he had stated that: at the moment the greatest fear is of the total bankruptcy toward which all europe seems to be moving and men forget the far greater danger, a seemingly unavoidable bankruptcy in an intellectual-spiritual sense…a confusion in the languages themselves, a mutiny, the most dangerous of all, of the words themselves, which, wrenched out of man’s control, would despair, as it were, and crash in upon one another, and out of this chaos a person would snatch, as from a grab-bag, the handiest word to express his presumed thoughts.9 on Kierkegaard as a private individual and money, see Frithiof brandt and else rammel, Kierkegaard og Pengene, Copenhagen: levin & munksgaard 1935. 6 Cf. eliseo pérez-Álvarez, A Vexing Gadfly: The Late Kierkegaard on Economic Matters, Cambridge: James Clarke & Co. 2011, pp. 43ff. 7 SKS 18, 203, JJ:198 / JP 5, 5725. 8 SKS 4, 101 / FT, 5. 9 SKS 17, 198 CC:12 / JP 5, 5181. it should be mentioned that Henning Fenger conceives of this annotation as being part of the project of the “Faustian letters.” see Henning 5

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in fact, the treatment of money by other pseudonymous authors is not much different. moreover, it does not seem to be a problem worthy of attention in regard to their livelihoods. For instance, the above-mentioned Johannes de silentio claims to be “by no means a philosopher. He is poetice et eleganter [in a poetic and refined way] a supplementary clerk [Extra-Skriver] who neither writes systems nor gives promises of the system.”10 more exactly, he has no qualms about confessing that “[h]e writes because to him it is a luxury that is all the more pleasant and apparent the fewer there are who buy and read what he writes.”11 in other words, he confesses to being an aristocrat and consequently someone who is beyond (as the term Extra-Skriver suggests) the literary market and having to struggle to survive in such a realm. in the same manner his no less aristocratic colleague Johannes Climacus, author of Philosophical Fragments, introduces his very first work with the following words: “what is offered here is only a pamphlet, proprio Marte, propriis auspiciis, proprio stipendio [by one’s own hand, on one’s own behalf, at one’s own expense].”12 the same status of supplementary clerk (Extra-Skriver) holds true of nicolaus notabene, author of Prefaces, who, after getting married thought “in all innocence…[he] might indulge [him]self: [through] engagement in some literary task.”13 it also holds true of Constantin Constantius, who describes himself as a “private [privatiserende] thinker,”14 who has time, leisure, and the material means to fathom problems such as the possibility or impossibility of “repetition,” even if they should require a trip to berlin from his own private means. In sum, money does not seem to be a matter of reflection, and even less a concrete problem or preoccupation, on the part of either the pseudonymous authors or characters present in Kierkegaard’s so-called “first authorship.” Indeed, many of them should rather be considered as flâneurs (such as Johannes the seducer and Constantin Constantius, among others) who had the habit of spending a considerable amount of their time either roaming around Copenhagen (or berlin) or sitting in places such as cafés and theaters in search of good stories which they could put down on paper, and this pretty much for their own delight, as one can surmise from the passages quoted above. now it remains to be seen how such carelessness in relation to money was changed overnight with the so-called “Corsair affair.” II. The Treatment of Money in the “Second Authorship” The first problematization of money in Kierkegaard’s works appears in A Literary Review of Two Ages, mostly written and eventually published in the first half of 1846. as is well known, during the period of its writing Kierkegaard experienced Fenger, Kierkegaard, The Myths and Their Origins: Studies in the Kierkegaardian Papers and Letters, trans. by George C. Schoolfield, New Haven and London: Yale University Press 1980, pp. 98–9. 10 SKS 4, 103 / FT, 7. 11 ibid. 12 SKS 4, 215 / PF, 5. 13 SKS 4, 470 / P, 6. 14 SKS 4, 57 / R, 186 (translation slightly modified).

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what later scholars would call the “Corsair affair,” that is, the humiliating attack upon his own person by the Corsair journal during the first months of 1846.15 in truth, it was both the attack and the reading of a recently published novel (october 1845) by the then anonymous author thomasine gyllembourg (1773–1856) entitled Two Ages that led him to tackle money as a theoretical question or object to be reckoned with, and about which he said: so ultimately the object of desire is money, but it is in fact token money [et Repræsentativ], an abstraction. a young man today would scarcely envy another his capacities or his skill or the love of a beautiful girl or his fame, no, but he would envy him his money. give me money, the young man will say, and i will be all right. and the young man will not do anything rash, he will not do anything he has to repent of, he will not have anything for which to reproach himself, but he will die in the illusion that if he had had money, then he would have lived, then he certainly would have done something great.16

this passage is interesting on account of the different elements it contains. on the one hand, there is the more obvious understanding of money as an abstraction or as a representation of something else, which makes it in Kierkegaard’s mind among the most representative phenomena in an “age of reflection.” The age of reflection promoted a systematic estrangement from reality, as he says, “Just as in our business transactions we long to hear the ring of real coins after the whisper of paper money, so we today long for a little primitivity….but an age without passion possesses no assets [Valuta]; everything becomes, as it were, transactions in paper money [Repræsentativer].”17 on the other hand, there is also his use of the temporal adverb “ultimately” (tilsidst) in his description of it, which implies that money as the more general “object of desire”—in the original danish “the attractive” (det Attraaede)— was a relatively novel phenomenon. this then means that the new society whose birth pangs Kierkegaard was witnessing was animated precisely by this value (of values), which in turn confirms that his analysis of money was really in touch with the spirit of the times—as one can see, for example, in the ironic sally of Heinrich Heine (1797–1856), for whom the French revolution of 1830 marked the transition from the ideal of the juste-milieu to that of becoming a juste-millionaire.18 in the works produced and published between 1846 and 1850, Kierkegaard developed what could be called his phenomenology of “secular mentality” (Verdslighed). The latter could be defined fundamentally as “nothing more or less than the attribution of infinite worth to the indifferent”19 and which, although based on the eminently modern phenomenon of the centrality of “the value of money”20—

For a thorough treatment of the “Corsair affair” see Howard V. and edna H. Hong, “Historical introduction,” in COR, vii–xxxiii. 16 SKS 8, 72–3 / TA, 75. 17 SKS 8, 72 / TA, 74–5. 18 Heinrich Heine, De la France, ed. by gerhard Höhn and bodo morawe, paris: gallimard 1994, p. 89. 19 SKS 11, 149 / SUD, 33. 20 SKS 8, 184 / UD, 77. 15

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and this to the point of becoming “the money world”21—is usually described by Kierkegaard in an indirect manner. thus, money itself or on its own terms is hardly ever engaged, although the mentality that surrounds it was to be incessantly challenged by Kierkegaard. in this sense a good example of his gradual engagement with the prominent place of money in modern lives is to be seen in the relative sharpening of his problematization of this issue between Works of Love, written throughout the first half of 1847 and published on september 29 of that same year, and Christian Discourses, written immediately after the former and eventually published on april 26, 1848. in Works of Love Kierkegaard criticizes those who are of the opinion that “money is reality.”22 He writes, “to make money is earnestness; to make much money, even if it were by selling human beings, this is earnestness….money, money—this is earnestness. this is how we are brought up; from earliest childhood we are disciplined in the ungodly worship of money.”23 Curiously, though (or not so curiously, since Kierkegaard adopts a radical “inverted dialectic” which he acknowledges as the Christian point of view), the thrust of his argument is that, by being so thoroughly “brought up in money-worship,”24 worldliness abolishes the “real” meaning of “mercifulness,” so that instead of the rich, it is the less favored who practice mercifulness. in Christian Discourses, though, he addresses directly what could be called “the mentality of accumulation” or, in his own words, “the thought of possession”25: the rich pagan…has only one thought: riches. all his thoughts revolve around that… wealth is his god….He has only one need, wealth, the one thing needful—therefore he does not even need god. but where one’s treasure is, there is one’s heart also, and the rich pagan’s heart is with wealth, on the earth….indeed, you can see it on him when you look at him: him, the sallow money-grubber who accumulates and accumulates for himself… him, the sleepless skinflint whom money, more cruel than the cruelest executioner, keeps more sleepless than the most abominable criminal….look at them—and listen to what they say; they all say it, and this is the only thing they talk about; basically they are all saying: what will we eat and what will we drink?26

as seen, in this discourse, entitled “the Care of abundance,”27 Kierkegaard launches a direct attack on the mentality geared towards the amassing of wealth and properties; against it, he encourages “indifference to money and monetary value.”28 but how is that supposed to happen more exactly? His answer is simple: with regard to abundance, thought can take the thought of possession away from the rich person, the thought that he possesses and owns this wealth and abundance as his. Yet in the external sense thought allows him to keep it all….this is the way thought goes about 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

ibid. SKS 9, 316 / WL, 319. SKS 9, 317 / WL, 320. ibid. SKS 10, 40 / CD, 28. SKS 10, 44–5 / CD, 33–4. see SKS 10, 35–47 / CD, 23–36. SKS 10, 41 / CD, 30.

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it; if he succeeds in this, if the rich person complies with it, if he totally submits himself and his abundance to the power of thought, then he who has is as one who does not have. and this is what the Christian does.29

more exactly, Kierkegaard’s notion of detachment is composed of a mixture of Stoic indifference (being based on the thought of death—“when i do not know what i am going to live on tomorrow, then is it not true that i do not own anything? but when i think that i can perhaps die tonight, ‘this very night,’ then, however rich i am, i do not own anything either”)30—and Christian indifference, for he exhorts (as well as demands) the following attitude on the part of the hypothetical wealthy Christian: to “bea[r] in mind that he owns nothing except what is given to him and owns what is given to him not for him to keep but only on loan, as a loan, as entrusted property… [for] the owner is god.”31 However, in the very last period of his authorship, when Kierkegaard made a radical, direct criticism of the danish people’s Church in his series of newspaper writings, he soon realized that this attitude was exactly what the members of the clergy generally lacked, and thus money became a central element of this criticism. thus, if in his last works Kierkegaard dwells upon a spurious relationship between temporality and eternity known as the “state Church,” then the link he was to discover between such spheres was precisely money. this, in turn, means that Kierkegaard noticed as well as attacked a subtle conflation of Christianity and money, one whose formula could be: “as in money matters, so in matters of the spirit.”32 against such confusion he raises some vexing questions: what is the Christianity of the new testament? it is the suffering truth. in this mediocre, wretched, sinful, evil, ungodly world the truth must suffer….For this its founder… suffered not only death upon the cross, but his whole life from first to last was suffering; for this the apostle suffered, for this the truth-witness. only one thing did the savior require…as the one and only thing: imitation. but what does “the pastor” do? this university-educated man is not lunatic. “to follow them, what a proposal to make to a sagacious man. a change would have to take place in a sagacious man; he would have to become lunatic before it could ever occur to him to become involved in such a thing. no, but cannot the sufferings of these glorious ones be depicted, their teaching be proclaimed as doctrine? Cannot this be done and in such a way that it would yield enough so that a man who wishes to enjoy life could live on it, marry on it, beget children who are fed on it? in other words, is it not possible to turn the glorious ones into money…?33

Kierkegaard finished his career by openly denouncing priests as vendors of both Christ and his teachings. by this he meant that “the question of the continued

29 30 31 32 33

SKS 10, 38 / CD, 26. SKS 10, 38 / CD, 27. SKS 10, 40 / CD, 29. SKS 13, 417 / M, 352. SKS 13, 383 / M, 321.

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existence of the established ecclesiastical order is a financial question [PengeSpørgsmaal],”34 and that money is “this world’s idol.”35 To summarize, while in Kierkegaard’s first authorship money was not a decisive issue to be problematized, the criticisms he raised against it in the second authorship indicate that, rather than being built on a proper economic theory on either the origin or development of money, they were much more criticisms of the “absolutization of the relative good of money.”36 this, then, means that Kierkegaard—much more as a psychologist (of theological presuppositions, it must be added) than as an economist—criticized the habits of thought that enslave people to money and its trappings. therefore, against the mentality which views it as the ultimate object of desire, or much more than that, as “god,” Kierkegaard more fundamentally praised detachment or indifference towards it. see also Christendom; Church; Hypocrisy; paganism; politics; present age; protestantism/reformation; spiritlessness; state; worldliness/secularism.

34 35 36

SKS 13, 196 / M, 152. SKS 13, 363 / M, 304. pérez-Álvarez, A Vexing Gadfly: The Late Kierkegaard on Economic Matters, p. 48.

mood/emotion/Feeling sara Carvalhais de oliveira

Mood (Stemning—noun); Emotion (Affect—noun, Sindsbevægelse—noun, Rørelse— noun); Feeling (Følelse—noun) the danish word Stemning (mood) is the verbal noun corresponding to the verb at stemme (which includes, among others, the following meanings: to tune, to sound harmonious; to be in agreement with, to make one’s voice be heard, to suit; to bring someone to, or to place someone in, a certain mood—partly derived from the old saxon stemn(i)a, in old High german stimna, seen in the corresponding german forms Stimme, stimmen).1 Kierkegaard uses the term Stemning specifically for a state or frame of mind that is provisional, but relatively lasting, and characterized by an identifiable predominant feeling, or a propensity in a definite direction.2 Affekt derives from the latin affectus and has the meaning of mood/frame of mind/emotion/excitement, although it has a more varied range of application.3 Sindsbevægelse was formed at the beginning of the eighteenth century as a danish noun for Affekt. it has the meaning of emotion/excitement. it is furthermore concerned with the state of mind produced by the fact that the mind is put in motion.4 Rørelse also has the same meanings as Affekt and can also mean the expression of feeling itself; moreover, it relates sometimes to sudden and prominent or changeable moods and feelings. Rørelse is the verbal noun of at røre (to move/to stir/to touch); its particular meaning here is in part influenced by the Swedish noun rörelse.5 Finally, Følelse (feeling) comes from old danish and is the verbal noun of at føle (to feel, to sense)—borrowed from the middle low german vōlen and the old saxon fōlian, and corresponding to the old High german fuolen, nowadays fühlen, in anglo-saxon fælan, in english feel.6 it can designate the (sense of) touch, the impression produced by means of the senses, especially through the sense of touch; feeling, sensation. it can also be identified with a notion that is not only formed using the senses, but also by way of observation and reflection, for example, the state of consciousness which, Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 21, columns 1150–3. Ordenes Historie, Dansk Etymologisk Ordbog, Tillæg til Den Store Danske Encyclopædie, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1989, p. 417. 2 Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vol. 21, columns 1150–3. 3 ibid., vol. 1, column 157. 4 ibid., vol. 18, column 1447. 5 ibid., vol. 18, columns 241–4. 6 ibid., vol. 6, columns 400–2; Ordenes Historie, pp. 147–8. 1

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unlike knowledge and will, is especially characterized by the contrast between desire and aversion (used in philosophical language since Kant).7 “mood” appears most frequently in Either/Or, part one. it also occurs often in Either/Or, part two. nevertheless, its most important developments are found in “at a graveside” from Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions, Fear and Trembling,8 and The Concept of Anxiety. “Affect” occurs extremely rarely, but is significantly mentioned in Philosophical Fragments. likewise, Sindsbevægelse is very seldom referred to, but is most frequently mentioned in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments. it is in Either/Or, part two that Rørelse is most often cited. the following texts are also worth underlining: Either/Or, part one and Fear and Trembling. “Feeling” is encountered most often in both volumes of Either/Or, followed by its occurrence in Works of Love. I. Mood A. Structure The phenomenon of mood signifies an intensification of the life that moves in the interior of an individual.9 This intensification is not only proper to a special domain of experience, such as music (although there is within mozart’s music a dispositional expansion),10 but from the point of view of poetry moods can come upon a reader like a “shower bath,” contrary to his or her own expectations.11 science also presupposes a mood (in science “an error in the modulation is just as disturbing as an error in the development of thought”); besides, the concrete understanding itself depends on mood.12 on the other hand, considering the actual existence of an individual, the moods within can in fact be evoked13 or inflicted,14 although this might also be a demonic possibility. in another place in the corpus, it is said instead that moods cannot be caused or produced;15 one can be brought to or put in a particular mood,16 but its influence over one’s life has to do with one’s responsibility—moods can be used in a certain way.17 the life-regime of moods suffers from an excess, an oversupply in the core of one’s existence.18

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vol. 6, columns 400–2. SKS 4, 104–6 / FT, 9–11. SKS 1, 319 / CI, 284. SKS 2, 108 / EO1, 104. SKS 4, 96 / R, 231. SKS 4, 322 / CA, 14–5. see also SKS 4, 342 / CA, 36; SKS 4, 367 / CA, 62. SKS 2, 387 / EO1, 399. SKS 4, 14 / R, 137. SKS 2, 287 / EO1, 298. SKS 2, 384 / EO1, 396. SKS 2, 372 / EO1, 384. SKS 2, 425 / EO1, 438–9.

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moods function in a regime of multiplicity and variation of intensity, affecting diverse regions of an individual’s life, with multiple domains of life being attacked simultaneously or successively by the same mood or by the same regime of moods— operating like “storms”19 “in a dreadful witches’ dance.”20 this indicates the instability and the scattered character of a possible life founded completely on moods. there is a “whole scale of moods,”21 and it is possible therefore for someone to traverse the entire range of moods.22 moods succeed or replace one another arbitrarily23 and anonymously. moreover, it seems that moods can somehow be predictable—it is possible to sense them and to know how they function or the way they work upon an individual himself and also probably how they work upon others.24 nevertheless, it does not follow from the fact that their functioning may be known or that they are psychologically describable that one is in touch with their deepest meaning.25 Furthermore, the attunement (Stemning) of an individual in a particular instant discloses the life-view that dominates in the existence of that individual. according to “at a graveside”26 there is, on the one hand, a kind of comprehension which is motivated by the dispositional perspective of an individual over his life seen as a totality and, on the other, another kind of comprehension where the rupture of mood over the life-view of that individual has dominion. this seems to be evident particularly as regards the effort of capturing the comprehensive meaning of death (as the event that seems to clarify the whole of one’s life through its negation). the point is that the relation which the natural man establishes with death is exterior to himself, he is outside himself when he aims to consider his own death, for his point of view is not sober, but rather totally evoked by mood. the possibility of rupture with a consideration of life under the “shadow” of mood signifies at the same time that an individual separates himself from the primary immediacy of his life-panorama and conquers earnestness, that is, gains himself for himself in earnest. B. The Efficacy of Mood Leading away from Personality The intensification of life which mood constitutes assumes different weights/values, depending on how an individual deals with the power mood exercises over him. one of the possibilities of relating to mood is to live under its despotic dominion— in this case, an individual does not know genuine continuity in existence or loses sight of his own lifetime as a meaningful duration. Here, the subject stays outside a more profound comprehension of himself in existence. the comprehension of the life of such an individual is not forged from its ethical meaning, but is understood subjunctively, hypothetically, poetically, apparently totally absorbed in aesthetic 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

SKS 2, 388 / EO1, 400. SKS 2, 296 / EO1, 307. SKS 2, 196 / EO1, 200. SKS 2, 40 / EO1, 31. SKS 18, 35, ee:95 / JP 2, 1238. SKS 2, 287 / EO1, 299. SKS 5, 444 / TD, 73. SKS 5, 442–69 / TD, 69–102.

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categories27—that is, in this situation the profound understanding of life is disturbed in its foundations by the mode of functioning of mood, and this understanding is essentially illusory. in this way an individual is immersed in mood—he can existentially rest on one single mood,28 abandon himself to mood,29 can have his life depend on the existence-regime of mood, exhausting himself in it. it is then possible for that individual’s life to appear to have a “pure” mood form; it seems to be a possibility of existence itself that all the content of that individual’s life consists of the mere transition from one mood to another mood or from an instant of mood to another instant of mood. there is no life-development for such an individual.30 Consequently that individual is in a certain sense taken by mood—mood transforms him, and he “faithfully” reflects the existence-contours of mood. The vital regime of mood is a synonym for eccentricity for one who lives aesthetically, to the extent that he transforms his periphery into his center.31 in this situation, moods are not only prolix, but they wander and bewilder.32 moreover, this life-regime is not only inexplicable and indeterminate,33 but its fundamental adoption by the individual is above all worldly: the individual is “in the hands of the world, because the movement of his soul is in accord with the way the world plucks its strings.”34 aesthetically speaking, understanding can create a mood: there is therefore the possibility of an illusion slipping in.35 the life-regime of mood causes a confusion between “the actuality of action” and the “preludes of mood.”36 in the aesthetic sphere of existence, moods tend to expel personality as such, but personality is nonetheless “present in the mood, but it is dimly present.”37 moods can be active in concealment.38 besides, one’s demeanor can betray a “fundamental mood” (Grundstemning).39 a fundamental mood is not brought to light, but it lies at the root;40 a fundamental mood is an unutterable state, which coexists with a particular, regionally delimited mood. the particular mood is dependent on the total mood: “the total mood always resonates in the particular mood.”41 so, there is not only a scale of depth relating to moods, but some (fundamental) moods can also sustain other (particular) moods.

27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41

SKS 1, 319–20 / CI, 284–5. SKS 2, 312 / EO1, 322. SKS 2, 425 / EO1, 438–9. SKS 2, 37 / EO1, 28. SKS 3, 220 / EO2, 230. SKS 5, 461/ TD, 92–3. SKS 7, 216 / CUP1, 237. SKS 5, 301 / EUD, 308. SKS 25, 49, nb26:44 / JP 4, 4688. SKS 7, 311 / CUP1, 340. SKS 3, 219–20 / EO2, 229. SKS 7, 389 / CUP1, 427–8. SKS 6, 27 / SLW, 21. SKS 13, 74 / FSE, 49. SKS 2, 207 / EO1, 212.

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C. The Meaning of Mood Pointing to/Tending towards Personality the individual who has the presentiment of a certain mood has in his own hands the possibility of dressing himself in the mood or not42—that is, the adoption of mood, as the path to be taken by his life, is left to each individual’s responsibility—it is a decision. In this case the intensification of mood does not transfigure the features of life according to its tune—that is, what is at stake here is a mere intensification, never a mutation of the form of life for the individual, for the individual himself exercises dominion over the actual mood; he himself possesses mood and is not dominated or possessed by mood,43 but rather has mood in his power44 and lives, so to speak, above mood. in this situation, mood does not invade or overwhelm the subject, but rather the latter conquers the power of mood in the present moment of his life. the ethical individual is essentially free from the attacks of mood on his life, and he builds his life under the category of continuity—he acquires a total mood.45 The final amelioration of the relation to mood by an individual is achieved through the inauguration of a relation of earnestness to the whole of one’s life.46 II. Emotion and Feeling through a variety of expressions Kierkegaard denotes the concepts “emotion” and “feeling.” terms such as Affect, Sindsbevægelse, and Rørelse, with their relative differences, can all be classified under the categories of “emotion” and/or “feeling.” (1) Emotion and/or feeling (Affect and Sindsbevægelse). “our language correctly terms an uncontrolled emotional state [Affekt] a suffering of the mind [Sindslidelse].”47 it is worth noting that Affect understood as passion does not mean the same as Lidenskab understood as passion in the Kierkegaardian corpus, while Sindsbevægelse pertains to the interior of the individual.48 (2) Rørelse as emotion also belongs to the inward subject,49 to one’s heart;50 at the same time, it is simply a natural qualification of the human being51—therefore it is evanescent and inconstant.52 (3) Følelse: the superficiality/depth of feeling. Feeling is a faculty of the human being, parallel to knowledge and will.53 Feelings belong essentially to the

42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53

SKS 2, 287 / EO1, 299. SKS 1, 319–20 / CI, 284–5. SKS 2, 287 / EO1, 298. SKS 3, 220 / EO2, 230. SKS 5, 442–69 / TD, 69–102. SKS 4, 253 / PF, 49. SKS 7, 157 / CUP1, 170. SKS 4, 96 / R, 231. SKS 4, 59 / R, 189. SKS 9, 20 / WL, 12. SKS 4, 18 / R, 140. SKS 11, 146–8 / SUD, 30–3.

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human being, like reason.54 because feeling also pertains to the inward realm of the individual, it has a component of “spiritual respiration.”55 in this sense, feelings have the same depth the self has. moreover, feeling is a component of a life-view.56 Nevertheless feeling is ambiguous since it can become infinitized through fantasy and lead the self astray—in this way, it can become superficial; in the profundity of feeling, opposites are very near to each other. Furthermore, the individual’s feelings may be in contradiction with his action57 or far beyond the individual’s actuality;58 the immediate feeling is selfishness.59 to be in feeling, to inhere in feeling is a form of absence of the self from itself, a way of not being contemporaneous with one’s self.60 III. Conclusions (1) Affinities of meaning. in the Kierkegaardian corpus, there are several places where feeling and mood seem to be identified with each other, as they sometimes appear consecutively in the text, without any distinction between them: “every feeling, every mood.”61 there is an inwardness in feeling, in mood, but this is primarily a first inwardness62—that is, it is in the first place the inwardness of feeling, of mood inhabiting the natural man. both feeling and mood are signs of inwardness in the individual (although the inwardness in mood is more profound and, therefore, decisive for the constitution of the self). mood and feeling seem to be parallel to each other only as long as one considers their immediate element—in this sense, someone might be present in some life-phenomenon through “disposition” and feeling, that is atmospherically, but not essentially, with their whole being.63 the inwardness of feeling depends on the depth of mood.64 both mood and emotion, and also feeling, have an important component of passivity. (2) Decisive differences: in the aesthetic sphere of life, mood comprises a representation of the totality of life. in a different understanding of this relation Haufniensis distinguishes the inwardness of feeling from the inwardness of mood: “the inwardness of feeling is uncertain in its mood, i.e., at one time it is more inward than at another.”65 in this sense, it seems that mood is in fact the underground direction of feeling and determines the degree of inwardness of feeling. the component of mood in the life of an individual constitutes a life-regime, that is, 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65

SKS 18, 208, JJ:213 / JP 1, 47. SKS 6, 165 / SLW, 178. SKS 8, 23–4 / TA, 21. SKS 4, 162 / FT, 70. SKS 20, 210–11, nb2:175 / JP 1, 1049. SKS 8, 179 / UD, 71–2. SKS 10, 83 / CD, 77. SKS 3, 19 / EO2, 9. see also SKS 5,104 / EUD, 99; SKS 5, 278 / EUD, 286. SKS 4, 161 / FT, 69. SKS 5, 104 / EUD, 99. SKS 4, 448–9 / CA, 149. SKS 4, 448 / CA, 149.

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a characteristic of mood is its tendency to pervasiveness. this is not the case with either feeling or emotion—that is, according to the Kierkegaardian corpus it does not seem legitimate to affirm that they have the ability solely by themselves to form a life-view, unlike mood, which has this possibility. besides, feeling is a faculty of the individual, something that is not the case with mood. Finally, just as mood can relate to the totality of life, there is also a feeling relating to life as a whole.66 nevertheless, contrary to feeling, which seems to be something which accompanies the subject’s consideration of life, mood seems to be a more profound phenomenon according to the Kierkegaardian corpus, as it itself constitutes a consideration of the totality of life. see also aesthetic/aesthetics; death; decision/resolve; earnestness; ethics; inwardness/inward deepening; passion/pathos; personality; self; understanding/ Comprehension/Confusion.

66

SKS 10, 209 / CD, 208.

movement/motion shannon m. nason

Movement/Motion (Bevægelse—noun; bevæge—verb) the danish noun Bevægelse is derived from the verb bevæge, corresponding to german bewegen. the lexical meaning of Bevægelse varies from locomotion or changes of place, to passive and active psychological changes, including feelings, moods, emotions, and changes of mind or belief. Bevægelse can also refer to several kinds of cultural movement, such as the change of political opinions of a group, revolutionary and reformist movements, as well religious movements (often associated with spiritual affection).1 I. Movement in the Authorship: An Overview “motion” and “movement,” their conceptual cognates (for example, “change”), and related concepts (expressed in terms such as “transition,” “leap,” and “becoming”) are important categories in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous and signed writings. the most sustained discussions of motion and movement are scattered throughout the seven-year period of pseudonymous writing. nearly every major entry in the pseudonymous literature, including Fear and Trembling, Repetition, Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and The Sickness unto Death, features some treatment of the concept of movement. to appreciate the importance of movement and related concepts in Kierkegaard, one need look no further than a note written sometime in 1842 or 1843. He states, “the category to which i intend to trace everything…is motion (κίνησις), which is perhaps one of the most difficult problems in philosophy. In modern philosophy it has been given another expression—namely, transition and mediation.”2 not only does this fairly early statement place the category of motion at the core of his project, but it also sets the notion apart from the Hegelian idea of the mediation of relative opposites. the critique of Hegel’s reduction of movement to dialectical mediation is also made by Johannes de silentio in Fear and Trembling, Vigilius Haufniensis in The Concept of Anxiety, and Johannes Climacus in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript.3 another journal entry from the same period pits motion against this Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 2, columns 598–605. 2 SKS 27, 270, papir 278 / JP 5, 5601. see also SKS 18, 160, JJ:65 / KJN 2, 148. 3 see SKS 4, 137 / FT, 42; SKS 4, 384–5 / CA, 81–2; and SKS 7, 105–7 / CUP1, 109–11. 1

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Hegelian theme by again referring to κίνησις, but this time Kierkegaard favorably names aristotle as a potential source of critique against Hegelian mediation: “Hegel has never justified the category of transition. It could be important to compare it with the aristotelian teaching of κίνησις.”4 Kierkegaard’s concept of motion, then, is integral to his project overall, and he draws on aristotle’s theory of κίνησις to criticize Hegelian mediation.5 The significance of the concept of motion in the authorship can be further determined by considering how Kierkegaard understood his task as a religious author. in On My Work as an Author, Kierkegaard states that his authorship was from the very beginning religious, and that he employed his pseudonyms to orient individuals to turn inward and reflect upon their own existential situation with regard to Christianity. From the earliest pseudonymous writings to his personally signed ones, Kierkegaard’s authorship describes the movement from “the poet,” from the esthetic—from “the philosopher,” from the speculative—to the indication of the most inward qualification of the essentially Christian; from the pseudonymous Either/Or, through Concluding Unscientific Postscript, with my name as editor, to Discourses at the Communion on Fridays…this movement was traversed or delineated uno tenore, in one breath, if i dare say so—thus, the authorship, regarded as a totality, is religious from first to last.6

according to his stated intentions, then, Kierkegaard’s authorship describes existential movement to Christian existence. He describes this movement as an inward movement because Christian faith involves intensification of self-consciousness.7 the self-movement into and of inwardness takes place from aesthetic existence, where the individual engages and interprets life by means of the categories of fortune and misfortune,8 the interesting and the boring,9 pleasure and displeasure, to the ethical life, where the self struggles concretely and temporally to exemplify the universal demands of the good by choosing to be an agent bound by ethical categories (good and evil, for example),10 to religiousness, whereby the self learns that she is not able concretely and temporally to exemplify eternal demands on her own, but only through a god-relationship.11 For Kierkegaard, the highest pitch of

SKS 19, 415, not13:50 / KJN 3, 413. For a detailed discussion of Kierkegaard’s employment of κίνησις in his critique of Hegelianism, see my “Contingency, necessity, and Causation in Kierkegaard’s theory of Change,” British Journal for the History of Philosophy, vol. 20, no. 1, 2012, pp. 141–62. also, see my “Contradiction, opposition, and mediation in Kierkegaard’s Critique of Hegel,” Heythrop Journal, vol. 53, no. 1, 2012, pp. 24–35, for an account of Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegelian mediation. 6 SKS 13, 12 / PV, 5–6. 7 SKS 11, 194 / SUD, 80. 8 SKS 7, 394 / CUP1, 433. 9 SKS 2, 276–7 / EO1, 285–6. 10 SKS 3, 164–5 / EO2, 168–9. Cf. SKS 7, 520 / CUP1, 572. 11 SKS 7, 418–19 / CUP1, 461. 4 5

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religious existence involves coming “to oneself in self-knowledge and before God as nothing before him, yet infinitely, unconditionally engaged.”12 II. Definition and General Characteristics of Movement while Kierkegaard’s authorship is principally devoted to urging the single individual to make the inward movement to religious existence, it behoves the reader to understand the nature of this movement. the majority of references to movement and its cognates in the literature appear to presuppose a theoretical understanding of the notion, but they do not feature anything like a definition. However, Kierkegaard provides an analysis of the concept of motion and change in a few places. the most sustained philosophical exploration of motion appears in the “interlude” of Philosophical Fragments. There Johannes Climacus renders a difficult argument to support his position that beliefs about the past are an “expression of the will.”13 the epistemological conclusions Climacus draws about historical beliefs, however, are buttressed by a metaphysical account of the nature of the past. because what was once present but now is past came into existence, Climacus’ theoretical account of the nature of the past includes a metaphysical account of coming into existence in general. In the first section of the “Interlude” Climacus argues that movement is a “change of coming into existence,” and consistent with Kierkegaard’s journal entries, he identifies the change of coming into existence with the Aristotelian notion of κίνησις. Climacus defines κίνησις as a “transition from possibility to actuality.”14 He envisions possibility and actuality as modes of being or existence: “[b]ut such a being that nevertheless is a non-being is possibility, and a being that is being is indeed actual being or actuality, and the change of coming into existence is the transition from possibility to actuality.”15 thus, the change of coming into existence consists of the movement from something’s being possible to its being actual. The broadly Aristotelian definition of movement that Climacus is keen to employ in the “interlude” should not elude the reader. aristotle’s analysis of motion in his Physics is principally geared toward an explanation of physical change, particularly locomotion. While Climacus’ definition of motion covers natural or generic changes (including locomotion, but also changes of quantity and quality, as well as substantial changes),16 he is, in particular, interested in clarifying the movement the self initiates in ethical and religious inwardness. despite this important difference, Climacus’ concept of motion retains a couple of important aristotelian characteristics of κίνησις that warrant attention. SKS 16, 160 / JFY, 104. SKS 4, 282 / PF, 83. His argument for this position is not the subject of the current topic. For a discussion of the larger issues pertaining to Climacus’ conclusion, see my “Contingency, necessity, and Causation in Kierkegaard’s theory of Change,” in addition to the entry for Cause/effect in the present volume. 14 SKS 4, 274 / PF, 74. 15 ibid. 16 Cf. SKS 19, 420, not13:55 / KJN 3, 418. 12 13

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First, Climacus notes that the transition from the possible to the actual is a kind of suffering.17 when possibility gives way to actuality, possibility is annihilated. Climacus writes, “all coming into existence is a suffering [Liden]…namely, that the possible (not merely the possible that is excluded but even the possibility that is accepted) turns out to be nothing the moment it becomes actual, for possibility is annihilated by actuality.”18 if two courses of action are possible for an agent, and one is chosen, the chosen one is no longer merely possible. it has come into existence, has been made actual. by choosing the one, the human agent excludes the other.19 second, most of the pseudonymous writers conceive of the possibility to bring about a change or action as in some way immanent to the agent.20 that is, the possibility of some interior change or movement is inherent in the individual who seeks to bring about a certain state of affairs through her choice. For example, if an agent chooses to marry, dutifully repeats the marriage vow, and daily lives out her existence in conscious and loving commitment to her spouse, then her choosing, repeating, and living-out are actions she is capable of doing. this immanent characteristic of possibility is especially emphasized in the aesthetic writings of 1843—Either/ Or, Fear and Trembling, and Repetition. in Either/Or, part two, Judge william encourages his aesthetic friend, a, to actualize his inherent capacity for becoming a dutiful self through the maturation and cultivation of his personality.21 Furthermore, Johannes de silentio envisions the knight of infinite resignation as a hero who struggles to realize his capacity for giving up everything finite. The movement of resignation, for de silentio, is an act he and every other human agent can do. “i can make the mighty trampoline leap whereby I cross over into infinity; my back is like a tightrope dancer’s, twisted in my childhood, and therefore it is easy for me.”22

For aristotle’s gloss on the annihilation of potentiality in motion, see Physics, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, vols. 1–2, ed. by Jonathan barnes, trans. by r.p. Hardie and r.K. gaye, princeton: princeton university press 1984, vol. 1, book iii.1, 201b.9–11: “take for instance the buildable: the actuality of the buildable as buildable is the process of building. For the actuality must be either this or the house. but when there is a house, the buildable is no longer there.” 18 SKS 4, 274 / PF, 74. 19 There is another, more religiously significant sense in which movement is a kind of suffering. this will be discussed shortly. 20 while aristotle does not employ the term “immanence,” motion, for him, is strictly defined as an actualization or fulfillment of what is potential qua potential. thus, to take the activity of house building, again, the motion of building is the fulfillment of what is buildable qua buildable. brick, mortar, stone, and their constituent parts have the capacity to become a house. The fulfilling of that capacity, and the subsequent annihilation of other competing capacities, is motion. see Physics iii.1, 201a10–17 and iii.2, 202a5–11. in addition, aristotle argues that the human cause of motion—the builder—must be capable of building (Physics iii.3, 202a13–18). 21 SKS 3, 158 / EO2, 160. 22 SKS 4, 131 / FT, 36. 17

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III. Movement and Religious Existence the themes of suffering and immanence as they pertain to the transition from possibility to actuality are similarly treated in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. the penultimate chapter of the Postscript, “the issue in Fragments: How Can an eternal Happiness be built on Historical Knowledge,” describes the kinetic movement involved in becoming a self. the initial stages of inwardness (to ethical and ethical-religious existence) are conceived in immanent terms, and Climacus argues that becoming a self consists in the fulfillment of human possibility. However, he stresses that the highest intensification of inwardness comes with the awareness that the possibility for becoming a self is given by god. Climacus calls this the movement from “religiousness a” to “religiousness b”—from the “immanently religious” to the “paradoxical-religious,” or Christian existence.23 with the topic of change in mind, what distinguishes religiousness b from religiousness a is that the latter conceives of the possibility for self-transformation before god as inherent in and essential to humanity as such. the former, by contrast, conceives of the possibility of self-transformation as given by god. in this way, Climacus urges a shift from conceiving of movement in terms of κίνησις (with its two-pronged characteristic of suffering and immanence) to a non-kinetic model of change whereby the possibility for transformation is both preserved in and transcendent of the individual. thus, for Climacus, coming into Christian existence, which invariably involves a movement of faith, is not modeled on aristotelian change. religiousness a, in addition to the ethical sphere of existence glossed by Judge william and de silentio, understands transformation in terms of self-motion. selfmotion consists in the assertion of the self in actualizing an inherent possibility. that is, for the ethical sphere and religiousness a, becoming oneself is an actualization of what one already, in some implicit sense, is or can be.24 while the change of coming into existence is viewed as an immanent possibility in the ethical sphere and religiousness a, it is worth noting some important differences in how the change is initiated. Climacus describes the difference between the ethical and immanent religious movements of inwardness as follows: if the individual is dialectically turned inward in self-assertion in such a way that the ultimate foundation does not in itself become dialectical, since the underlying self is used to surmount and assert itself, then we have the ethical….if the individual is defined as dialectically turned inward in self-annihilation before God, then we have Religiousness A.25 Cf. SKS 7, 505–33 / CUP1, 555–86. This has, considering the Aristotelian influence on Kierkegaard’s concept of motion, a greek analogue: the coming into existence of the world ex materia. the form and shape of the world resides potentially in pre-existent matter. Κίνησις, as a change of coming into existence, is the making actual of what is essentially possible for the kind of material it is. For example, Aristotle argues that human flesh and bone is composed of smaller mixtures of stuff, which is, by nature, potentially human flesh and bone. Matter, then, that is not suited to be formed as an individual human being is not potentially human, but potentially something else. 25 SKS 7, 519 / CUP1, 572. 23 24

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the primary feature of qualitative transition with regard to the ethical sphere is that it is self-motion into inwardness. the apex of the ethical consists in arriving at the realization that to be responsible and dutiful requires arriving at a conception of oneself as an agent who is able to make the choice to be oneself. the possibility to be oneself is native to the agent. thus, a, the aesthete of Either/Or, part one, just needs to change his illegitimate self-conception to realize this and actualize this possibility. in immanent religiousness, on the other hand, the movement the religious individual makes is self-annihilation before god, which Climacus explains is a prerequisite for Christian union with the divine.26 Climacus parses the movement of self-annihilation along the lines of three intersecting existential moments— resignation, suffering, and guilt. In the first, there is an understanding by the agent that in order to achieve eternal happiness as the highest good, all relative goods must be subordinated to it, and that this, in actuality, requires suffering resignation of finite goals.27 the second moment obtains when the agent actually carries out resignation; that is, when resignation is no longer merely a possibility for but is actualized by the individual.28 in the third moment, the suffering agent hits upon the realization that her actualization of the possibility of resignation cannot be adequately achieved moment to moment. the religious individual, then, becomes conscious of the guilt of falling short of the task of relatively relating to relative ends and relating absolutely to the absolute.29 IV. Immanent and Transcendent Possibility guilt, the third moment of immanent religiousness, is a necessary step on the way to Christian existence, due in large part to an awareness of the rift that separates what persons are inherently capable of achieving in their moral striving and what they are not. awareness of this gap results in a crisis, which can only be resolved through faith that outside assistance to eternal happiness is possible. in this case, the individual is aware of her inability to bring about a proper relationship between her finite and temporal existence and the eternal. By contrast, the Christian is aware that the possibility for achieving eternal happiness does not rest immanently in the human essence, but in being given by god. the difference between the movements that religiousness a (the immanently religious) and religiousness b (Christian existence) make is rendered concrete through a juxtaposition of socratic recollection and Christian faith, particularly with regard to how each understands the relationship between time and eternity, the finite and the absolute. In Climacus’ Philosophical Fragments the recurring theme is how eternal happiness can be acquired without downplaying the importance of our concrete, temporal, and finite existence. For Climacus, if the moment in time is SKS 7, 506 / CUPI, 556: “Religiousness A must first be present in the individual before there can be any consideration of becoming aware of the dialectical b.” 27 SKS 7, 352–3 / CUP1, 387. 28 SKS 7, 392–3 / CUP1, 431–2. 29 SKS 7, 477–9 / CUP1, 525–7. 26

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going to have any significance, then we must move beyond Socratic recollection. As Climacus states, Viewed socratically, any point of departure in time is eo ipso something accidental, a vanishing point, an occasion….if the situation is to be different, then the moment in time must have decisive significance that for no moment will I be able to forget it, neither in time nor in eternity, because the eternal, previously nonexistence, came into existence in that moment.30

From the socratic point of view, every human being qua human being holds the essential possibility for the attainment of eternal bliss. in other words, the truth about what sustains and completes human existence is immanent to humanity as such.31 The individual in religiousness A begins with this assumption but finds herself guilty for falling short of the standards necessary to live the good life. awakening to the emptiness of this capacity for realizing the essential possibility for the good, the individual, as anti-Climacus explains, despairs over this weakness.32 Philosophical Fragments, without naming it as such, argues that Christianity is the answer to the socratic dilemma. rather than viewing the possibility for the realization of eternal happiness within the sphere of immanence, Christianity understands that the individual lacks this possibility. if the individual lacks the immanent possibility for achieving the good, then the individual essentially lacks this capacity. Here, then, the individual is “untruth.”33 through a free act of losing the condition for attaining eternal happiness, the individual has fallen from original union with god, and is now divorced from the absolute. Climacus calls this divorce sin.34 because the religious individual cannot naturally come to know that the reason it is impossible to relate completely to an eternal happiness on one’s own is due to one’s own moral failing, the capacity for such consciousness needs to be specially revealed by god in time.35 as Philosophical Fragments presents the issue, the god in time comes down as a teacher36 and redeemer37 to provide the condition for relating to eternity and ultimately for becoming a whole and properly related self. Climacus emphasizes that in Christian religiousness there is a possibility for the self’s union with god, but the possibility is granted to the individual, not in virtue of what rests as an immanent possibility, but in virtue of the “absurd”: the eternal coming into existence in time.38 Climacus writes that the paradoxical-religious breaks with immanence and makes existing the absolute contradiction—not within immanence but in opposition to immanence. there is no 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38

SKS 4, 220–2 / PF, 11–13. SKS 4, 218, 220, 222 / PF, 9, 11, 13. SKS 11, 176 / SUD, 61. SKS 4, 222 / PF, 13. SKS 4, 224 / PF, 15; SKS 7, 530–2 / CUP1, 583–5. SKS 7, 531 / CUP1, 584. SKS 4, 222–3 / PF, 14. SKS 4, 226 / PF, 17. SKS 7, 191–3 / CUP1, 210.

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immanental underlying kinship between the temporal and the eternal, because the eternal itself has entered into time and wants to establish kinship there.39

For Climacus, the paradoxical-religious rests on the coming into existence of the eternal in time, which is against the very nature of the eternal. Yet, the actualization of the self cannot be complete without this paradox, because it accentuates individual existence by granting the possibility for transformation or conversion from the willed state of untruth.40 V. The Variety of Movement: A Recap the foregoing outline of the paradoxical-religious has taken us quite far from the kinetic model that governs the aesthetic, ethical, and the immanently religious spheres of existence. aesthetic change consists of an external, generic transition from possibility to actuality. likewise, the ethical and religiousness a are modeled on a transition from possibility to actuality. as spheres of immanence, the ethical and religiousness a hold that the possibility for attaining the good lies essentially within the nature of humanity. the self-assertive motion of the ethical brings about the actualization of this possibility by fashioning the good merely in terms of choice. recall that for Judge william the good is conceived and contained within the reality of choosing oneself. religiousness a understands its absolute end to be eternal happiness or union with God. The rift between one’s finitude and the absolute good is widened to such a degree that the actualization of the individual’s essential possibility for relating to this good is jettisoned. in self-annihilation, the agent in religiousness A despairs over her finitude because individually existing human beings are unable to achieve the good alone. in this way, the individual has failed to relate properly with god, thus resulting in a failed movement. For religiousness b, by contrast, the change of coming into existence of the self is not modeled on κίνησις. the possibility of arriving into the paradoxically religious is not immanent but transcendent of the individual, and, when it is given, it will need to be preserved in the transformation of the agent into a new and redeemed self before god.41 possibility is preserved in the transformation of the self, because without it the self would be lost in a multiplicity of moments over time. in other words, continuity of the self at each moment would not obtain. see also being/becoming; Cause/effect; Choice; double movement; existence/ existential; immanence/transcendence; mediation/sublation; necessity; redoubling/ reduplication; self; time/temporality/eternity; transition.

39 40 41

SKS 7, 520 / CUP1, 573. SKS 4, 227–8 / PF, 18–19. SKS 4, 227–8 / PF, 19.

music william mcdonald

Music (Musik—noun; musikalsk—adjective) the danish word is the same as the older new danish and is ultimately derived, via the latin musica, from the greek μουσική (short for μουσικὴ τέχνη), which in turn comes from the greek word for muse.1 it is the art that consists in the arrangement of a series of tones in an ordered whole according to laws of rhythm, melody, and harmony, which is pleasing to the ear and serves to express or induce feelings or moods.2 note that Kierkegaard used both “c” and “k” in his spelling of variants of the word. the term “music” occurs by far the most frequently in Either/Or, part one, particularly in the essay, “the immediate erotic stages or the musical-erotic.” this is also the only place in Kierkegaard’s corpus devoted to an extended discussion of the concept of music. in the published works, the next most frequent occurrences of the term are in Stages on Life’s Way, Either/Or, part two, The Moment, From the Papers of One Still Living, and The Concept of Irony. the term is also scattered throughout the journals, notebooks, and papers. in addition to uses of the word Musik and its variants, there are also references to song, orchestra, composers, musical instruments, types of music, types of musician, and characters from opera. instruments mentioned include the viola, harp, zither, lyre, violin, drum, cymbals, clarinet, guitar, kettledrums, trumpets, flute, piano, music box, and voice.3 types of music mentioned include opera, operetta, musical (Syngespillet), church music, dance music, martial music, wedding music, christening music, burial music, and song.4 Song is further specified as psalm, lullaby, song of Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, columns 464–7. 2 ibid. 3 e.g. SKS 17, 65, bb:2 / KJN 1, 58–9 (viola, harp, and zither); SKS 1, 104n. / CI, 43n. (lyre); SKS 24, 358, nb24:57 / JP 4, 5041 (violin); SKS 17, 284, dd:208 / KJN 1, 276 (drum, cymbals, clarinet); SKS 4, 469 / P, 5 (guitar); SKS 4, 499 / P, 38 (kettledrums, trumpets); SKS 1, 52 / EPW, 97 (flutes, violins); SKS 19, 433, not15:4 / JP 6, 6472 (piano); SKS 6, 377 / SLW, 406 (music box); SKS 2, 124 / EO1, 122 (voice). 4 e.g. SKS 17, 113, bb:23 / KJN 1, 107 (opera, operetta, musical); SKS 2, 199 / EO1, 204 (church music); SKS 2, 346 / EO1, 357 (dance music); SKS 2, 338 / EO1, 349 (martial music); SKS 26, 325, nb34:13 / JP 3, 2624 (music at weddings and christenings); SKS 14, 126 / M, 8 (note that med fuld Musik is here translated as “with full honors”); SKS 2, 105 / EO1, 102 (songs). 1

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praise (Lovsang), evensong, lament (Klagesang), dirge (Sørgesang), hymn, canticle, siren song, bird song, swan song, paean (Jubelsang), incantation (Tryllesang), and song of angels.5 musical characters mentioned are almost all from three of mozart’s operas: Don Giovanni, The Magic Flute, and The Marriage of Figaro.6 Composers mentioned include mozart, thomas Hansen Kingo, and Hans adolph brorson, though the latter two are psalmists rather than composers of music.7 I will confine myself in this article to what Kierkegaard articulated explicitly about music. this is represented overwhelmingly by the aesthete a. we ought to be careful about attributing his views to Kierkegaard, but in fact nothing Kierkegaard or his other pseudonyms says elsewhere contradicts the views of a.8 the aesthete a devotes a long essay to “the immediate erotic stages or the musical-erotic” in Either/Or, part one. His avowed purpose in that essay is to establish that mozart’s opera, Don Giovanni, is a classic work of art and furthermore to rank it above all other classic works of art (though he admits that “since all [classic works of art] rank infinitely high”9 it is really only a matter of personal taste that he ranks mozart’s work above all others).10 the unstated background to a’s analysis of mozart’s opera lies in Hegel’s aesthetics and in the distinction drawn between classical and modern works of art by the German Romantics, specifically by Friedrich von Schlegel. For Hegel, the classical work of art is one that has the perfect fit of content and form.11 For schlegel, classical poetry is distinguished by its universality and objectivity, whereas modern poetry focuses on concrete individuals. in On the Study of Greek Poetry, schlegel had identified “the interesting” as a marked characteristic of modern poetry that e.g. SKS 4, 134 / FT, 39 (psalms, translated here as “hymns”); SKS 3, 305 / EO2, 324 (lullaby); SKS 3, 330 / EO2, 351 (song of praise); SKS 2, 36 / EO1, 27 (evensong, here translated “vespers”); SKS 4, 114 / FT, 17 (lament, dirge); SKS 10, 94 / CD, 86 (hymn, canticle); SKS 7, 193 / CUP1, 210 (siren song); SKS 8, 267 / UD, 167 (bird song); SKS 21, 231, nb9:54 / JP 6, 6315 (swan song, reference to brorson’s hymn of that title, in margin); SKS 17, 16, aa:7 / JP 5, 5097 (paean, here translated as “hymns of praise”); SKS 1, 52 / EPW, 97 (incantation); SKS 13, 44 / FSE, 15 (angels’ song). 6 e.g. SKS 2, 107 / EO1, 104 (don giovanni, referred to in Either/Or as “don Juan”); SKS 2, 87 / EO1, 81 (papageno, papagena, tamino—mistakenly called “pamina” in the english translation); SKS 2, 81 / EO1, 75 (the page, viz. Cherubino). 7 e.g. SKS 2, 55 / EO1, 47 (mozart); SKS 18, 54, ee:154 / JP 1, 877 (Kingo); SKS 16, 8 / PV, 22 (brorson). 8 in addition to his explicitly expressed views on the concept of music, Kierkegaard had a special regard for certain types of church music. For persuasive arguments on the influence of brorson and moravian music on Kierkegaard, see andrew J. burgess, “Kierkegaard, brorson, and moravian music,” in Practice in Christianity, ed. by robert l. perkins, macon, georgia: mercer university press 2004 (International Kierkegaard Commentary, vol. 20), pp. 211–43. 9 SKS 2, 57 / EO1, 48. 10 ibid. 11 g.w.F. Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, vols. 1–2, trans. by t.m. Knox, oxford: Clarendon press 1975, vol. 1, p. 77: “the classical art-form…is the free and adequate embodiment of the idea in the shape peculiarly appropriate to the idea itself in its essential nature.” 5

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differentiates it from the poetry of antiquity.12 the interesting, in turn, is generated by the disparities between the inner and outer life of the concrete individual—a notion fully developed by Kierkegaard in Either/Or, part one, especially in his portrait of Johannes the seducer with his public face and private diary.13 the interesting is best represented in the medium of language, since only language allows us to express our inner life fully. language is the most developed medium of reflection, since “the basic concept of language is thought.”14 music differs fundamentally from language as an artistic medium by virtue of its relative incapacity to express or represent reflection. Reflection, in turn, is essential for the development of spirit.15 The interesting, then, is a category of reflection, while music is the medium of sensuous immediacy;16 language, on the other hand, is “the medium absolutely qualified by spirit.”17 Hegel, in his lectures on aesthetics, anticipates this view of music by saying that it “needs to have little or no spiritual material present in consciousness.”18 this is in stark contrast to poetry, which is the artistic medium of spirit par excellence.19 The aesthete, A, is a thoroughly reflective and interesting character. He therefore cannot give musical expression to his reflective views about music. Instead, he makes his observations about music from the point of view of language, since he is avowedly an outsider to music and not a practitioner or composer.20 music and language are simultaneously very close to one another and very far apart.21 on the one hand, language and music are the only artistic media that address themselves to the ear.22 “The ear, in turn, is the most spiritually qualified sense.”23 moreover, both language and music are temporal media,24 whereas the plastic arts are primarily Friedrich von schlegel, On the Study of Greek Poetry, trans. by stuart barnett, albany: state university of new York press 2001, p. 24. 13 Cf. Carl Henrik Koch, Kierkegaard og “Det interessante”. En studie i en æstetisk kategori, Copenhagen: C.a. reitzel 1992, pp. 39–40. 14 SKS 2, 71 / EO1, 65. 15 Cf. SKS 2, 154 / EO1, 155, where A refers to anxiety as a category of reflection that is intimately associated with language. note that this position is quite at odds with that of the early german romantics novalis and wackenroder, who developed a theory of “absolute music” in which music was capable of exceeding language in the representation of the infinite, the ineffable, and the limitless. e.t.a. Hoffmann took this a step further in his analysis of beethoven’s music, which he asserted has the sublime capacity to transport the listener into “the wonderful spiritual realm of the infinite.” See Mirko M. Hall, “Friedrich Schlegel’s romanticization of music,” Eighteenth-Century Studies, vol. 42, no. 3, 2009, pp. 418–19. 16 SKS 2, 71 / EO1, 64. 17 SKS 2, 73 / EO1, 67. 18 Hegel, Aesthetics: Lectures on Fine Art, vol. 1, p. 28. 19 ibid. 20 SKS 2, 72 / EO1, 65. Cf. SKS 2, 80–1 / EO1, 74–5. 21 Note that A claims that if “the various media are ordered according to a specific process of development, language and music must be placed closest to each other” (SKS 2, 73 / EO1, 66). 22 SKS 2, 74 / EO1, 68. 23 ibid. 24 SKS 2, 75 / EO1, 68. 12

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spatial. on the other hand, whereas language is sensuous only instrumentally (and even that “is continually negated”),25 “sensuousness in its elemental originality [Genialitet] is the absolute theme of music.”26 moreover, whereas language is thoroughly reflective, “[m]usic always expresses the immediate in its immediacy.”27 Music, then, is both immediate and qualified by spirit, as is stated explicitly by a.28 what does this mean? music is not essentially in the realm of spirit, yet its immediacy is qualified by spirit. It is qualified, in Christianity, by being excluded by spirit! “but the immediacy that is thus excluded by spirit is sensuous immediacy.”29 Insofar as music only finds its absolute theme in the sensuous immediacy excluded by spirit in Christianity, it follows that “music in the ancient world did not become properly developed.”30 this did not mean that the sensual did not exist prior to Christianity. However, then it “was qualified psychically. This was its nature in paganism….But the sensual psychically qualified is not contrast or exclusion, but harmony and consonance.”31 moreover, the concept of erotic desire (or sensual immediacy) differs between antiquity and Christianity. according to a, the god eros was not himself in love, though he was the cause of love in others. this “is the opposite of a representative relation,”32 in marked contrast, it was Christianity that posited the sensuous-erotic as a principle. the idea of representation was introduced into the world by Christianity. if i now imagine the sensuous-erotic as a principle, as a power, as a domain, defined in relation to spirit—that is defined in such a way that spirit excludes it—if I imagine this principle concentrated in a single individual, then i have the concept of the sensuous-erotic in its elemental originality.33

the aesthete, a, admits that “music can express many other things”34 than its absolute theme of sensuous immediacy. it is because mozart’s Don Giovanni is the perfect form for the absolute theme of music that it is the greatest of classic works of art. insofar as it is a Christian art, the music of Don Giovanni is representational, since its protagonist represents its theme. such representation is akin to incarnation.35 it is indeed bold, as a avers, to assert that “Christianity brought sensuality [Sandseligheden] into the world.”36 Christianity achieved this by excluding sensuality/ sensuousness and thereby positing it as a principle. “Sensuality was first posited as a SKS 2, 73 / EO1, 67. SKS 2, 77 / EO1, 71. 27 SKS 2, 76 / EO1, 70. 28 SKS 2, 76–7 / EO1, 70. 29 SKS 2, 77 / EO1, 71. 30 ibid. 31 SKS 2, 69 / EO1, 62. 32 SKS 2, 70 / EO1, 63. 33 SKS 2, 71 / EO1, 64. 34 SKS 2, 77 / EO1, 71. 35 SKS 2, 70 / EO1, 64. 36 SKS 2, 68 / EO1, 61. note that the one danish word, sanselig, does duty for both english “sensuous” and “sensual.” 25 26

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principle, a power, as an independent system by Christianity.”37 sensuality is thereby closely related to the Christian principle of “the flesh,”38 though Judge william, in Either/Or, part two, distinguishes carefully between them: “Yes, indeed, the Christian god is spirit and Christianity is spirit, and there is discord between the flesh [Kjødet] and the spirit [Aand], but the flesh is not the sensuous [Sandselige]—it is the selfish. In this sense, even the spiritual can become sensuous.”39 music as a Christian art, then, has sensuous immediacy as its absolute theme, but this sensuous immediacy is not selfishness. Precisely because sensuous immediacy is immediate, it lacks the reflection to be a self—and thereby lacks the capacity to be selfish (deliberately, knowingly, to prefer one’s own interests to others’). This is why don giovanni is the perfect representation of sensuous immediacy. He hovers “between being an individual and a force of nature,”40 as a type of universality, and therefore cannot be an individual self with the capacity to be selfish.41 as this nonselfish, universal incarnation of sensuous immediacy—an irresistible force qualified by spirit—Don Giovanni is best characterized as demonic. “The significance of music thereby appears in its full validity, and in a stricter sense it appears as Christian art or, more correctly, as the art Christianity posits in excluding it from itself, as the medium for that which Christianity excludes from itself and thereby posits. in other words, music is the demonic.”42 it follows that don giovanni, as demonic, incarnates the essence of music and thereby provides the perfect subject for a classic musical work of art. the aesthete, a, acknowledges that there have been other artistic treatments of the figure of Don Juan, for example by Molière and Byron. But none has successfully interpreted him as interesting.43 instead, they tend to depict him as comic. “as soon as a passion, in being depicted, is denied the means to its satisfaction, either a tragic or a comic turn will be produced. a tragic turn cannot very well be produced when the idea is perceived to be wholly unjustified, and therefore the comic is close at hand.”44 but mozart’s Don Giovanni avoids both the tragic and the comic by bringing the demonic nature of its eponymous protagonist into focus. as the demonic incarnation of desire, don giovanni’s passion is never “denied the means to its satisfaction.”45 There are elements of the comic, for example in the figure of Leporello, Don giovanni’s servant, who is a sort of parody of don giovanni.46 but these elements are always subordinated to the main theme. there are also elements of the tragic, in the lives of don giovanni’s victims, who border on the interesting as a result of the suffering and consequent change in consciousness brought about by their seduction. ibid. Cf. SKS 2, 93 / EO1, 88. 39 SKS 3, 56 / EO2, 49. 40 SKS 2, 100 / EO1, 96. 41 SKS 2, 101 / EO1, 96. 42 SKS 2, 71 / EO1, 64–5. 43 SKS 2, 112 / EO1, 109. the aesthete himself attempts to portray don Juan as an interesting, reflective figure, in the form of Johannes the Seducer in “The Seducer’s Diary.” 44 ibid. 45 ibid. 46 SKS 2, 133 / EO1, 131. 37 38

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the aesthete describes both elvira and zerlina as dangerous, because they have been “raised to a higher sphere; [they have] a consciousness that don giovanni lacks. this is why [they are] dangerous to him. this, again, not because of the accidental but because of the universal.”47 but they are not tragic in the above-mentioned sense, since they too have not had their desires denied. moreover, through the change in consciousness wrought by their suffering, they have come closer to selfhood even though they remain sketchy as individuals. while classical works of art focus on the universal, in contrast to modern art, which focuses on the interesting individual, the universal can be depicted either abstractly or concretely. music, a claims, is particularly suited to depicting the universal concretely, despite his assertion that music’s absolute theme is the “most abstract idea conceivable.”48 psychical love is continuance in time; sensuous love is disappearance in time, but the medium that expresses this best is indeed music. music is superbly suited to achieve this, since it is much more abstract than language and therefore articulates not the particular but the universal in all its universality not in the abstraction of reflection but in the concretion of immediacy.49

a’s distinction between psychical love (sjælelige Elskov) and sensual love (sanselige Elskov) is best understood, here, as soul-love and sexual desire, respectively. soullove is characterized by continuity through time and thereby constitutes a history, which can become the basis of an ongoing ethical relationship such as marriage. such a personal history is the foundation of selfhood according to the ethicist, Judge william.50 through this historical continuity the individual “possesses himself as a task in such a way that it is chiefly to order, shape, temper, inflame, control—in short, to produce an evenness in the soul, a harmony, which is the fruit of the personal virtues.”51 don giovanni, by contrast, “does not fall within ethical categories at all.”52 “He desires [attraaer], and this desire acts seductively….He enjoys the satisfaction of desire; as soon as he has enjoyed it, he seeks a new object, and so it goes on indefinitely.”53 Mozart’s Don Giovanni differs significantly from the figure of Faust, who is a thoroughly reflective seducer.54 He also differs in just this way from the seducer described by achim von arnim, “who falls within ethical categories.”55 “such a seducer is of a kind entirely different from don giovanni, differs from him essentially, SKS 2, 102 / EO1, 98. Cf. SKS 2, 64 / EO1, 56. 49 SKS 2, 99–100 / EO1, 95. 50 SKS 3, 249–50 / EO2, 262–3. 51 SKS 3, 250 / EO2, 262. 52 SKS 2, 102 / EO1, 98. 53 SKS 2, 102 / EO1, 99. 54 Cf. SKS 2, 95 / EO1, 90: “Don Juan, then, is the expression of the demonic qualified as the sensuous; Faust is the expression for the demonic qualified as the spiritual that the Christian spirit excludes.” 55 SKS 2, 103 / EO1, 99. 47 48

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which can also be seen in this, that he and his actions are extremely unmusical and esthetically fall within the category of the interesting.”56 a also distinguishes the fully blown sensuous-erotic desire represented by don giovanni from earlier “stages” of desire represented by the page from The Marriage of Figaro and Papageno from The Magic Flute. these are not so much stages of development, but metamorphoses that “collectively make up the immediate stage” of the sensuous-erotic.57 the page represents desire that is not yet distinct from its intentional object. “desire…which in this stage is present only in a presentiment of itself, is devoid of motion, devoid of unrest, only gently rocked by an unaccountable inner emotion.”58 It is significant in this respect that “the music for the role of the page is arranged for a woman’s voice. the inconsistency in this stage seems to be suggested by this contradiction: the desire is so vague, the object so little separated from it, that what is desired rests androgynously in the desire.”59 While the incipient desire of the Page is said to be “qualified as dreaming,”60 Papageno’s slightly more awakened desire is qualified as seeking,61 since it flits over multiple possible objects without alighting on any in particular. the musical expression of this idea is found in Papageno’s first aria and the chimes, which are “exuberant, merrily twittering, bubbling over with love.”62 tamino, from the same opera, on the other hand, “simply is not a musical character.”63 it is only in Don Giovanni that mozart expressed the essential musical idea in the whole opera.64 Don Giovanni’s desire is qualified as desiring,65 since it picks out each particular object of desire and enjoys it before moving on to the next. “in the particular, desire has its absolute object; it desires the particular absolutely. in this resides…[its] seductiveness. in this stage, therefore, desire is absolutely genuine, victorious, triumphant, irresistible, and demonic.”66 “but this power, this force, cannot be expressed in words; only music can give us a notion of it.”67 therefore words are not suitable for Don Giovanni, for they would turn him into a reflective individual. “He does not have that kind of continuance at all but hurries on in an eternal vanishing, just like the music, which is over as soon as the sound has stopped and comes into existence again only when it sounds once again.”68 according to a, “[t]he unity in an opera is preserved by the dominant tone [Grundtone] that sustains the whole.”69 opera consists of a plurality of voices, which 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69

SKS 2, 103 / EO1, 99–100. SKS 2, 80 / EO1, 74. SKS 2, 82 / EO1, 76. SKS 2, 83 / EO1, 77. SKS 2, 86 / EO1, 80. SKS 2, 86 / EO1, 81. SKS 2, 87 / EO1, 81. SKS 2, 88 / EO1, 82. SKS 2, 89 / EO1, 84. SKS 2, 86 / EO1, 81. SKS 2, 90 / EO1, 85. SKS 2, 105 / EO1, 101. SKS 2, 106 / EO1, 102. SKS 2, 120 / EO1, 117.

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are held together by a unifying mood, in contrast to drama, whose unity is found in action.70 in mozart’s Don Giovanni the overture sets the mood for the whole opera. like the preface to a book, it should be composed last, so that the composer has an overview of the whole work and can imbue the overture with “the full power of what is central.”71 as such, it contains a prophecy of the whole opera.72 Yet the overture is structured in such a way that don giovanni is the manifest focus.73 He emerges there as a presentiment, but also as an anxious energy. It is “not a subjectively reflected anxiety; it is a substantial anxiety…and don giovanni himself is this anxiety, but this anxiety is precisely the demonic zest for life.”74 thus it is don giovanni himself who resonates in all other characters; he is the dominant tone of the opera and is omnipresent.75 one exception is the Commendatore, who “is continually kept in the background and as nebulous as possible.”76 He is the only character who does not stand in some sort of erotic relationship to don giovanni, and represents spirit.77 despite a’s argument that mozart’s Don Giovanni is the most perfect of all classic works of art, he finds flaws in it. For example, he thinks that it contains two arias that disrupt the pace and whose removal would not affect the rest of the opera.78 moreover, if language and drama contrast as media with music, then we must ask why a purely instrumental piece would not best embody music’s absolute idea. opera introduces both language and drama, and distracts from pure musicality by introducing reflection and thought as well as individuated character and action. Opera also has elements of ballet, which a ridiculed as a medium for representing don Juan insofar as it made him visible and configured him through bodily movements.79 to summarize, Kierkegaard’s concept of music is most thoroughly articulated by the aesthete, a, in his essay “the immediate erotic stages or the musical-erotic.” Although many pseudonymous viewpoints cannot be identified with Kierkegaard’s, in this case there is nothing to be found elsewhere in the corpus to contradict a. a has an essentialist view of music, which he assumes has one absolute idea. the classic work of music consists in this absolute idea being given its most appropriate form. the absolute idea of music is sensuous immediacy or the sensuous-erotic, which finds its ideal form in Mozart’s Don Giovanni. this is a Christian work of music in the sense that its absolute idea is the principle of sensuous immediacy, which is qualified by spirit in virtue of being excluded by spirit. In other words, it is the demonic. mozart captures perfectly the restless, energetic power of desire embodied by don giovanni, which constitutes the dominant tone that gives the opera its unity. don giovanni represents this most abstract of ideas in concrete individuality, yet 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79

SKS 2, 120 / EO1, 117–18. SKS 2, 128 / EO1, 126. SKS 2, 129 / EO1, 127. ibid. SKS 2, 131 / EO1, 129. SKS 2, 121–2 / EO1, 119. SKS 2, 126 / EO1, 124. SKS 2, 126–7 / EO1, 124–5. SKS 2, 125 / EO1, 123. SKS 2, 109 / EO1, 106.

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because he never amounts to a character but only the musical embodiment of a principle, he has the force of the universal demonic. see also aesthetic/aesthetics; anxiety; Concrete/abstract; dance; demonic; Desire; Immediacy/Reflection; Inner/Outer; Interesting; Language; Lyric; Passion/ pathos; poetry; romanticism; seduction; spirit; theater/drama; Vaudeville/Farce.

myth diego giordano and william mcdonald

Myth (Mythe—noun; mythisk—adjective) the danish word Mythe (in modern orthography myte) generally refers to a purely fictional narrative, usually involving supernatural persons, actions, or events, and embodying some popular idea, concerning natural or historical phenomena. in particular it refers to stories handed down from olden times regarding the lives of the gods. In its broadest sense, the word refers to any narrative containing fictitious elements, sometimes with the connotation that the narrative lacks veracity.1 Kierkegaard adopts the latinized form Mythe. in Kierkegaard’s works the most frequent occurrence of the word “myth” (or “mythical”) is in The Concept of Irony, where the concept is richly discussed in connection with plato’s dialectics, particularly his earlier dialogues, in a subsection of the first part of the book entitled “The Mythical in the Earlier Platonic Dialogues as a token of a more Copious speculation.”2 Here Kierkegaard asks the reader to notice the ambivalence implicit in the gap between the dialectical and the mythical and identifies at least three elements of myth. First, the mythical displays a different point of view, a change in presentation, and another kind of discourse. this is evident in plato’s discourses, for example when protagoras says: “well socrates, i will not keep it for myself, but as the elder speaking to the younger, shall i cloak the demonstration in a myth or present it in a treatise?”3 Here we see that the mythical discourse is distinguished from the investigative one because the mythical is considered less challenging and rigorous, designed for the young. second, both kinds of discourse or presentation (dialectical and mythical) have their use, because they are seen “not in relation to the idea but in relation to the listener,”4 that is, they are like two languages, the one less articulated, more childlike, and soft, the other more developed, sharp-edged, and hard. Finally, according to this view, myth is entirely in the power of the presenter who, playing the role of a totally free creator, can modify the narration (adding or subtracting) according to the needs of the listener. For Kierkegaard these are features that mark out myth in general. but this is not true with the mythical in plato since there it has a far more profound meaning: it is not Cf. Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, columns 618–19. 2 SKS 1, 150–62 / CI, 96–109. 3 SKS 1, 150–1 / CI, 97. 4 SKS 1, 151 / CI, 97. 1

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so much a free composition over which plato has control, but rather something that overwhelms him. moreover, it is not so much an account for younger or less gifted listeners as it is a presentiment of something higher. at this point in The Concept of Irony there follows a report of different interpretations given by some important scholars regarding the use of the category of the mythical in plato. Johann gottfried stallbaum (1793–1861) points out that plato condescends to the listener and instead connects the mythical to folk consciousness, which “before plato maintained the idea in such a frame.”5 Ferdinand Christian baur (1792–1860) sees the traditional in the mythical and advocates the view that the poets and oracles stand in the same relation to plato as the prophets of the old testament stand in relation to the apostles and evangelists. Consequently, in plato’s writings the mythical should be seen as an attitude of devout veneration and filial piety with which he embraced the religious consciousness of his native country’s past. georg anton Friedrich ast (1778–1841) suggests that the mythical functions as a theological ground in plato’s speculative stance. Kierkegaard’s own view of the mythical is revealed in his commentary on these interpretations of plato. according to Kierkegaard, stallbaum does not adequately distinguish between what in plato was understood by means of rational inference and what was grasped by intuition or a truly reassuring settlement of the boundary disputes between tradition and plato. moreover, he is not able to make clear the difference between what plato inherits from the greek mythological tradition and his own peculiar way of developing philosophical discourse. the mythical is something higher, something lying beyond plato’s subjective authority. regarding baur, his attempt to explain the mythical as the traditional, to have plato seek a point of departure for ethical-religious truths in the higher authority implicit in poetry and oracles, does not work at all. In the first books of the Republic plato utterly disparages the validity of the utterances of the poets, indeed argues strongly against them, and disapproves of the fictive interpretation in contrast to the strictly narrative version—in fact, in the tenth book of the Republic he wants the poets banished from the polis. Finally, Kierkegaard acknowledges that ast has a more complete view, except that it is not actually based upon observation and has more the character of a wish than of an achievement. both baur and ast apparently fail to see the “inner history” of the mythical in plato. Yet only by reconstructing this history, that is, by following the development of the concept in his works, is it possible to have a clear account of its structure and use. Kierkegaard makes this point clear when he notes that in the earliest dialogues the mythical is either completely absent or it is present in connection with its opposite, the abstract. afterwards, in the cycle of dialogues that follow, it utterly vanishes in order to make room for the dialectical, and then finally emerges again in the last works, but in a more profound connection with the dialectical. whereas in the earlier dialogues the mythical forms a contrast to the dialectical—so that “when the dialectical is silent the mythical lets itself be heard or rather be seen”6—in the later dialogues it appears in a friendlier relation to 5 6

SKS 1, 153 / CI, 99. SKS 1, 154 / CI, 100.

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the dialectical: “plato has mastered it or, in other words, the mythical becomes the metaphorical.”7 Kierkegaard further clarifies Plato’s concept of myth in relation to dialectic and imagination. dialectic has the negative task of clearing “the terrain of everything irrelevant,”8 but then fails in trying “to clamber up to the idea.”9 in place of dialectic, imagination steps in and “begins to dream, and from this comes the mythical.”10 under this characterization it would be easy to mistake the mythical for the poetic, but Kierkegaard gives a very concise distinction in grammatical terms: “the poetic is a hypothetical statement in the subjunctive mood; the mythical is a hypothetical statement in the indicative mood.”11 in other words, the poetical is conscious of itself as the poetical, has its reality [Realitet] in this ideality, and does not want to have any other reality. the mythical, however, consists in the neither-nor-ness and duplexity, the intermediate state out of which the interests of consciousness have not as yet struggled….this duplexity, the indicative statement and the hypothetical form, which wavers between being neither subjunctive nor indicative and both subjunctive and indicative, is a sign of the mythical.12

myth exists in this liminal space between the assertoric and the hypothetical, between the actual and the imaginary. insofar as “myth is taken for actuality, it is really not myth; it does not become myth until the moment it touches a reflecting consciousness.”13 Yet nor is it taken to be wholly imaginary, lest it be subsumed within the poetic. Instead, in myth speculative reflection “applies itself to the imagination,”14 but without going so far as to annihilate it as myth: “the myth still exists, and just as it is taking its leave and departing, it raises itself up from the earth, but in farewell it reflects itself once again in the imagination, and this is the mythical presentation.”15 the concept of myth as a category of thought is addressed by Kierkegaard a second time in The Concept of Anxiety—here in relation to adam and the concept of original sin.16 according to the genesis account of the Fall, sin came into the world by a sin. this presents a twofold offense to the understanding: (1) the dogma that sin comes into the world fails as an explanation, since it is circular; and (2) the dogma that sin comes into the world suddenly, by a leap, subverts a rational explanation of the development of sin by means of the gradual corruption of innocence. since the dogma that sin comes into the world by sin offends in these ways, the understanding

7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16

ibid. SKS 1, 154 / CI, 101. ibid. ibid. SKS 1, 155n. / CI, 101n. ibid. SKS 1, 155n. / CI, 102n. ibid. ibid. SKS 4, 336–41 / CA, 29–35.

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dismisses it as a myth.17 However, Kierkegaard rejects the attitude according to which everything that cannot be rationally explained is reduced to myth.18 some general references to myth and mythology can also be found in Kierkegaard’s journals and papers.19 perhaps the most important point Kierkegaard makes here is that Christianity is distinguished from mythology (and poetry) by means of the existential commitment to the way of life prescribed in the new testament.20 Christendom, on the other hand, is mythical as soon as one takes away the Christian requirement that this way of life be reduplicated in one’s own—then it is indistinguishable from paganism.21 moreover, throughout Kierkegaard’s work there are many references and allusions to specific myths and mythological figures, particularly from Greek and scandinavian mythology. For example, the characters Frithiof and ingeborg, from esaia tegner’s Frithiof’s Saga, are used to poignant effect in The Concept of Anxiety to evoke the intersection of time and eternity in the glint of an eye.22 the Fenris wolf is mentioned to conjure the notion of invisible bonds.23 the story of loki and the dwarf is used to illustrate a point about irony,24 and thor and various characters found in rafn’s Nordiske Kæmpehistorier are used to show that hero legends contain remarkable self-contradictions.25 From greek mythology Kierkegaard refers to amor and psyche,26 Hercules,27 ariadne,28 diana,29 narcissus and echo,30 sisyphus31 and many more. He also refers to Celtic mythology, indian mythology, and oriental mythology.32 The main point in most of these uses is to find engaging and familiar illustrations for more abstract ideas, but also to contrast Christian “truth” with pagan “mythology.” see also Fairytale; Hero; imagination; irony; legends; novel; paganism; poetry; religious/religiousness; romanticism; sin; story-telling. SKS 4, 338 / CA, 32. H.n. Clausen (before d.F. strauss) had used the designation “mosaic myth” about the genesis account, in Catholicismens og Protestantismens Kirkeforfatning, Lære og Ritus, Copenhagen: andreas seidelin 1825, p. 521 (ASKB a 142). Cf. CA, explanatory notes, 233, note 22. 19 SKS 18, 75, FF:1 / KJN 2, 69; SKS 18, 79–80, FF:24 / KJN 2, 73; SKS 23, 136–8, nb16:60 / JP 3, 2803; SKS 25, 415–16, nb30:42 / JP 3, 2805. 20 SKS 25, 415–16, nb30:42 / JP 3, 2805. 21 SKS 23, 136–8, nb16:60 / JP 3, 2803. 22 SKS 4, 390 / CA, 87. Cf. SKS 17, 114, bb:24 / JP 3, 3800. 23 e.g. SKS 2, 43 / EO1, 34. 24 SKS 17, 226, dd:22, / JP 2, 1697. 25 SKS 17, 44, aa:26 / JP 5, 5209. 26 e.g. SKS 24, 461, nb25:38 / JP 4, 4381. 27 e.g. SKS 27, 108, papir 78 / JP 1, 265. 28 SKS 17, 26, aa:12 / JP 5, 5100. 29 SKS 19, 219, not7:56 / JP, 3, 2587. 30 SKS 19, 214, not7:34 / JP 3, 2389. 31 SKS 17, 28, aa:12 / JP 5, 5100. 32 SKS 17, 61, bb:1 / JP 5, 5135. 17 18

nature/natural science thomas posch

Nature/Natural Science (Natur—noun/Naturvidenskab—noun) the danish noun natur is derived from the latin word natura, which in turn goes back to the verb nasci, “to be born, to come into being.”1 the composite noun Naturvidenskab refers to the scientific study of nature (Danish viden, “knowledge”; videnskab, “science”). At first glance, nature and natural science may not appear to be subjects of outstanding importance in Kierkegaard’s writings. However, his notes and journals contain significant statements on these topics (an example is given in Section I), including very harsh criticism of the sciences (see section ii). at the same time, Kierkegaard’s careful—usually metaphorical—description of natural phenomena and of living beings has a vital ethical (or ethico-religious) function in his edifying discourses (section iii). I. Already in a note from 1835, Kierkegaard distinguishes between the scientific view of nature and a holistic/poetic view, which is beyond the “secrets of the sciences.”2 while he declares a vital interest, even a passion, for the natural sciences, he hesitates to choose them as the “main subject of his studies.”3 However, Kierkegaard not only draws a distinction between the scientist’s and the poet’s view of nature, but upon closer examination of his journal note from June 1, 1835, we find an outline of three modes of man’s (modern) relation to nature: (a) the scientist’s collection of individual facts about nature. this collection leads to a rich manifold of “particular pieces of knowledge.”4 an “extraordinary assiduity” according to isidore of seville, “Natura dicta ab eo quod nasci aliquid faciat. Gignendi enim et faciendi potens est” (“the term ‘nature’ is used to designate an essence which may bring something into being. it is, namely, a certain faculty of generating and bringing into existence”)—isidore of seville, Etymologiae, book 11, 1, 1 (my translation). see also Ordbog over det danske Sprog, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, columns 954–64 (natur) and column 1000 (naturvidenskab). 2 SKS 17, 21, aa:12 / JP 5, 5092. 3 ibid. 4 SKS 17, 20, aa:12 / JP 5, 5092. 1

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is required to acquire it;5 and yet, this level of man’s relation to nature fails to give the true and overall picture. (b) a comprehensive and holistic view of nature. this had been achieved by only a few of Kierkegaard’s contemporaries, who according to him had been able to place all the individual scientific facts into a harmonious picture of the world as a whole, putting the wealth of empirical information “into an adequate light.”6 individual scientists who reached this point—such as Hans Christian Ørsted (1777–1851), whom Kierkegaard knew personally—give an impression of “peace, harmony and joy.”7 looking back at the history of thought in the nineteenth century, we may be tempted to designate researchers who have reached this level as “natural philosophers” rather than as natural scientists. However, Kierkegaard does not use this term in his note from 1835. (C) the poetic view of nature, which even goes beyond (and in another direction than) the speculative syntheses of natural philosophy. this poetic view of nature, as Kierkegaard conceives it, uses observations and careful descriptions of selected natural phenomena as lessons for humans to learn—that is, as metaphors, as parables of ethical life. it is only this latter relationship to nature (to animals, plants, landscapes, and inanimate beings) that Kierkegaard himself adopts throughout his life and work, culminating in edifying discourses such as The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air (see below, section iii). at the same time, Kierkegaard becomes a sharp critic of the merely empirical sciences, as shown below in section ii. II. in a note from 1846, Kierkegaard makes a very radical claim: “ultimately all corruption will come from the natural sciences.”8 this is obviously in sharp contrast to his early claim to have sympathy for the sciences. the main reason that Kierkegaard gives for his idea that the natural sciences would one day ruin humanity is this: a scientist would, in the best conceivable case, be able to explain nature as a whole—but would at the same time fail to reach an understanding of himself as a human being.9 How could Kierkegaard come to such a negative assessment of the sciences’ contribution to the history of thought? on the one hand, it is well known that between 1835 and 1846 Kierkegaard developed a criticism of ”objective” and ”systematic” thought, of which Hegel’s philosophy seemed to provide the classic example. now if a system of philosophy such as Hegel’s Encyclopaedia of the Philosophical Sciences had to be rejected due to its failure to emphasize the perspective of the “existing individual” and his or her striving for individual salvation, then for the very same reason a system of knowledge (a “world-view”) based merely on the natural sciences had to be rejected a fortiori. on the other hand, the advent of nineteenth-century materialism plays an additional role in Kierkegaard’s later critique of the sciences. 5 6 7 8 9

ibid. SKS 17, 21, aa:12 / JP 5, 5092. ibid. SKS 20, 63, nb:73 / JP 3, 2809. SKS 20, 74, nb:87 / JP 3, 2820.

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the second aspect becomes clear from the particular examples of unmindful scientific reasoning given by Kierkegaard in his note from 1846. To paraphrase Kierkegaard: suppose a scientist uses a microscope in order to study the emergence of consciousness in our brain. if he then “looks and looks and looks”10 and finally comes to the conclusion that he cannot find consciousness there, then this cannot be considered as serious, but only as something droll. if god went around, armed with a baton, then he would inevitably beat those scientists searching for consciousness with a microscope. He would beat the hypocrisy (of looking for any mental or spiritual essence by means of a scientific instrument) out of these researchers.11 based on this reasoning, Kierkegaard comes to the conclusion that any proper self-understanding of mind is strictly incompatible with the choice of pursuing (empirical) science as life’s goal.12 if anybody makes this self-refuting choice nevertheless, he deceives himself and the world. it would go beyond the scope of this article to examine the defensibility of this verdict. the task that remains here is, rather, an account of the only relation to natural phenomena that Kierkegaard did consider as ethically legitimate throughout his life, namely, the poetic view of nature. III. the many “stories” that Kierkegaard tells us about nature, the manifold little nature scenes depicted by him—also in his edifying discourses—are best understood in light of their psychological function; and this function is common to all his parables: “to draw his readers into self-awareness, to sensitize moral and spiritual consciousness to the task…of authentic human existence.”13 Hence, while the natural scientist is accused of failing to understand himself as a human being (see above, section ii), there is a metaphorical way of speaking about nature that does contribute to establishing what Kierkegaard considers “subjective” existence. notoriously, Kierkegaard refrains from a direct communication of ethical principles (for example, in a Kantian manner); but it is equally obvious that “the ethical” is what he does want to get across. Here, his “poetization” of nature comes into play. when we consider parables such as “the Flight of wild geese,” “the lights that obscure the stars,” “the lily in the Field and the bird of the air,” and others, it becomes clear that ethical ideals and problems are indeed communicated. but this happens in a non-dogmatic way, giving the reader freedom to choose (for example, between a technocratic attitude and a more humble way of life). nature, in its immensity, solemnity, and silence— and in its absolute obedience to god, as Kierkegaard perceives it—lends itself to this treatment. Clearly, nature does not directly provide us any ethical commands, but neither does Kierkegaard. SKS 20, 63, nb:73 / JP 3, 2809. SKS 20, 64, nb:88 / JP 3, 2809. 12 SKS 20, 73, nb:87 / JP 3, 2820. 13 thomas C. oden, Parables of Kierkegaard, princeton: princeton university press 1978, p. xii. 10 11

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see also Cause/effect; Communication/indirect Communication; existence/existential; objectivity/subjectivity; speculation/science/scholarship; understanding/ Comprehension/Confusion.

necessity gabriel Ferreira da silva

Necessity (Nødvendighed—noun; nødvendig—adjective) the danish word nødvendig derives from the german notwendig. molbech gives as the first and philosophical meaning of nødvendig “that which contains the ground of its own existence and whose opposite is an impossibility or contradicts itself.”1 in this way, Nødvendighed is that which “does not allow choice.”2 This definition is very close to the one Kierkegaard provides in Philosophical Fragments: “necessity stands all by itself.”3 the most frequent occurrence of the noun “necessity” and the adjective “necessary” is in Philosophical Fragments (by Johannes Climacus), followed by Either/Or, part two (edited by Victor eremita), then the Concluding Unscientific Postscript (by Climacus) and The Sickness unto Death (by anti-Climacus), which have almost the same number of occurrences. Kierkegaard analyzes the concept of necessity, as well as other modalities, in three dimensions, which are interconnected by the same theoretical ground related to the primary modal meaning: (1) logical/ ontological, (2) ethical, and (3) psychological/ontological. I. Logical/Ontological Necessity although the concept of necessity maintains its logical and ontological foundations through all Kierkegaard’s works, the main locus where it is examined and developed is in the “interlude” in Philosophical Fragments. there, the central role of the concept of necessity is indicated in the following questions: “is the past more necessary than the future? or has the possible, by having become actual, become more necessary than it was?”4 generally, Kierkegaard follows the traditional aristotelian view of modal categories, which he knew mainly from w.g. tennemann’s Geschichte

Christian molbech, Dansk Ordbog indeholdende det danske Sprogs Stammeord, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1833, vol. 2, p. 99. Cf. Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–27, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 15, columns 253–4. 2 molbech, Dansk Ordbog indeholdende det danske Sprogs Stammeord, vol. 2, p. 99. 3 SKS 4, 274 / PF, 74. 4 SKS 4, 272 / PF, 72. 1

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der Philosophie.5 with respect to anything, it can be said what it is (its defining attributes), and how it is or its mode of being (that is, possible, actual, or necessary). in Philosophical Fragments, Climacus identifies this as the classical distinction between essence (Væsen) and being (Væren).6 nevertheless, the “interlude” represents a turning point regarding the traditional account of these matters. by stressing the meaning of necessity, Kierkegaard radically separates the concept of necessity from the other two modal categories of actuality and possibility. in unfolding the question about the relationship between necessity and actuality, Kierkegaard is directed to a more central issue: “Can the necessary come into existence?”7 the answer exhibits the fundamental aspects of his understanding of that concept in a very strong sense: “Coming into existence is a change, but since the necessary is always related to itself and is related to itself in the same way, it cannot be be changed at all….precisely by coming into existence, everything that comes into existence demonstrates that it is not necessary, because the necessary is.”8 retrieving the distinction between essence and being, Kierkegaard asserts that “[p]ossibility and actuality are not different in essence but in being,” whereas “the essence of the necessary is to be.”9 thus, “possible” and “actual” are predicates which refer to a mode of being, and are not essential attributes or qualities of a given entity; in other more modern terms, they are second-order predicates. but “necessity,” according to Kierkegaard’s understanding of it, refers to an essential feature of what it qualifies, which is said to be “necessary” and not just a mode of being of that being. thus, Kierkegaard refuses to conceive of necessity as the unity of actuality and possibility.10 Therefore, necessity is defined as standing by itself11 because it has its own ground, independently of an external (free) cause.12 the general scope of occurrences of “necessity” in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript is the same as Philosophical Fragments.13 However, based on his analysis in the “interlude,” Climacus enlarges the discussion by critiquing the position of his Hegelian contemporaries, who held that the logical/dialectical method can be applied both to the necessary, immanent progression of thought and to the realm of actuality: “Necessity must be treated by itself. placing necessity together with the interpretation of world history, as has been done by modern speculative thought, has only caused great confusion, whereby possibility, actuality, and necessity are confused.”14

wilhelm gottlieb tennemann, Geschichte der Philosophie, vols. 1–11, leipzig: Johann ambrosius barth 1798–1819 (ASKB 815–826). see aristotle, De Interpretatione, Xi. 6 Cf. SKS 4, 274 / PF, 74. 7 ibid. 8 ibid. see aristotle, De Interpretatione, Xiii. 9 see SKS 4, 274 / PF, 74. 10 ibid. 11 see ibid. 12 see SKS 4, 275 / PF, 75. 13 see, for instance, SKS 7, 57–8 / CUP1, 53; SKS 7, 96 / CUP1, 98; SKS 7, 112 / CUP1, 116; SKS 7, 313–14 / CUP1, 342–3. 14 SKS 7, 314 / CUP1, 343. 5

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II. Ethical Necessity one of the main results of the concept of necessity that emerges from the “interlude” is precisely its very strong differentiation regarding the other classical modalities. Consequently, already in Philosophical Fragments, the non-necessity of what comes into existence was understood by Kierkegaard in an ethical sense, that is, in terms of freedom: “the change of coming into existence is actuality; the transition takes place in freedom. no coming into existence is necessary—not before it came into existence, for then it cannot come into existence, and not after it has come into existence, for then it has not come into existence.”15 one of the most important loci of the ethical treatment of necessity, especially in connection with possibility in terms of freedom, is the section entitled “the balance between the esthetic and the ethical in the development of the personality,” in Either/ Or, part two. there Kierkegaard points out the same statements and differentiations made in the “Interlude” but now leaves room for a more specific treatment of the ethical meaning of that category: “the spheres with which philosophy properly has to deal, the spheres proper to thought, are logic, nature, and history. Here necessity rules, and therefore mediation has its validity. that this is true of logic and nature, no one will deny, but with history there is a difficulty, for here, it is said, freedom prevails.”16 therefore, reasoning by necessity is able to understand only the most external framework of human action, and it cannot deal with the innermost kernel of action, which is, properly, the freedom of choice, its fundamental characteristic: philosophy considers the external deed, yet in turn it does not see this as isolated but sees it as assimilated into and transformed in the world-historical process. this process is the proper subject for philosophy, and it considers this under the category of necessity. Therefore it rejects the reflection that wants to point out that everything could be otherwise; it views world-history in such a way that there is no question of an either/or.17

nevertheless, Kierkegaard uses the term “necessity” to explain the character of constraint of existential choice, as well as its absoluteness: but since the choice is an absolute choice, the either/or is absolute. in another sense, the absolute either/or does not make its appearance until the choice, because now the choice between good and evil appears. i shall not concern myself here with this choice posited in and with the first choice; I wish only to force you to the point where the necessity of making a choice manifests itself and thereafter to consider existence under ethical qualifications.18

thus, in the context of an ethical approach, Kierkegaard seems to stress the detachment from necessity in order that, through the existential choice in freedom, one gains one’s own self in a properly human way: 15 16 17 18

SKS 4, 275 / PF, 75. SKS 3, 170 / EO2, 174. ibid. SKS 3, 173 / EO2, 178.

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Gabriel Ferreira da Silva a human being’s eternal dignity lies precisely in this, that he can gain a history. the divine in him lies in this, that he himself, if he so chooses, can give this history continuity, because it gains that, not when it is a summary of what has taken place or has happened to me, but only when it is my personal deed in such a way that even that which has happened to me is transformed and transferred from necessity to freedom.19

but in contrast to the view that tends to emphasize non-necessity as freedom, the presence of a necessity in the constitution of the human self is exposed in a more complex form from the psychological/ontological point of view. III. Psychological/Ontological Necessity the relations between the modal categories are also a fundamental feature in Kierkegaard’s thought on the constitution of the self. in this way, necessity is one of the elements of the self as described at the beginning of The Sickness unto Death: “A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis.”20 the opposition between necessity and freedom drawn before is now located in the very core of what the human being is, in its dialectical synthesis of opposites. For this reason, Kierkegaard points to types of despair that lack possibility and lack necessity: “a self that has no possibility is in despair, and likewise a self that has no necessity.”21 necessity is expressed here, among the other components of the human self, as a basic existential structure or ground of human being: but if possibility outruns necessity so that the self runs away from itself in possibility, it has no necessity to which it is to return; this is possibility’s despair. this self becomes an abstract possibility; it flounders around in possibility until exhausted but neither moves from the place where it is nor arrives anywhere, for necessity is literally that place; to become oneself is literally a movement in that place. to become is a movement away from that place, but to become oneself is a movement in that place.22

accordingly, the despair of lacking necessity is lacking recognition or acceptance of what Kierkegaard calls limitations of life23 and occurs, essentially, when someone is not “aware that the self he is is a very definite something and thus the necessary.”24 this treatment of the relation between the categories reveals a different point of view compared to that expressed in Philosophical Fragments. in the section where Kierkegaard exposes the despair caused by lack of necessity, he again considers the statement about necessity as unity of possibility and actuality, but now with a different conclusion: “the philosophers are mistaken when they explain necessity as a unity of possibility and actuality—no, actuality is the unity of possibility and 19 20 21 22 23 24

SKS 3, 239 / EO2, 250. SKS 11, 129 / SUD, 13. SKS 11, 151 / SUD, 35. SKS 11, 151 / SUD, 35–6. see SKS 11, 152 / SUD, 36. ibid.

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necessity.”25 in fact, instead of changing the view of modalities, what Kierkegaard is doing here is exhibiting a complementary psychological/ontological view of them. as the synthetic concept of self asserts, human actuality is a dialectical unity of necessity and freedom, necessarily. therefore, necessity as the fundamental framework and limit of existence is a necessary element of human actuality, that is, human existence, which is one of the conditions of fulfillment of the self: even in seeing oneself in a mirror it is necessary to recognize oneself, for if one does not, one does not see oneself but only a human being. the mirror of possibility is no ordinary mirror; it must be used with extreme caution, for, in the highest sense, this mirror does not tell the truth. that a self appears to be such and such in the possibility of itself is only a half-truth, for in the possibility of itself the self is still far from or is only half of itself. Therefore, the question is how the necessity of this particular self defines it more specifically. Possibility is like a child’s invitation to a party; the child is willing at once, but the question now is whether the parents will give permission—and as it is with the parents, so it is with necessity.26

as may be seen, the concept of necessity mantains the same fundamental logical marks through all the different contexts of Kierkegaard’s works. Kierkegaard uses his strong sense of the concept of necessity to express a variety of related meanings and characteristics, such as stability, permanence, and grounding as opposed to openness, freedom, and change. see also actuality; being/becoming; Category; Certainty; Choice; Contingency/ possibility; despair; existence/existential; Freedom; logic; movement/motion; reason; self; spirit.

25 26

ibid. SKS 11, 152 / SUD, 37.

negation archie graham

Negation (Negation—noun; Negativ—noun; negativ—adjective) the danish word Negation derives from the latin negatio and the verb negare, which means to deny or contradict.1 while Kierkegaard uses the word in its ordinary sense to refer to the simple denial of an affirmative statement, he develops the substantive form, “the negative,” into a critically important concept in his philosophy. although Kierkegaard inherits this concept from Hegel, he goes on to make it his own in a way that uniquely distinguishes and distances him from his great mentor and antagonist. the concept is developed progressively through a number of his key works, but most extensively in The Concept of Irony and perhaps most distinctively in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Kierkegaard’s understanding of the negative needs firstly to be understood in relation to Hegel’s use of the term in its intimate association with the dialectic in his system of logic. the subject matter of this system is the notion, “the absolute, self-subsistent object [of thinking], the logos, the reason of that which is, the truth of what we call things.”2 This Notion is the substantial foundation of all other specific notions that serve as universals and abbreviations of particular things. it is only in and through the notion that all determinations of thought can be understood, not as selfsubsistent and independent, but in their interrelatedness, and by virtue of this, as true.3 the system of logic is the full account of what is nothing less than the spontaneous progressive determination of this notion and the laying bare of what Hegel thinks of as the inner movement of the notion itself. this inner movement is reason in its function as the dialectic, which is essentially negative. in particular, it is what Hegel calls determinate negation, the negation that generates the conceptual development of the speculative system of thought. This kind of negation is exemplified in the case of contrary pairs such as “north” and “south,” or “up” and “down.” such concepts or terms are not arbitrarily related but necessarily so, since each is involved in the identification of the other as its opposite: “There can only be one negation of north, that is, south, and only one negation of up, that is down.”4 it is this negation in Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 14, columns 1153–4. 2 Hegel’s Science of Logic, trans. by a.V. miller, new York: Humanity books (prometheus) 1998, p. 28. 3 see ibid., p. 39. 4 Jon stewart, “Hegel, Kierkegaard and the danish debate about mediation,” Bulletin of the Hegel Society of Great Britain, no. 61, 2010, p. 66. 1

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the form of contrariety that allows for the positing of a higher concept in which the opposition is resolved in a new unity, where north and south, for example, are resolved and unified in longitudinal direction, and up and down are resolved and unified in verticality. The point is that this progressive negation is such that, while it differentiates and at the same time connects the multitude of determinations of conscious thought in this fashion, it thus resolves them in the “absolute knowledge” of “the substantial oneness” of the notion.5 the internal negating reason of the dialectic brings us full circle, from empty and abstract awareness to the complete knowledge of interrelatedness in which all oppositions are overcome. this is the notion as the truth of being “without veil…in its own absolute nature” and “the exposition of god as he is in his eternal essence.”6 Kierkegaard makes the claim in The Concept of Irony that socratic questioning is analogous to the negative in Hegel with the difference that “the negative, according to Hegel, is a necessary element in thought itself,”7 and that whereas in socrates the negative is completely negative, in Hegel the negative results in something positive, a higher unity. but while the Kierkegaard of The Concept of Irony seems to favor and prioritize the Hegelian form of negativity, the pseudonyms of the later works dramatically revise his position with a renewed interpretation of socratic negativity that establishes its central role in what is characterized as the religious life. Kierkegaard’s early interpretation of the negative in The Concept of Irony relies heavily on Hegel’s speculative metaphysics in its development. Specifically citing Hegel, he speaks, for example, of the negative or dialectic as that which produces contradictions in “every particular historical actuality” while it “carries within itself the seeds of its own downfall,” 8 and this is nothing less than the idea or spirit working itself out in the “universal irony of the world.”9 the world spirit is continually actualizing itself in its evolutionary process of becoming concrete and does so through the generations of individuals, a process which produces contradictions or collisions between one actualization and another, between Catholicism, for example, and protestantism, between one generation and another, and between individuals within those generations. it is against this borrowed Hegelian context that Kierkegaard’s existential irony can be understood as an expression of negativity. The mere possibility of negativity which, posited as a moment of reflection within the system, “has gradually become a vaudeville character,”10 is transmuted by Kierkegaard into real negativity in the life of the existing individual when it becomes the negative emancipation of his subjective thinking asserting itself in an ironic stance against the world. this eminent existential irony, “irony sensu eminentiori,” is that which is “directed not against this or that particular existing entity but against…the totality of

5 6 7 8 9 10

Hegel’s Science of Logic, p. 39. ibid., p. 50. SKS 1, 97 / CI, 35. SKS 1, 300 / CI, 262–3. Hegel, cited in SKS 1, 300 / CI, 262. SKS 4, 436 / CA, 134.

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existence.”11 the individual who is engaged by existential irony in this way represents a new evolutionary manifestation of the world spirit. in this role as ironist, however, he sacrifices himself because he is no longer authorized to speak for his time, since at an individual level he steps out of line with it in the interests of ushering in the new actualization of spirit: Here then we have irony as the infinite absolute negativity. It is negativity because it only negates; it is infinite because it does not negate this or that phenomenon; it is absolute, because that by virtue of which it negates is a higher something that still is not. the irony establishes nothing, because that which is to be established lies behind it. it is a divine madness.12

Kierkegaard explicitly tells us that it is this concept of infinite absolute negativity that is exemplified in the eminent existential irony of Socrates. The entire first part of The Concept of Irony is devoted to giving an account of this concept.13 He goes on in the second part of the same work to clarify the concept by distinguishing it from the negative in modern romantic irony, which is merely the contemplative or theoretical irony of schlegel, tieck, solger, shakespeare, and goethe. this kind of “minor” irony which is the “unerring eye for what is crooked, wrong, and vain in existence” and more or less akin to “mockery, satire, persiflage, etc.,” only makes the subject feel free in his abstract and essentially aesthetic way of life but does not move him in the direction of the religious.14 a more complete understanding of the negativity of socratic existential irony in The Concept of Irony is to be found in Kierkegaard’s account of socratic ignorance. this ignorance is not an empirical ignorance about the facts of ordinary day-to-day living. rather, it is a philosophical ignorance of the “ground of all being, the eternal, the divine.”15 in taking the stance of declaring his own ignorance and using his skills of argument to demonstrate the ignorance of others—in continually postulating the negativity and then revoking it in this way—Socrates affirmed only the possibility of the negative and never allowed it to become actual. The qualified positivity Socrates achieves and exemplifies, however, lies in the liberating power of this ironic ignorance, the capacity to think and live in freedom from his contemporaries by virtue of his refusal to adopt their established or total, fixed, and fossilized views of life and death, or to entrench his own. there is no body of knowledge that holds him or to which he must remain committed, and so he is open to the infinity of possibilities. This is the beginning of infinite wisdom, but it is incomplete and unfulfilled. starting with Philosophical Fragments, however, the view of socratic ignorance changes and the role of negativity begins to develop. It becomes less a qualified and more an unqualified positivity. In what seems to be a gradual evolution and even revision of Kierkegaard’s original position, his pseudonym Johannes Climacus states 11 12 13 14 15

SKS 1, 292 / CI, 254. SKS 1, 299 / CI, 261. see the summary of this in SKS 1, 307 / CI, 270–1. SKS 1, 295 / CI, 256. SKS 1, 218 / CI, 169.

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that socrates “was and continued to be a midwife, not because he ‘did not have the positive,’ but because he perceived that this relation is the highest relation a human being can have to another.”16 Socrates’ ironic ignorance exemplifies the higher positivity of negativity in that it is an “inclosing reserve” which is a distinctively mute closing off from others, while closing in with oneself in order to engage the divine in a secret dialogue, a dialogue that ironically manifests itself in socrates’ case as a refusal to speak to or about god for fear of indulging in idle chatter.17 “magister Kierkegaard, however, to judge from his dissertation [The Concept of Irony] has scarcely understood it. He mentions this negative attitude of socrates toward prayer, but he cannot refrain from instructing socrates in a note that this negativity is only to a certain extent true.”18 Climacus seems to understand, however, that since this ironical stance is at once a negative reinforcement of the unreality or evanescence of phenomena while at the same time a positive reinforcement of the isolation and seclusion of the subject in his own inwardness, “irony as the negative is the way; it is not the truth, but the way.”19 this ironic negativity functions as a repelling force that pushes towards the limits of reason and thus serves as a vehicle of engagement with the infinite.20 it is in this regard that Kierkegaard ultimately elevates socrates’ negativity above Hegel’s. socrates represents the active application of the negativity of the most eminent irony in the lived experience of the individual thinker. For Kierkegaard it is not simply that socrates refutes his opponents by saying not-a every time someone says A. This is a specific form of negativity that focuses on the object A or what it lacks, whereas what Kierkegaard is interested in is the “not” itself, the enigma of which is preserved in aristotle’s logic but overlooked in Hegel’s. it is presupposed by Hegel, as Kierkegaard tells us repeatedly, but never explained within the system. it could be contested here that Hegel does indeed speak of the negative within his system in terms of “absolute difference,” but this is an abstract, consciously identifiable, posited, determinate difference that is not at all what Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus means by the negation that is the “absolute difference” of the Philosophical Fragments. in a passage that is clearly written in direct opposition to Hegel’s account (one that is essential to the understanding of his critique of Hegel and his understanding of aristotle’s “not”), he tells us that the negative here is the Un-known and explains why it is so enigmatic: it is the frontier that is continually arrived at….but it is the absolutely different in which there is no distinguishing mark. Defined as the absolutely different, it seems to be at the point of being disclosed, but not so, because the understanding cannot even think the absolutely different; it cannot absolutely negate itself but uses itself for that purpose and consequently thinks the difference in itself, which it thinks by itself. if the unknown (the

16 17 18 19 20

SKS 4, 220 / PF, 10. SKS 4, 436 / CA, 134. SKS 7, 89n. / CUP1, 90n. SKS 1, 356 / CI, 327. Cf. SKS 2, 275 / EO1, 285.

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god) is not solely the frontier, then the one idea about the different is confused with the many ideas about the different.”21

the negative in this sense is something far more fundamental and elusive, so much so that Hegel fails to capture it in his system. this is why, when it comes to the religious, “the negative is higher than the positive,”22 even in the case of the purely positive knowledge of infinity which Hegel gives an account of in his Science of Logic. The finite and infinite are both a “single unity” and at the same time “absolutely different and opposed,” yet in this “separation” they are “inseparable” because each one is determined by the other, all of which means that the infinite is to be positively understood as the “alternation” between these determinations and the inseparability of their “unity and separation.”23 pseudonym Frater taciturnus tells us that although he has learned a great deal from this richly circuitous account of the strange unity-in-separation, in so far as he has taken the trouble to ponder it, it would seem to be useful only to those whom “astrology might succeed in finding on those distant planets.”24 He suggests that if we were to embrace this positive account of infinity we would be entering a fool’s paradise, since something is left out, namely, how this abstract explanation is supposed to calm and reassure us in our lived spiritual existence or advance us in our relation to its truth. the point is that, in and of itself, this account cannot offer anything other than a “dubious reassurance,”25 because no matter how much explanatory reassurance we receive, we will always be out over the deep when it comes to our own experience of spiritual existence. we all must suffer in life, and “to become positive does not procure for one personal esteem in god’s eyes.”26 when Climacus (in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript) subsequently lampoons Hegel for supposedly lamenting on his death-bed that no one understood him, he blames Hegel for not being negative enough, for engaging in purely direct communication and for having nothing in common with socrates, “who had planned his entire form of communication to the end of being misunderstood.”27 what lies behind Kierkegaard’s critique of Hegel here is the concern with the other kind of negative discussed above and how it factors into the theme of indirect communication and the elusiveness of the infinite. Hegel’s negative, in Kierkegaard’s estimation, is a limited and ultimately inadequate negative that brings forth “not a negation but a contraposition” or an opposition, “the necessary other”28 in the system of categories. Kierkegaard’s negative is an existing historical actuality that does not—indeed cannot—exist in the system. the negative that Kierkegaard is thinking of is simply not subject to the

21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

SKS 4, 249 / PF, 44–5. SKS 6, 410 / SLW, 443. Hegel’s Science of Logic, p. 151. SKS 6, 410 / SLW, 444. SKS 6, 411 / SLW, 444. SKS 6, 411 / SLW, 445. SKS 7, 71n. / CUP1, 70n. SKS 4, 321 / CA, 13.

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scrutiny or the logic of the system, which is why he states that the necessary other so critical to Hegel’s dialectical logic is “something that the negative is not.”29 How, then, do we speak of this negative? Kierkegaard addresses this issue through what he calls a “double reflection,” which he distinguishes from Hegel’s objective thinking. The latter is a one-sided reflection that focuses on the positively identifiable object of thought or consciousness while being wholly indifferent to the negative factor that serves effectively as its condition. the negative factor is the unacknowledged presence of the subjectivity of the existing thinker, an inwardness that is grounded in the experience of the infinite. Double reflection is an act of the believing subjective thinker who wishes to retain the integrity of his inward experience of the life of eternity, yet at the same time impart it to others. the problem is that this “contradiction” cannot be captured by direct communication.30 Direct communication deals in what is positive, objective, identifiable, analyzable, and rationally explicable. It purports to deliver certainty in sense perception, finality in historical knowledge, and conclusive results in speculative philosophy and science. but all this positivity is nothing but the semblance of certainty and as such the untrue. sense perception is deceptive, historical knowledge is approximate, and the results of speculation are a “phantom.”31 the subject in the objective knowledge of the system is only a fiction of the existing subject, and to think of oneself in these terms is to be fooled. positive objective knowledge issues in a sense of the security of social continuity and the reassurance of identifiable truths, yet it fails to resolve the inherent uncertainty of existence.32 in order to overcome this, Kierkegaard proposes to use the negativity of indirect communication that essentially relies on irony, allusion, metaphor, paradox, comedy, and the controlled absence of words, that is, pointedly not saying anything at all. this entails the transformation of the positive into the negative, knowledge into ignorance, the conscious into the unconscious, certainty into uncertainty, speech into silence—not for the sake of the negatives in each case themselves, but all in the service of truth. the task of the existing subjective thinker is to embrace the negative in the form of the “illusiveness of the infinite”33 where he “cannot…remain, but only repeatedly arrive.”34 it is precisely this that “no one who can speak only directly will be able to understand.”35 so the ultimate task for the existing subjective thinker in indirect communication is to engage the negative by not saying it at all, “to speak essentially because he is able to keep silent.”36 it is in this connection that socrates proves to be exemplary once again, because in the application of irony, whereby he either speaks like a “madman” or does not speak at all, he at once undermines the certainty of positive objective knowledge 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36

ibid. see SKS 7, 74 / CUP1, 73. SKS 7, 82 / CUP1, 81. see SKS 7, 82–3 / CUP1, 81–2. SKS 7, 83 / CUP1, 82. SKS 7, 82 / CUP1, 81. see SKS 7, 84 / CUP1, 83. SKS 8, 92 / TA, 97.

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and turns our gaze in the direction of the uncertainty of temporal existence. in this way we may become conscious of the possibility of death at any moment, which is the way the elusiveness of the infinite ultimately manifests itself in our lived experience.37 like socrates, the existing subjective thinker can, through the negative stance of affirmative irony in indirect communication, break out of “the prison in which his own reflection holds him.”38 this negativity that serves to reproduce the uncertainty of earthly life provokes the existing subjective thinker necessarily into constant striving—not to teach but— to learn to see the infinite that is already everywhere present as not-present or absent. this negativity contains and is the criterion of a profound positivity, in that it is the gateway to the perpetually retreating infinite that is the measure of all finitude. The negative is in this way the mark of a higher positive and the “essential form” of the religious.39 In the final analysis, Kierkegaard seems to see Socrates’ negativity as the kind that is needed by Christendom, if it is to return to its essentially Christian roots and resist the Hegelian compulsion to understand and explain everything. in speaking of sin, he says that the real contradiction inherent in the experience of sin is not to be cancelled out. “i consider it an outright ethical task…when all ‘the others’ are busy comprehending, to admit that one is neither able nor obliged to comprehend it [sc. Christianity].”40 this means following socrates’ negativity into a god-fearing ignorance that “guards the faith against speculation” and maintains the gulf between humankind and the divine, thus enabling us to avoid being snared by the need to comprehend when we must rather simply believe.41 see also Certainty; Communication/indirect Communication; Contradiction; Double-Reflection; Faith; Finitude/Infinity; Irony; Paradox; Speculation/Science/ scholarship.

37 38 39 40 41

see SKS 7, 83 / CUP1, 82–3. SKS 8, 78 / TA, 81. SKS 7, 477 / CUP1, 524. SKS 11, 212 / SUD, 99. ibid.

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Novel (Roman—noun) the danish word, from the german Roman and the French roman, refers to a narrative based on the lives, experiences or careers of characters produced by poetical imagination.1 Molbech gives a rather abstract definition of novel as “an imagined narrative in prose of greater proportions and more compounded inventions,”2 suggesting that in Kierkegaard’s time the novel as a genre was understood as something in between a single, sustained narrative and a collection of short stories. thus Kierkegaard felt the need to “clear up the concept of the novel.”3 of course, the word Roman is closely linked with the word Romantic, especially as Friedrich von schlegel took Roman to be synonymous with romantic poetry, which he in turn assimilated to the eclectic structure of the arabesque.4 the word Bildungsroman is a neologism coined at the beginning of the nineteenth century by the german philologist Karl morgenstern (1770–1852).5 it refers to the novel of formation, understood as a “novel in which the spiritual or character process [of development] of the hero…is described,”6 and which emerged towards the end of the eighteenth century in europe. its most famous paradigm is goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship.7 thus, the Bildungsroman is the literary genre in which the author depicts, in imaginative narrative form, the development of the protagonist’s consciousness as it comes to maturity. Ordbog over det danske Sprog, vols. 1–28, published by the society for danish language and literature, Copenhagen: gyldendal 1918–56, vol. 17, columns 1236–8. 2 Christian molbech, Dansk Ordbog indeholdende det danske Sprogs Stammeord, vols. 1–2, Copenhagen, gyldendal 1833, vol. 2, p. 258. 3 Cf. SKS 18, 77, FF:13 / JP 5, 5178. 4 Cf. william mcdonald, “Kierkegaard and romanticism,” in The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard, ed. by george pattison and John lippitt, oxford: oxford university press 2013, p. 97. 5 this was established by Fritz martini, “der bildungsroman. zur geschichte des wortes und der theorie,” Deutsche Vierteljahresschrift, vol. 35, 1961, pp. 44–63. Cf. michael minden, The German Bildungsroman: Incest and Inheritance, Cambridge: Cambridge university press 1997, p. 249. 6 Duden, Deutsches Universalwörterbuch, ed. by the dudenredaktion, mannheim: dudenverlag 2007, p. 307. 7 Kierkegaard makes direct references to this work in two entries in his notebooks: SKS 19, 100–1, not3:4 / JP 5, 5120; SKS 19, 102, not3:5 / JP 2, 1455. 1

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the most frequent occurrence of the word “novel” (in the singular, at least) in Kierkegaard’s published works is in The Concept of Irony, followed by From the Papers of One Still Living, Either/Or, and then Repetition. note that all the uses of “novel” in The Concept of Irony refer to Friedrich von schlegel’s novel Lucinde. the order of frequency of occurrences changes somewhat if we take into account the plural and genitive forms (“novels,” “of novels”) and compound words with Roman as a component—for example, Roman-Digter (novelist),8 Romanskriverne (the writers of novels),9 Romanforfattere (authors of novels),10 Romanlæsere (readers of novels)11 and Roman-Dannelse (novel-nurturing).12 the most frequent occurrence, counting all grammatical variations, in the published works is in Either/Or, followed by From the Papers of One Still Living, which is a book-length review of Hans Christian andersen’s novel, Only a Fiddler. the next most frequent occurrences are in Stages on Life’s Way, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and The Concept of Irony. on account of both the indeterminacy of the concept of the novel as it was used in Kierkegaard’s time, as well as the unavailability in denmark of the term Bildungsroman in that period, there is not a single instance in which Kierkegaard used such a term, nor its translation as Dannelsesroman (though note above Kierkegaard’s use of Roman-Dannelse). one should nevertheless be aware that there are rather more implicit than explicit references to the concept of the novel in the discussion of such literary genres as epic, short story, and fairy-tale. moreover, since Kierkegaard embraced the post-enlightenment conception of art in which aesthetic production went hand in hand with critical or theoretical production, one finds that his own novels not only presuppose critical categories but also often offer meta-discussions or criticisms of the very narrative just unfolded. By contrast, one also finds that his aesthetic criticism also contains traces of what could be called a theory of the novel. Furthermore, his concepts of life-view (Livs-Anskuelse) and life-development (LivsUdvikling), used in his critique of andersen as a novelist, are closely aligned to the notion of Bildungsroman.13 this means, then, that one could distinguish at least three main interconnecting levels of practice and discussion in which the concept of the novel appears in the works of Kierkegaard: (1) in his private notes and papers, which describe or discuss his readings of novels; (2) in the rudiments of a theory of the novel, which are to be found scattered throughout his works; and (3) in his own writing practice, built in turn from the combination of the aforementioned points.

e.g. SKS 1, 44 / EPW, 89. e.g. SKS 2, 352 / EO1, 364 (translated here as “novelists”). 10 e.g. SKS 6, 209 / SLW, 223. 11 e.g. SKS 3, 26 / EO2, 17. 12 e.g. SKS 2, 242–3 / EO1, 249. 13 Kierkegaard criticizes andersen for lacking a life-view (SKS 1, 43 / EPW, 87), which is evident from his reliance on incidental mood (SKS 1, 45 / EPW, 89). 8 9

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I. Kierkegaard as a Reader of Novels among the most famous or important novels Kierkegaard does not seem to have read are boccaccio’s Decameron, a collection of short stories originally published between 1349 and 1351 that set the pattern for later novels and rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel, published between 1532 and 1564. From the spanish “golden age” Kierkegaard seems to have read only Cervantes’ Don Quixote, published in two parts between 1605 and 1615. moving on to the eighteenth century, one sees that Kierkegaard, who did not know english, also skipped over the development of english novels, as fundamental as they would prove themselves to be to later developments in literature. in this sense, one wonders what he would have made of sterne’s The Life and Opinions of Tristam Shandy, Gentleman, published between 1759 and 1767. the same lack of knowledge of the very latest developments touching the novel in France, would lead Kierkegaard to miss the arrival of the latest contemporary writers such as balzac (1799–1850) and stendhal (1783–1842), among others, who were either appreciated or seriously studied by Kierkegaard’s danish contemporaries poul martin møller, Johan ludvig Heiberg, Hans Christian andersen, and Henrik Hertz. in sum, Kierkegaard was more acquainted with both the (fairly recent) danish and (more established) german traditions of novel writing, on which he commented profusely. now in terms of the Bildungsroman proper, Kierkegaard read as well as commented upon the two cornerstones of the genre at that time, namely rousseau’s Emile or On Education, published in 1762,14 as well as goethe’s Wilhelm Meister’s Apprenticeship, published in 1795–96 and about which he said: If I were to state briefly what I really regard as masterly in Goethe’s Wilhelm Meister, i should say that it is the well-balanced guidance which pervades the whole of it, the whole Fichtean moral world-order that is even more doctrinairely developed in the novel, which is inherent in the whole book and gradually leads wilhelm to the point theoretically postulated, if i may put it that way, so that by the end of the novel the view of the world the poet has advanced, but which previously existed outside of wilhelm, now is embodied and living within him, and this explains the consummate impression of wholeness that this novel conveys perhaps even more than any other. actually, it is the whole world apprehended in a mirror, a true microcosm.15

this is the core of Kierkegaard’s aesthetics of the novel and as such is spelled out in his remarks on novel writing published at the very beginning of his career. II. Kierkegaard’s Theory of the Novel Kierkegaard wrote extensively on german, and more particularly on danish, contemporary novelists, with particular attention given to two of them, namely, Hans Christian andersen and thomasine gyllembourg, the work of the latter being the object of Kierkegaard’s literary criticism in more than one instance. in 14 15

Cf. SKS 23, 221, nb17:75 / JP 3, 3824; SKS 23, 228, nb17:79 / JP 3, 3825. SKS 19, 102, not3:5 / JP 2, 1455, translation slightly altered.

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fact, andersen’s novel entitled Only a Fiddler served Kierkegaard as a way of addressing what could be called his theory of the novel, which, in this sense, would be complemented particularly by the second part of The Concept of Irony, which has german romanticism as its main object. there are also scattered remarks of his that, viewed together, help to enlarge his views on the novel—such as his review of thomasine gyllembourg’s Two Ages. However, it is mainly in the former two works that one is to find Kierkegaard’s most extended, as well as most objective, criticism of novelists other than himself or his own pseudonymous production. andersen’s novel could be described as something between a realistic novel and a Bildungsroman, for it depicts, on the one hand, the hard times the character named Christian—a poor and marginalized young violin player—goes through in order to try to win the sympathy of members of the danish cultured class, while on the other hand, it also depicts the development of naomi, a wealthy Jewish girl, and later woman, who, as the novel unfolds, shows more and more nihilistic tendencies in her erratic behavior. in sum, the novel depicts two marginalized characters, who gradually lose faith in themselves as well as in life as they roam through different european cities. Kierkegaard responded to this work with From the Papers of One Still Living, in which he criticizes andersen mainly on the grounds that the latter “has skipped over his epic [stage].”16 now this means that, according to the triadic theory of the stages of artistic maturation as developed by Hegel and later revised by Heiberg, andersen had not achieved the level of reflection demanded from the novel as a genre. On the contrary, he had remained at the level of unreflective immediacy proper to the first stage of aesthetic production, that is, the lyric stage. Thus, Kierkegaard criticizes andersen for his incomplete development as a person and, consequently, as a novelist, which according to him shows itself in andersen’s novel through the lack of what he calls a “life-view,” that is, a higher principle of ultimately ethicalreligious unity. indeed, according to Kierkegaard, “[a] life-view is really providence in the novel; it is its deeper unity, which makes the novel have the center of gravity in itself. a life-view frees it from being arbitrary or purposeless, since the purpose is immanently present in the work of art.”17 Contrariwise, “when such a life-view is lacking, the novel either seeks to insinuate some theory (dogmatic, doctrinaire short novels) at the expense of poetry or it makes a finite and incidental contact with the author’s flesh and blood.”18 therefore, what Kierkegaard criticizes in andersen’s novel is its sheer negativity, as depicted in its main character, Christian, whose life is portrayed, “not [as] a process of development but [as] a process of…downfall.”19 in this sense, then, a proper novel is supposed by Kierkegaard to be a work in which “an immortal spirit… survives the whole.”20 in other words, Kierkegaard presupposes a metaphysic of the novel, founded upon the idea that the proper novel should work first and foremost 16 17 18 19 20

SKS 1, 26 / EPW, 70. SKS 1, 36 / EPW, 81. SKS 1, 36–7 / EPW, 81. SKS 1, 35 / EPW, 79. SKS 1, 38 / EPW, 83.

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as an “upbuilding study.”21 He finds an exemplary model of this in the works of the then anonymous author thomasine gyllembourg, which he uses as a counterpoint to andersen’s novel, as well as, more generally, to his contemporary generation of writers. in fact, through the systematic use of such a counterpoint, Kierkegaard sides a priori with the older generation of writers, to the detriment of the newer generation, as represented fundamentally by andersen (and later, in The Concept of Irony, by the german romantics), which in turn helps to situate Kierkegaard’s critique of andersen’s novel in the much wider context of the quarrel between the ancients and the moderns. in sum, Kierkegaard praises the literature produced by such older writers as gyllembourg and, to a lesser extent, steen steensen blicher (1782–1848), on the grounds of the existence of an “evangelistic tinge,”22 that is, a “confidence that the spring of poetry of life has not gone dry in the world,”23 an element which is seen to be pervading their works. Conversely, in the novels of the new writers, and especially Andersen’s, one supposedly would only find “gloom and bitterness against the world.”24 the second part of The Concept of Irony takes up from more or less the same discussion, this time with Kierkegaard treating it through different concepts: what was called “negativity,”25 “distrust,”26 or “skepticism”27 in From The Papers of One Still Living here becomes “irony,” and its counter-concept, previously “life-view,” now becomes “controlled irony.” indeed, here Kierkegaard sees the phenomenon of “infinite absolute negativity,” which is just another name for irony,28 as the common denominator between the german romantic movement29 (particularly as treated in his critique of Friedrich schlegel’s Lucinde,30 as well as through appreciations of different works by ludvig tieck31 and Karl solger32) and the subsequent literary movement known as “Young germany.”33 thus, if, on the one hand, Kierkegaard understands irony as an unrelenting nihilistic attitude towards a given actuality,34 then, on the other hand, his main interest both as critic of the novel and would-be novel writer lies in “controlled irony,” understood precisely as a “totality-view of

SKS 1, 21 / EPW, 66. ibid. 23 SKS 1, 21 / EPW, 65. 24 SKS 1, 29 / EPW, 73. 25 Cf. SKS 1, 20 / EPW, 64. 26 Cf. ibid. 27 Cf. SKS 1, 35 / EPW, 80. 28 Cf. SKS 1, 299 / CI, 261. 29 in an important footnote Kierkegaard states: “throughout this whole discussion i use the terms ‘irony’ and ‘ironist’; i could just as well say ‘romanticism’ and ‘romanticist.’ both terms say essentially the same thing…” (SKS 1, 312n. / CI, 275n.). 30 Cf. SKS 1, 321–34 / CI, 266–301. 31 Cf. SKS 1, 334–40 / CI, 301–8. 32 Cf. SKS 1, 340–52 / CI, 308–23. 33 Cf. SKS 1, 312n. / CI, 275n.: “this ironic movement by no means ended with tieck and schlegel; on the contrary, in Young germany it has a crowded nursery.” 34 Cf. SKS 1, 292 / CI, 254. 21 22

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the world”35 whose “function is extremely important in enabling personal life to gain health and truth,” 36 for it is supposed to teach “how to actualize actuality, by placing the appropriate emphasis on actuality.”37 in other words, through the poet’s mastery of irony the work of art is supposed by Kierkegaard to achieve the “true balance… whereby the poem has the center of gravity in itself,”38 and, as such, controlled irony becomes “a serving spirit to the poet.”39 in sum, Kierkegaard’s rudimentary theory of the novel is founded upon Christian, as well as socratic-stoic categories, a mixture which in terms of literary history can be called either “goetheanism” or Biedermeier culture. it is no accident that both goethe and Heiberg are quoted as examples of consummate writers at the very end of The Concept of Irony, where Kierkegaard praises them for the practice of an apollonian ideal of art based on domestic—if not downright bourgeois—values and which craved, first and foremost, coziness, safety, light, balance, and harmony.40 now it remains to be seen how Kierkegaard understood his own novels. III. Kierkegaard’s Experimental Anti-Bildungsroman Aesthetics section ii above actually contains only half of Kierkegaard’s theory of the novel. in fact, his own novels seem to presuppose aesthetics that do not accord with his early reviews of the novels written by others. therefore, if the metaphysics of his early theory of the novel emphasized the need for the novel to be a well-ordered microcosm of the main character’s development of consciousness, a movement which had as its final goal some sort of harmonization with the world and which was supposed to serve as a guiding spirit to the reader’s own existence, then his own novels seem to be governed by different rules. in other words, there seems to be a gap in Kierkegaard’s works between his theory of the novel (at least as theorized in his very first critical works) and his own practice of it. and if the former was to be found scattered throughout different works of his, the latter is even more difficult to assess in an objective manner, for it becomes inseparable from his own writing practice. indeed, if the novel is the omnivorous literary genre par excellence, that is, a genre which is built upon self-reflexivity and eclecticism, then Kierkegaard’s novels are, for the most part, narratives in which the critical-theoretical element pretty much determines the very unwinding of the narrative. Therefore, one finds the other part of Kierkegaard’s theory of the novel developed not only in his own novels (for example, “the seducer’s diary,” Repetition, Fear and Trembling, and “‘guilty?’/‘not guilty?’”) and in his aesthetic essays, but also in works in which he discusses his own pseudonymous production,41 as well as in other works that bear on SKS 1, 353 / CI, 325. SKS 1, 356 / CI, 328. 37 ibid. 38 SKS 1, 353 / CI, 324. 39 SKS 1, 354 / CI, 325. 40 regarding these two latter values, see SKS 2, 56–8 / EO1, 48–50. 41 Cf. SKS 6, 369–454 / SLW, 398–494; SKS 7, 228–73 / CUP1, 251–300; SKS 13, 5–27 / PV, 1–20; SKS 16, 5–106 / PV, 21–126. 35 36

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the art of constructing a narrative, through notions such as “coming into existence”42 and “indirect communication.”43 in sum, Kierkegaard’s applied aesthetics or metaphysics of the novel are, to use an expression Victor eremita employs when discussing the matter of pseudonymity, a veritable “Chinese puzzle.”44 in any case, such a puzzle is at least treated by Kierkegaard under a more or less unified concept, which therefore synthesizes his comprehension of the novel. In danish such a concept appears under the heading of “experiment” (Experiment),45 translated as “imaginary psychological construction.”46 the “experiment,” indeed, is fundamentally an aesthetic of the novel built on “categories”47 and in which a Kierkegaardian pseudonym sketches a character “so that he can become a proper individuality.”48 More specifically, the “experiment” grounds itself on certain metaphysical presuppositions which are central to Kierkegaard’s philosophical anthropology, such as the coming-into-being of human existence, which, once translated into novelistic form, becomes its open-endedness.49 other than that, the “experiment” seeks to fight against the intrusion either of the historical or, what amounts to the same thing, the external or material in the narrative.50 Furthermore, and this is its raison d’être, the “experiment” is a search for psychological material and, as such, has to do with the “inner” and not with the “outer.” as Frater taciturnus explains his psychological experiment: “the scene is in the internal, in thoughts and dispositions that cannot be seen, not even with a night telescope.”51 indeed, the “experiment” focuses its interest on marginal heroes such as abraham, the Young man, and Quidam whose novelistic purpose is to suffer, for, as Frater taciturnus puts it, “internal action is essentially…suffering.”52 as such, Kierkegaard’s novels are fundamentally subversions of the Bildungsroman, for, apart from the negativity portrayed through his protagonists, there is no positive result in them, that is, there is no objective or final grasp of the character’s completion in self-consciousness. thus Kierkegaard’s “psychological experiments” can be described as his way of aesthetically waging war on the ideology of modernity. to summarize, Kierkegaard’s treatment of the novel, both in its theoretical as well as practical aspects, is exceedingly problematic, as well as contradictory. Cf. SKS 4, 272–86 / PF, 72–88. Cf. SKS 27, 389–434, papir 364–71 / JP 1, 649–57. 44 SKS 2, 16 / EO1, 9. 45 indeed, Kierkegaard uses some variations on the concept of “experiment”; for example, he may refer either to a “psychological experiment” (SKS 6, 173 / SLW, 185— the Hongs translate this as “an imaginary psychological construction”) or to a “thought experiment” (SKS 6, 374 / SLW, 403—the Hongs translate this as “imaginary construction in thought”). 46 For the rationale for this translation, see Howard V. Hong and edna H. Hong, “Historical introduction,” in FT, xxi-xxvii. 47 Cf. SKS 6, 412, 431, 437 / SLW, 445, 467, 474. 48 SKS 6, 398–9 / SLW, 430. 49 Cf. SKS 6, 403–4 / SLW, 436–7. 50 Cf. SKS 6, 404–12 / SLW, 437–46. 51 SKS 6, 409 / SLW, 442. 52 SKS 6, 438 / SLW, 476. 42 43

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Gabriel Guedes Rossatti

nevertheless, he has undoubtedly carved out a place for himself as one of the indisputable masters of the genre. see also aesthetic/aesthetics; authorship; Communication/indirect Communication; Consciousness; double movement; existence/existential; inner/outer; inwardness/ inward deepening; irony; life-View; pseudonymity; psychological experiment.