Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard
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Søren Kierkegaard's philosophy has been a major influence in the development of 20th century philosophy, especially in the movements of Existentialism and Postmodernism. Søren Kierkegaard was a 19th century Danish philosopher who has been generally considered the "Father of Existentialism". His philosophy also influenced the development of existential psychology.[1]
His writings, many of which were written pseudonymously, reflected not only the trend at the time to write pseudonymously but also his idea that a person or a self is made up of many faces and facets, as his book titled Philosophical Fragments would indicate. Kierkegaard did not like the systems that were brought on by philosophers such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel before him and the Danish Hegelians, although Kierkegaard respected the philosophy of Immanuel Kant.[2] He measured himself against the backdrop of philosophy which was introduced by Socrates and preferred a philosophy that was fragmented and made deep insights, without committing to an encompassing all-explaining system.
One of Kierkegaard's recurrent themes is the importance of the self, and the self's relation to the world as being grounded in self-reflection and introspection. In Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, he argues that "subjectivity is truth" and "truth is subjectivity"; that is, that the self is the ultimate governor of what life is and what life means. He also believed in the infinity of the self, explaining that the self could not be fully known or understood, because it is infinite. In this way his thought reflects the Christian idea of the soul, which is immortal; but Kierkegaard was not speaking about the immortality of the self as much as the depth of the soul, of a person's being.
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[edit] Note on Pseudonyms
Because Kierkegaard assigned pseudonyms to most of his early philosophical writings (1843-1846), some of the philosophy mentioned in this article are not necessarily Kierkegaard's own beliefs. Just as other philosophers, in their essays, bring up viewpoints to discuss and criticize them, Kierkegaard assigns pseudonyms to explore a particular viewpoint in-depth, which may take up a whole book or two in some instances, and Kierkegaard, or another pseudonym, critiques that position. For example, the author, Johannes Climacus is not a Christian and he argues from a non-Christian viewpoint. Anti-Climacus is a Christian to a high degree and he argues from a devout Christian viewpoint. Kierkegaard places his beliefs in-between these two authors.[3]
Most of Kierkegaard's later philosophical and religious writings from (1846-1855) were written and authored by himself, and he assigned no pseudonyms to these works. Subsequently, these works are considered, by scholars, Kierkegaard's own beliefs.[4] Where appropriate, the article will mention the respective author, pseudonymous or not.
[edit] Themes in his philosophy
[edit] Alienation
Alienation is a term applied to a wide variety of phenomena including: any feeling of separation from, and discontent with, society; feeling that there is a moral breakdown in society; feelings of powerlessness in the face of the solidity of social institutions; the impersonal, dehumanised nature of large-scale and bureaucratic social organisations. [1] Kierkegaard recognizes and accepts the notion of alienation, although he phrases it and understands it in his own distinctly original terms. For Kierkegaard, the present age is a reflective age—one that values objectivity and thought over action, lip-service to ideals rather than action, discussion over action, publicity and advertising to reality, and fantasy to the real world. For Kierkegaard, the meaning of values has been sucked out of them by a lack of authority. Instead of the authority of the past or the Bible or any other great and lasting voice, we have emptiness and uncertainty.
We have lost meaning because the accepted criterion of reality and truth is objective thought—that which can be proved with logic, historical research, or scientific analysis. But humans are not robots or computer programs or amoebae— humans need reasons to live and die, and what truly gives meaning to human life is something that cannot be formulated into mathematical, historical or logical terms. We cannot think our choices in life, we must live them; and even those choices that we often think about become different once life itself enters into the picture. For Kierkegaard, the type of objectivity that a scientist or historian might use misses the point—humans are not motivated and do not find meaning in life through pure objectivity. Instead, they find it through passion, desire, and moral and religious commitment. These phenomena are not objectively provable—nor do they come about through any form of analysis of the external world; they come about through inward reflection, a way of looking at one’s life that evades objective scrutiny. Instead, true self-worth originates in a relation to something that transcends human powers, something that provides a meaning because it inspires awe and wonder and demands total and absolute commitment in achieving it.
Kierkegaard's analysis of the present age uses terms that resemble but are not exactly coincident with Hegel and Marx's theory of alienation.
[edit] Abstraction
A key element of Kierkegaard's critique of modernity is the mention of money —which he calls an abstraction. An abstraction is something that only has a reality in an ersatz reality. It is not tangible, and only has meaning within an artificial context, which ultimately serves devious and deceptive purposes. It is a figment of thought that has no concrete reality, either now or in the future.
How is money an abstraction? Money gives the illusion that it has a direct relationship to the work that is done. That is, the work one does is worth so much, equals so much money. In reality, however, the work one does is an expression of who one is as a person; it expresses one's goals in life and its ultimate meaning. As a person, the work one performs is supposed to be an external realization of one's relationship to others and to the world. It is one's way of making the world a better place for oneself and for others. What reducing work to a monetary value does is to replace the concrete reality of one's everyday struggles with the world--to give it shape, form and meaning--with an abstraction.
[edit] Death
Death is inevitable and temporally unpredictable. Kierkegaard believed that individuals needed to sincerely and intensely come to realize the truth of that fact in order to realize their passion for the task of obtaining true selfhood. Kierkegaard accuses society of being in death-denial and believes that even though people see death all around them and objectively grasp death, most people have not understood death subjectively. Instead of viewing death in a detached manner, as in "Death'll happen someday", it is important to look at death as part of a person's life. For example, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard notes that people never think to say, "I shall certainly attend your party, but I must make an exception for the contingency that a roof tile happens to blow down and kill me; for in that case, I cannot attend."
[edit] Dread or anxiety
For Kierkegaard's author, Vigilius Haufniensis, dread or anxiety/angst (depending on the translation and context) is unfocused fear. Haufniensis uses the example of a man standing on the edge of a tall building or cliff. When the man looks over the edge, he experiences a focused fear of falling, but at the same time, the man feels a terrifying impulse to throw himself intentionally off the edge. That experience is dread or anxiety because of our complete freedom to choose to either throw oneself off or to stay put. The mere fact that one has the possibility and freedom to do something, even the most terrifying of possibilities, triggers immense feelings of dread. Haufniensis called this our "dizziness of freedom".
In The Concept of Dread, Haufniensis focuses on the first dread experienced by man: Adam's choice to eat from God's forbidden tree of knowledge or not. Since the concepts of good and evil did not come into existence before Adam ate the fruit, which is now dubbed original sin, Adam had no concept of good and evil, and did not know that eating from the tree was "evil". What he did know was that God told him not to eat from the tree. The dread comes from the fact that God's prohibition itself implies that Adam is free and that he could choose to obey God or not. After Adam ate from the tree, sin was born. So, according to Kierkegaard, dread precedes sin, and it is dread that leads Adam to sin. Haufniensis mentions that dread is the presupposition for hereditary sin.
However, Haufniensis mentions that dread is a way for humanity to be saved as well. Anxiety informs us of our choices, our self-awareness and personal responsibility, and brings us from a state of un-self-conscious immediacy to self-conscious reflection. (Jean-Paul Sartre calls these terms pre-reflexive consciousness and reflexive consciousness.) An individual becomes truly aware of their potential through the experience of dread. So, dread may be a possibility for sin, but dread can also be a recognition or realization of one's true identity and freedoms.
Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate.
– Vigilius Haufniensis, The Concept of Dread
[edit] Despair
Is despair an excellence or a defect? Purely dialectically, it is both. The possibility of this sickness is man's superiority over the animal, for it indicates infinite sublimity that he is spirit. Consequently, to be able to despair is an infinite advantage, and yet to be in despair is not only the worst misfortune and misery—no, it is ruination.
– Anti-Climacus, The Sickness Unto Death
Most emphatically in The Sickness Unto Death but also in Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard's authors argue that humans are made up of three parts: the finite, the infinite, and the "relationship of the two to itself." The finite (sense, body, knowledge) and the infinite (paradox and the capacity to have faith) always exist in a state of tension. That tension, as it is aware of itself, is the "self." When the self is lost, either to insensibility or exuberance, the person is in a state of despair. Notably, one does not have to be conscious of one's despair, or to feel oneself to be anything but happy. Despair is, instead, the loss of self. In Either/Or, A and Judge William each has one epistolary novels in two volumes. The A is an aesthete whose wildness of belief and imagination lead him to a meaningless life of egoistic despair. The Judge William lives his life by strict Christian laws. Because he works entirely upon received law and never uses belief or soulfulness, he lives a life of ethical despair. The third sphere of life, the only one in which an individual can find some measure of freedom from despair, is the religious sphere. This consists in a sort of synthesis between the first two. In Fear and Trembling, Johannes de Silentio argues that the choice of Abraham to obey the private, anti-ethical, religious commandment of God to sacrifice his son is the perfect act of self. If Abraham were to blithely obey, his actions would have no meaning. It is only when he acts with fear and trembling that he demonstrates a full awareness and the actions of the self, as opposed to the actions of either the finite or infinite portions of humanity.
[edit] Ethics
Many philosophers who initially read Kierkegaard, especially Johannes de Silentio's Fear and Trembling, often come to the conclusion that Kierkegaard supports a divine command law of ethics. The divine command theory is a metaethical theory which claims moral values are whatever is commanded by a god or gods. However, Kierkegaard (through his pseudonym Johannes de Silentio) is not arguing that morality is created by God; instead, he would argue that a divine command from God transcends ethics. This distinction means that God does not necessarily create human morality: it is up to us as individuals to create our own morals and values. But any religious person must be prepared for the event of a divine command from God that would take precedence over all moral and rational obligations. Kierkegaard called this event the teleological suspension of the ethical. Abraham, the knight of faith, chose to obey God unconditionally, and was rewarded with his son, his faith, and the title of Father of Faith. Abraham transcended ethics and leaped into faith.
But there is no valid logical argument one can make to claim that morality ought to be or can be suspended in any given circumstance, or ever. Thus, Silentio believes ethics and faith are separate stages of consciousness. The choice to obey God unconditionally is a true existential 'either/or' decision faced by the individual. Either one chooses to live in faith (the religious stage) or to live ethically (the ethical stage).
In Works of Love and Purity of Heart, Kierkegaard skillfully examines Christian ethics and the maxim, Love Thy Neighbour.[5]
[edit] Individuality
For Kierkegaard, true individuality is called selfhood. Becoming aware of our true self is our true task and endeavor in life—it is an ethical imperative, as well as preparatory to a true religious understanding. Individuals can exist at a level that is less than true selfhood. We can live, for example, simply in terms of our pleasures—our immediate satisfaction of desires, propensities, or distractions. In this way, we glide through life without direction or purpose. To have a direction, we must have a purpose that defines for us the meaning of our lives.
An individual person, for Kierkegaard, is a particular that no abstract formula or definition can ever capture. Including the individual in "the public" (or "the crowd" or "the herd") or subsuming a human being as simply a member of a species is a reduction of the true meaning of life for individuals. What philosophy or politics try to do is to categorize and pigeonhole individuals by group characteristics instead of individual differences. For Kierkegaard, those differences are what make us who we are.
Kierkegaard's critique of the modern age, therefore, is about the loss of what it means to be an individual. Modern society contributes to this dissolution of what it means to be an individual. Through its production of the false idol of "the public", it diverts attention away from individuals to a mass public that loses itself in abstractions, communal dreams, and fantasies. It is helped in this task by the media and the mass production of products to keep it distracted.
Although Kierkegaard attacked "the public", he is supportive of communities:
In community, the individual is, crucial as the prior condition for forming a community. ... Every individual in the community guarantees the community; the public is a chimera, numerality is everything...
– Søren Kierkegaard, Journals[3]
[edit] Pathos (passion)
For Kierkegaard, in order to apprehend the absolute, the mind must radically empty itself of objective content. What supports this radical emptying, however, is the desire for the absolute. Kierkegaard names this desire Passion. (Kangas)
According to Kierkegaard, the human self desires that which is beyond reason. Desire itself appears to be a desire for the infinite, as Plato once wrote. Even the desire to propagate, according to Plato, is a kind of desire for immortality—that is, we wish to live on in time through our children and their children. Erotic love itself appears as an example of this desire for something beyond the purely finite. It is a taste of what could be, if only it could continue beyond the boundaries of time and space. As the analogy implies, humans seek something beyond the here and now. The question remains, however, why is it that human pathos or passion is the most precious thing? In some ways, it might have to do with our status as existential beings. It is not thought that gets us through life—it is action; and what motivates and sustains action is passion, the desire to overcome hardships, pain, and suffering. It is also passion that enables us to die for ideals in the name of a higher reality. While a scientist might see this as plain emotion or simple animal desire, Kierkegaard sees it as that which binds to the source of life itself. The desire to live, and to live in the right way, for the right reasons, and with the right desires, is a holy and sacred force.
One can also look at this from the perspective of what the meaning of our existence is. Why suffer what humans have suffered, the pain and despair—what meaning can all of this have? For Kierkegaard, there is no meaning unless passion, the emotions and will of humans, has a divine source.
Passion is closely aligned with faith in Kierkegaard's thought. Faith as a passion is what drives humans to seek reality and truth in a transcendent world, even though everything we can know intellectually speaks against it. To live and die for a belief, to stake everything one has and is in the belief in something that has a higher meaning than anything in the world—this is belief and passion at their highest.
[edit] Subjectivity
Johannes Climacus, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, writes the following cryptic line: "Subjectivity is Truth". To understand Climacus's concept of the individual, it is important to look at what he says regarding subjectivity. What is subjectivity? In very rough terms, subjectivity refers to what is personal to the individual—what makes the individual who he is in distinction from others. It is what is inside—what the individual can see, feel, think, imagine, dream, etc. It is often opposed to objectivity—that which is outside the individual, which the individual and others around can feel, see, measure, and think about. Another way to interpret subjectivity is the unique relationship between the subject and object.
Scientists and historians, for example, study the objective world, hoping to elicit the truth of nature—or perhaps the truth of history. In this way, they hope to predict how the future will unfold in accordance with these laws. In terms of history, by studying the past, the individual can perhaps elicit the laws that determine how events will unfold—in this way the individual can predict the future with more exactness and perhaps take control of events that in the past appeared to fall outside the control of humans.
In most respects, Climacus did not have problems with science or the scientific endeavor. He would not disregard the importance of objective knowledge. Where the scientist or historian finds certainty, however, Climacus noted very accurately that results in science change as the tools of observation change. But Climacus's special interest was in history. His most vehement attacks came against those who believed that they had understood history and its laws—and by doing so could ascertain what a human’s true self is. That is, the assumption is that by studying history someone can come to know who he really is as a person. Kierkegaard especially accused Hegel's philosophy of falling prey to this assumption.
For Climacus, this is a ridiculous argument at best, and a harmful notion at worst. It undermines the meaning of what a self is. For Climacus, the individual comes to know who he is by an intensely personal and passionate pursuit of what will give meaning to his life. As an existing individual, who must come to terms with everyday life, overcome its obstacles and setbacks, who must live and die, the single individual has a life that no one else will ever live. In dealing with what life brings his way, the individual must encounter them with all his psycho-physical resources.
Subjectivity is that which the individual—and no one else—has. But what does it mean to have something like this? It cannot be understood in the same way as having a car or a bank account. It means to be someone who is becoming someone—it means being a person with a past, a present, and a future. No one can have an individual's past, present or future. Different people experience these in various ways—these experiences are unique, not anyone else's. Having a past, present, and future means that a person is an existing individual—that a person can find meaning in time and by existing. Individuals do not think themselves into existence, they are born. But once born and past a certain age, the individual begins to make choices in life; now those choices can be his, his parents', society’s, etc. The important point is that to exist, the individual must make choices—the individual must decide what to do the next moment and on into the future. What the individual chooses and how he chooses will define who and what he is—to himself and to others.
The goal of life, according to Socrates, is to know thyself. Knowing oneself means being aware of who one is, what one can be and what one cannot be. The search for this self, is the task of subjectivity. This task is the most important one in life. Climacus and Kierkegaard considers this to be an important task and should have been obvious to the individual immediately. If I do not know who I am, then I am living a lie.
Subjectivity comes with consciousness of myself as a self. It encompasses the emotional and intellectual resources that the individual is born with. Subjectivity is what the individual is as a human being. Now the problem of subjectivity is to decide how to choose—what rules or models is the individual going to use to make the right choices? What are the right choices? Who defines right? To be truly an individual, to be true to himself, his actions should in some way be expressed so that they describe who and what he is to himself and to others. The problem, according to Kierkegaard, is that we must choose who and what we will be based on subjective interests—the individual must make choices that will mean something to him as a reasoning, feeling being.
[edit] Three stages of life
Kierkegaard recognized three levels of individual existence, which were the focus of Stages on Life's Way. Each of these levels of existence envelops those below it: an ethical person is still capable of aesthetic enjoyment, for example, and a religious person is still capable of aesthetic enjoyment and ethical duty. It is also important to note that the difference between these ways of living are internal, not external, and thus there are no external signs one can point to determine at what level a person is living.
[edit] Stage one: aesthetic
Kierkegaard was devoted to aesthetics, and is sometimes referred to as the "poet-philosopher" because of the passionate way in which he approached philosophy. But he was also devoted to showing the inadequacy of a life lived entirely on the aesthetic level. An aesthetic life is one defined by enjoyment and interest and possibilities. It is not necessarily a life lived in devotion to art—although many artists do also live at this level of existence. There are many degrees of aesthetic existence. At the bottom, one might see the purely consumerist lifestyle. At the top, we might find those lives which are lived in a truly anarchic, irresponsible way. But Kierkegaard believes that most people live in this sphere, their lives and activities guided by enjoyment and interest rather than any truly deep and meaningful commitment to anything. Whether such people know it or not, their lives are ones of complete despair. Kierkegaard's author A is an example of an individual living the aesthetic life.
[edit] Stage two: ethical
The second level of existence is the ethical. This is where an individual begins to take on a true direction in life, becoming genuinely aware of good and evil and forming some absolute commitment to something. One’s actions at this level of existence have a consistency and coherence that they lacked in the previous sphere of existence. For Kierkegaard, the ethical is supremely important. It calls each individual to take account of their lives and to scrutinize their actions in terms of universal and absolute demands.
These demands are made in such a way that each individual must respond—to be authentic—in a truly committed, passionate consciousness. Any other type of response is shirking the demands of responsibility and running away from those universal duties. What responsibilities there are, are known to everyone, yet they cannot be known in such a way that they are simply followed as a matter of course. They must be done subjectively—that is, with an understanding that doing or not doing them has a direct result on who someone will see himself as a person—whether a good or bad person. Ethics is something a person does for himself, with the realization that his entire self-understanding is involved. The meaning of his life comes down to whether or not he lives out these beliefs in an honest, passionate, and devoted way. Kierkegaard's author Judge William is an example of an individual living the ethical life.
[edit] Stage three: religious
The ethical and the religious are intimately connected— it is important to note that one can have the ethical without religious, but the religious includes the ethical. Both ethics and religion rest on the awareness of a reality that gives substance to actions but which is not reducible to natural laws or to reason. Whereas living in the ethical sphere involves a commitment to some ethical absolute, living in the religious sphere involves a commitment to and relation to God.
Religion is the highest stage in human existence. Kierkegaard distinguishes two types within this stage, which have been called Religiousness A and Religiousness B. One type is symbolized by the Greek philosopher Socrates, whose passionate pursuit of the truth and individual conscience came into conflict with his society. Another type of religiousness is one characterized by the realization that the individual is sinful and is the source of untruth. In time, through revelation and in direct relationship with the paradox that is Jesus, the individual begins to see that his or her eternal salvation rests on a paradox—God, the transcendent, coming into time in human form to redeem human beings. For Kierkegaard, the very notion of this occurring was scandalous to human reason—indeed, it must be, and if it is not then one does not truly understand the Incarnation nor the meaning of human sinfulness. For Kierkegaard, the impulse towards an awareness of a transcendent power in the universe is what religion is. Religion has a social and an individual (not just personal) dimension. But it begins with the individual and his or her awareness of sinfulness.
[edit] Kierkegaard's thoughts on other philosophers
[edit] Kierkegaard and Hegel
One of Kierkegaard's greatest contributions to philosophy is his critique of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. Most of Kierkegaard's earliest works are in response to or a critique of Hegel. Although Kierkegaard opposed Hegel's philosophy and his supporters, he had the utmost respect for Hegel himself. In a journal entry made in 1844, Kierkegaard wrote:
If Hegel had written the whole of his logic and then said, in the preface or some other place, that it was merely an experiment in thought in which he had even begged the question in many places, then he would certainly have been the greatest thinker who had ever lived. As it is, he is merely comic.
– Søren Kierkegaard, (Journals, 1844[3])
In Denmark, Hegelianism was spreading in academia like a "rampant disease". Johan Ludvig Heiberg was a key figure in Danish Hegelianism. Kierkegaard remarked in his journal on 17 May 1843 that Heiberg's writings were "borrowed" from Hegel, implying Heiberg would have been a nobody without Hegel.
The main objection Kierkegaard had against Hegel's philosophy was the Hegelian claim that he has devised an entire system which could explain the whole of reality, with the dialectic leading the way to this whole. Hegel also dismissed Christianity as something that can be rationally explained away and absorbed into his system. Kierkegaard attempted to refute these claims by showing that there are things in the world that cannot be explained.
To refute Hegel's claim regarding Christianity, in Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard attempts to use the story of Abraham to show that there is an authority higher than that of ethics (disproving Hegel's claim that ethics is universal) and that faith cannot be explained by Hegelian ethics, (disproving Hegel's claim that Christianity can be absorbed into his system). Either way, this work reveals an inherent flaw in Hegelian ethics.
Kierkegaard also parodies the Hegelian dialectic by showing that a thesis-antithesis coming together to form a synthesis is detrimental to individuals, rather than an improvement.
Kierkegaard's strategy was to invert this dialectic by seeking to make everything more difficult. Instead of seeing scientific knowledge as the means of human redemption, he regarded it as the greatest obstacle to redemption. Instead of seeking to give people more knowledge he sought to take away what passed for knowledge. Instead of seeking to make God and Christian faith perfectly intelligible he sought to emphasize the absolute transcendence by God of all human categories. Instead of setting himself up as a religious authority, Kierkegaard used a vast array of textual devices to undermine his authority as an author and to place responsibility for the existential significance to be derived from his texts squarely on the reader. ... Kierkegaard's tactic in undermining Hegelianism was to produce an elaborate parody of Hegel's entire system. The pseudonymous authorship, from Either/Or to Concluding Unscientific Postscript, presents an inverted Hegelian dialectic which is designed to lead readers away from knowledge rather than towards it.
– Søren Kierkegaard, William McDonald
By doing this, Hegelian critics accuse Kierkegaard of using the dialectic to disprove the dialectic, which seems somewhat contradictory and hypocritical. However, Kierkegaard would not claim the dialectic itself is bad, only the Hegelian premise that the dialectic would lead to a harmonious reconciliation of everything, which Hegel called the Absolute.
Kierkegaardian scholars have made several interpretations of how Kierkegaard proceeds with parodying Hegel's dialectic. One of the more popular interpretations argues the aesthetic-ethical-religious stages are the triadic process Kierkegaard was talking about. See section Spheres of existence for more information. Another interpretation argues for the world-individual-will triadic process. The dialectic here is either to assert an individual's own desire to be independent and the desire to be part of a community. Instead of reconciliation of the world and the individual where problems between the individual and society are neatly resolved in the Hegelian system, Kierkegaard argues that there's a delicate bond holding the interaction between them together, which needs to be constantly reaffirmed. Jean-Paul Sartre takes this latter view and says the individual is in a constant state of reaffirming his or her own identity, else one falls into bad faith.
This process of reconciliation leads to a "both/and" view of life, where both thesis and antithesis are resolved into a synthesis, which negates the importance of personal responsibility and the human choice of either/or. The work Either/Or is a response to this aspect of Hegel's philosophy. A passage from that work exemplifies Kierkegaard's contempt for Hegel's philosophy:
Marry, and you will regret it. Do not marry, and you will also regret it. Marry or do not marry, you will regret it either way. Whether you marry or you do not marry, you will regret it either way. Laugh at the stupidities of the world, and you will regret it; weep over them, and you will also regret it. Laugh at the stupidities of the world or weep over them, you will regret it either way. Whether you laugh at the stupidities of the world or you weep over them, you will regret it either way. Trust a girl, and you will regret it. Do not trust her, and you will also regret it. ... Hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way. Whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way. This, gentlemen, is the quintessence of all the wisdom of life.
– Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or
[edit] Kierkegaard and Schelling
In 1841-1842, Kierkegaard attended the Berlin lectures of Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph von Schelling. Schelling was a critic of Georg Hegel and a professor at the University of Berlin. The university started a lecture series given by Schelling in order to espouse a type of positive philosophy which would be diametrically opposed to Hegelianism. Kierkegaard was initially delighted with Schelling. Before he left Copenhagen to attend Schelling's lectures in Berlin, he wrote to his friend Peter Johannes Sprang:
I have put my trust in Schelling and at the risk of my life I have the courage to hear him once more. It may very well blossom during the first lectures, and if so one might gladly risk one's life.
– Søren Kierkegaard, (Journals, 1841)[3]
At Berlin, Kierkegaard gave high praises to Schelling. In a journal entry made sometime around October or November 1841, Kierkegaard wrote this piece about Schelling's second lecture:
I am so pleased to have heard Schelling's second lecture -- indescribably! I have sighed for long enough and my thoughts have sighed within me; when he mentioned the word, "reality" in connection with the relation of philosophy to reality the fruit of my thought leapt for joy within me. I remember almost every word he said from that moment on. ... Now I have put all my hopes in Schelling!
– Søren Kierkegaard, (Journals, 1841)[3]
As time went on, however, Kierkegaard, as well as many in Schelling's audience, began to become disillusioned with Schelling. In a particularly insulting letter about Schelling, Kierkegaard wrote to his brother, Peter Kierkegaard:
Schelling drivels on quite intolerably! If you want to form some idea what this is like then I ask you to submit yourself to the following experiment as a sort of self-inflicted sadistic punishment. Imagine person R's meandering philosophy, his entirely aimless, haphazard knowledge, and person Hornsyld's untiring efforts to display his learning: imagine the two combined and in addition to an impudence hitherto unequalled by any philosopher; and with that picture vividly before your poor mind go to the workroom of a prison and you will have some idea of Schelling's philosophy. He even lectures longer to prolong the torture. ... Consequently, I have nothing to do in Berlin. I am too old to attend lectures and Schelling is too old to give them. So I shall leave Berlin as soon as possible. But if it wasn't for Schelling, I would never have travelled to Berlin. I must thank him for that. ... I think I should have become utterly insane if I had gone on hearing Schelling.
– Søren Kierkegaard, (Journals, 27 February 1842)[3]
Kierkegaard became disillusioned with Schelling partly because Schelling shifted his focus on actuality, including a discussion on quid sit [what is] and quod sit [that is], to a more mythological, psychic-type pseudo-philosophy. Kierkegaard's last writing about Schelling's lectures was on 4 February 1842.
Although Schelling had little influence on Kierkegaard's subsequent writings, Kierkegaard's trip to Berlin provided him ample time to work on his masterpiece, Either/Or. In a reflection about Schelling in 1849, Kierkegaard remarked that Schelling was like the Rhine at its mouth where it became stagnant water -- he was degenerating into a Prussian "Excellency". (Journals, January 1849)[3]
[edit] Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer
Kierkegaard became acquainted with Arthur Schopenhauer's writings quite late in his life. Kierkegaard felt Schopenhauer was an important writer, but Kierkegaard disagreed on almost every point Schopenhauer made. In several journal entries made in 1854, a year before he died, Kierkegaard spoke highly of Schopenhauer:
In the same way that one disinfects the mouth during an epidemic so as not to be infected by breathing in the poisonous air, one might recommend students who will have to live in Denmark in an atmosphere of nonsensical Christian optimism, to take a little dose of Schopenhauer's Ethic in order to protect themselves against infection from that malodourous twaddle.
– Søren Kierkegaard, (Journals, 1854)[3]
However, Kierkegaard also considered him, a most dangerous sign of things to come:
Schopenhauer is so far from being a real pessimist that at the most he represents 'the interesting': in a certain sense he makes asceticism interesting--the most dangerous thing possible for a pleasure-seeking age which will be harmed more than ever by distilling pleasure even out of asceticism ... is by studying asceticism in a completely impersonal way, by assigning it a place in the system.
– Søren Kierkegaard, (Journals, 1854)[3]
Kierkegaard believes Schopenhauer's ethical point of view is that the individual succeeds in seeing through the wretchedness of existence and then decides to deaden or mortify the joy of life. As a result of this complete asceticism, one reaches contemplation: the individual does this out of sympathy. He sympathizes with all the misery and the misery of others, which is to exist. Kierkegaard here is probably referring to the pessimistic nature of Schopenhauer's philosophy. One of Kierkegaard's main concerns is a suspicion of his whole philosophy:
After reading through Schopenhauer's Ethic one learns - naturally he is to that extent honest - that he himself is not an ascetic. And consequently he himself has not reached contemplation through asceticism, but only a contemplation which contemplates asceticism. This is extremely suspicious, and may even conceal the most terrible and corrupting voluptuous melancholy: a profound misanthropy. In this too it is suspicious, for it is always suspicious to propound an ethic which does not exert so much power over the teacher that he himself expresses. Schopenhauer makes ethics into genius, but that is of course an unethical conception of ethics. He makes ethics into genius and although he prides himself quite enough on being a genius, it has not pleased him, or nature has not allowed him, to become a genius where asceticism and mortification are concerned.
– Søren Kierkegaard, (Journals, 1854)[3]
Little else is known about Kierkegaard's attitude to Schopenhauer. On Schopenhauer himself, Kierkegaard felt that Schopenhauer would've been patronizing. "Schopenhauer interests me very much, as does his fate in Germany. If I could talk to him I am sure he would shudder or laugh if I were to show him [my philosophy]." (Journals, 1854)[3]
[edit] References
[edit] Inline references
- ^ Matustik, M.J and M. Westphal (eds). Kierkegaard in Post/Modernity, Indiana University Press, 1995, ISBN 0253209676
- ^ Green, Ronald M. Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt. SUNY Press, 1992, ISBN 0791411079
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Kierkegaard, Søren. Papers and Journals, trans. A. Hannay, London, Penguin Books, 1996.
- ^ Watts, Michael. Kierkegaard. Oneworld, 2003, ISBN 1851683178
- ^ D. Anthony Storm. Kierkegaard Commentary. Retrieved on September 15, 2006.
[edit] Other references
- Dru, Alexander. The Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, Oxford University Press, 1938.
- Duncan, Elmer. Søren Kierkegaard: Maker of the Modern Theological Mind, Word Books 1976, ISBN 0876804636
- Garff, Joakim. Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography, Princeton University Press 2005, ISBN 069109165X.
- Hannay, Alastair. Kierkegaard: A Biography, Cambridge University Press, New edition 2003, ISBN 0521531810.
- Kierkegaard. The Concept of Anxiety, Princeton University Press, 1981, ISBN 0691020116
- Kierkegaard. The Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, Princeton University Press 1989, ISBN 0691073546
- Kierkegaard. The Sickness Unto Death, Princeton University Press, 1983, ISBN 0691020280
- Lippit, John. Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling, Routledge 2003, ISBN 0415180473
- Ostenfeld, Ib and Alastair McKinnon. Søren Kierkegaard's Psychology, Wilfrid Laurer University Press 1972, ISBN 0889200688
- Westphal, Merold. A Reading of Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Purdue University Press 1996, ISBN 1557530904
[edit] External links
- D. Anthony Storm's Commentary On Kierkegaard
- Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Søren Kierkegaard
[edit] Further reading
[edit] External links
- Søren Kierkegaard Newsletter edited by Gordon D. Marino
- Kierkegaard, Søren at the Open Directory Project (suggest site)
- Wabash Center Internet Guide: Soren Kierkegaard
- Online Library Catalog at St. Olaf College; select Kierkegaard Library from the menu to search for books and articles.
