Søren Kierkegaard
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Unfinished sketch of Søren Kierkegaard by Niels Christian Kierkegaard, c. 1840
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| Born | 5 May 1813 Copenhagen, Denmark |
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| Died | 11 November 1855 (aged 42) Copenhagen, Denmark |
| Era | 19th-century philosophy |
| Region | Western philosophy |
| School | Danish Golden Age Literary and Artistic Tradition; precursor to Continental philosophy,[1][2] Existentialism (agnostic, atheistic, Christian), Existential psychology, Absurdism, Neo-orthodoxy, and many more |
| Main interests | Christianity, metaphysics, epistemology, aesthetics, ethics, psychology, philosophy |
| Alma mater | University of Copenhagen |
| Notable ideas | Regarded as the father of Existentialism Angst Existential despair Three spheres of human existence Knight of faith Infinite qualitative distinction The works of love The Absurd Present age The Crowd Levelling Leap of faith Faith as a passion |
| Signature |  |
)) (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, poet, social critic, and religious author who is widely considered to be the first existentialist philosopher.[5] He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology and philosophy of religion,
displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and parables. Much of his
philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single
individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract
thinking, and highlighting the importance of personal choice and
commitment.[6] He was a fierce critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Swedenborg,[7] Hegel, Goethe, Fichte, Schelling, Schlegel, and Hans Christian Andersen.His theological work focuses on Christian ethics, the institution of the Church, the differences between purely objective proofs of Christianity, the infinite qualitative distinction between man and God, and the individual's subjective relationship to the God-Man Jesus Christ,[8] which came through faith.[9][10] Much of his work deals with the art of Christian love. He was extremely critical of the practice of Christianity as a state religion, primarily that of the Church of Denmark. His psychological work explored the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices.[11]
Kierkegaard's early work was written under various pseudonyms which he used to present distinctive viewpoints and interact with each other in complex dialogue.[12] He assigned pseudonyms to explore particular viewpoints in-depth, which required several books in some instances, while Kierkegaard, openly or under another pseudonym, critiqued that position. He wrote many Upbuilding Discourses under his own name and dedicated them to the "single individual" who might want to discover the meaning of his works. Notably, he wrote: "Science and scholarship want to teach that becoming objective is the way. Christianity teaches that the way is to become subjective, to become a subject."[13] While scientists can learn about the world by observation, Kierkegaard emphatically denied that observation could reveal the inner workings of the spiritual world.[14] In 1847, Kierkegaard described his own view of the single individual:
God is not like a human being; it is not important for God to have visible evidence so that he can see if his cause has been victorious or not; he sees in secret just as well. Moreover, it is so far from being the case that you should help God to learn anew that it is rather he who will help you to learn anew, so that you are weaned from the worldly point of view that insists on visible evidence. (...) A decision in the external sphere is what Christianity does not want; (...) rather it wants to test the individual's faith."[15]Some of Kierkegaard's key ideas include the concept of "Truth as Subjectivity", the knight of faith, the recollection and repetition dichotomy, angst, the infinite qualitative distinction, faith as a passion, and the three stages on life's way. Kierkegaard's writings were written in Danish and were initially limited to Scandinavia, but by the turn of the 20th century, his writings were translated into major European languages, such as French and German. By the mid-20th century, his thought exerted a substantial influence on philosophy,[16] theology,[17] and Western culture.[18]
Contents
Early years (1813–1836)
Copenhagen in the 1830s and 1840s had crooked streets where carriages rarely went. Kierkegaard loved to walk them. In 1848, Kierkegaard wrote, "I had real Christian satisfaction in the thought that, if there were no other, there was definitely one man in Copenhagen whom every poor person could freely accost and converse with on the street; that, if there were no other, there was one man who, whatever the society he most commonly frequented, did not shun contact with the poor, but greeted every maidservant he was acquainted with, every manservant, every common laborer."[26] Our Lady's Church was at one end of the city, where Bishop Mynster preached the Gospel. At the other end was the Royal Theatre where Fru Heiberg performed.[27]
Based on a speculative interpretation of anecdotes in Kierkegaard's unpublished journals, especially a rough draft of a story called "The Great Earthquake",[28] some early Kierkegaard scholars argued that Michael believed he had earned God's wrath and that none of his children would outlive him. He is said to have believed that his personal sins, perhaps indiscretions such as cursing the name of God in his youth or impregnating Ane out of wedlock, necessitated this punishment. Though five of his seven children died before he did, both Kierkegaard and his brother Peter Christian Kierkegaard outlived him.[29] Peter, who was seven years Kierkegaard's elder, later became bishop in Aalborg.[29]
In 1830, Kierkegaard attended the School of Civic Virtue, Østre Borgerdyd Gymnasium, when the school was situated in Klarebodeme, where he studied Latin and history among other subjects. He went on to study theology at the University of Copenhagen. He had little interest in historical works, philosophy dissatisfied him, and he couldn't see "dedicating himself to Speculation".[30] He said, "What I really need to do is to get clear about "what am I to do", not what I must know". He wanted to "lead a completely human life and not merely one of knowledge."[31] Kierkegaard didn't want to be a philosopher in the traditional or Hegelian sense[32] and he didn't want to preach a Christianity that was an illusion.[33] "But he had learned from his father that one can do what one wills, and his father's life had not discredited this theory."[34] He became a "spy for God". In 1848, Kierkegaard wrote:
Supposing that I had been free to use my talents as I pleased (and that it was not the case that another Power was able to compel me every moment when I was not ready to yield to fair means), I might from the first moment have converted my whole productivity into the channel of the interests of the age, it would have been in my power (if such betrayal were not punished by reducing me to naught) to become what the age demands, and so would have been (Goetheo-Hegelian) one more testimony to the proposition that the world is good, that the race is the truth and that this generation is the court of last resort, that the public is the discoverer of the truth and its judge, &c. For by this treason I should have attained extraordinary success in the world. Instead of this I became (under compulsion) a spy.[35][36]One of the first physical descriptions of Kierkegaard comes from an attendee, Hans Brøchner, at his brother Peter's wedding party in 1836: "I found [his appearance] almost comical. He was then twenty-three years old; he had something quite irregular in his entire form and had a strange coiffure. His hair rose almost six inches above his forehead into a tousled crest that gave him a strange, bewildered look."[37]
Kierkegaard's mother "was a nice little woman with an even and happy disposition," according to a grandchild's description. She was never mentioned in Kierkegaard's works. Ane died on 31 July 1834, age 66, possibly from typhus.[38] His father died on 8 August 1838, age 82. On 11 August, Kierkegaard wrote:
My father died on Wednesday (the 8th) at 2:00 a.m. I so deeply desired that he might have lived a few years more, and I regard his death as the last sacrifice of his love for me, because in dying he did not depart from me but he died for me, in order that something, if possible, might still come of me. Most precious of all that I have inherited from him is his memory, his transfigured image, transfigured not by his poetic imagination (for it does not need that), but transfigured by many little single episodes I am now learning about, and this memory I will try to keep most secret from the world. Right now I feel there is only one person (E. Boesen) with whom I can really talk about him. He was a "faithful friend."[39]Troels Frederik Lund, his nephew, provided biographers with much information regarding Søren Kierkegaard.
Journals
People understand me so little that they do not even understand when I complain of being misunderstood.Kierkegaard's Journals were first given to his brother-in-law, J. C. Lund, and then to his brother, Peter Kierkegaard, but serious work on them began in 1865. H. P. Barnum translated 1833–1846[40] but "threw away a significant portion of the originals."[41]
—Søren Kierkegaard, Journals Feb. 1836
However, according to Samuel Hugo Bergmann, "Kierkegaard's journals are one of the most important sources for an understanding of his philosophy".[42] Kierkegaard wrote over 7,000 pages in his journals on events, musings, thoughts about his works and everyday remarks.[43] The entire collection of Danish journals was edited and published in 13 volumes consisting of 25 separate bindings including indices. The first English edition of the journals was edited by Alexander Dru in 1938.[44] The style is "literary and poetic [in] manner".[45]
Kierkegaard wanted to have Regine as his confidant but considered it an impossibility for that to happen so he left it to "my reader, that single individual" to become his confidant. His question was whether or not one can have a spiritual confidant. He wrote the following in his Concluding Postscript: "With regard to the essential truth, a direct relation between spirit and spirit is unthinkable. If such a relation is assumed, it actually means that the party has ceased to be spirit."[46]
"If I have taken fifteen years to form a view of life for myself and to mature in it, a view of life that both inspired me and was altogether compatible with my nature, I cannot suddenly be altered in this way. Indeed, I cannot even tell her that I wished it, because such a wish is a thoroughly indefinite stipulation, and it would be very irresponsible to use it to have her life at one's disposal. Insofar as she has struggled with all her might to show her devotion, she has worked against herself with all her vitality. And now I realize clearly that my depression makes it impossible for me to have a confidant, and I of course know that what the wedding ceremony would require of me is that she should be the one. But she would never have become that even if I had opened myself ever so much, for we do not understand each other." Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, 1845, pp. 373–6
I have never confided in anyone. By being an author I have in a sense made the public my confidant. But in respect of my relation to the public I must, once again, make posterity my confidant. The same people who are there to laugh at one cannot very well be made one's confidant.[47]Kierkegaard's journals were the source of many aphorisms credited to the philosopher. The following passage, from 1 August 1835, is perhaps his most oft-quoted aphorism and a key quote for existentialist studies:
What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die."[48]David F. Swenson wrote the following about Kierkegaard's journals and mode of authorship in 1937,[49]
Rarely has an authorship had a more inward motivation than Kierkegaard’s. He gives the impression of writing as a bird sings its song, or the flower spreads its fragrance. He permitted intentionally the undermining of his own personal authority and prestige among his contemporaries, in order that his thought might speak for itself. He spent money freely for the privilege of writing and publishing in Denmark its greatest prose literature; and it was a sore difficulty under which he labored in later years, when the springs of productivity flowed as strongly as ever, to be compelled to dam the stream because of increasing financial straits, and to confine himself to his diaries; which did indeed intensify his always vigorous self-reflection. At his death his patrimony was completely exhausted , barely enough remaining to defray the expense of the funeral. It was his father’s financial resources that had underwritten the authorship, and Kierkegaard had on the whole earned no money; he was thus not a “practical” man of “serious” purpose.Although his journals clarify some aspects of his work and life, Kierkegaard took care not to reveal too much. Abrupt changes in thought, repetitive writing, and unusual turns of phrase are some among the many tactics he used to throw readers off track. Consequently, there are many varying interpretations of his journals. Kierkegaard did not doubt the importance his journals would have in the future. In December 1849, he wrote: "Were I to die now the effect of my life would be exceptional; much of what I have simply jotted down carelessly in the Journals would become of great importance and have a great effect; for then people would have grown reconciled to me and would be able to grant me what was, and is, my right."[50]
- Lectures on the Religious Thought of Soren Kierkegaard, given at Princeton Theological Seminary in March, 1936, on the Stone Foundation by Eduard Geismar, Introduction by David F. Swenson, Augsburg Publishing House
Regine Olsen and graduation (1837–1841)
Main article: Regine Olsen
You, sovereign queen of my heart, Regina, hidden in the deepest secrecy of my breast, in the fullness of my life-idea, there where it is just as far to heaven as to hell—unknown divinity! O, can I really believe the poets when they say that the first time one sees the beloved object he thinks he has seen her long before, that love like all knowledge is recollection, that love in the single individual also has its prophecies, its types, its myths, its Old Testament. Everywhere, in the face of every girl, I see features of your beauty, but I think I would have to possess the beauty of all the girls in the world to extract your beauty, that I would have to sail around the world to find the portion of the world I want and toward which the deepest secret of my self polarically points—and in the next moment you are so close to me, so present, so overwhelmingly filling my spirit that I am transfigured to myself and feel that here it is good to be. You blind god of erotic love! You who see in secret, will you disclose it to me? Will I find what I am seeking here in this world, will I experience the conclusion of all my life's eccentric premises, will I fold you in my arms, or: Do the Orders say: March on? Have you gone on ahead, you, my longing, transfigured do you beckon to me from another world? O, I will throw everything away in order to become light enough to follow you. Journals & Papers of Søren Kierkegaard, 11 August 1838[51]On 8 September 1840, Kierkegaard formally proposed to Olsen. He soon felt disillusioned about his prospects. He broke off the engagement on 11 August 1841, though it is generally believed that the two were deeply in love. In his journals, Kierkegaard mentions his belief that his "melancholy" made him unsuitable for marriage, but his precise motive for ending the engagement remains unclear.[29][52][53] The following quote from his Stages on Life's Way (1845) sheds some light on the motivation.
So it is a year ago today since I saw her for the first time, that is, for the first time with a resolute soul. I was no fantasizer, was not in the habit of becoming intoxicated on fine words and brief dreams; therefore my resolution certainly did not mean that I would die if she did not become mine. Neither did I think that my soul would be scattered and my life become completely empty for me if she did not become mine-I had too many religious presuppositions for that. For me my resolution meant: Marry her or do not marry at all. That is what was at stake. In my soul there was no doubt that I loved her, but I also knew that in connection with such a step there were so many anomalies that for me it became the most difficult task. An individuality like me is not nimble; I cannot say: If I do not have this one, I'll take another. I do not dare to allow myself the presupposition, which comes easily to many, that a person is himself always all right, if only the other one is worthy of him. As far as I am concerned, the emphasis must be placed elsewhere-whether I was actually capable of giving my life the kind of expression that a marriage requires. I was as much in love as anyone, even though not many would understand that I, if my deliberation had not allowed me this step, would have kept my falling in love to myself. I marry her or I do not marry at all. Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, pp. 195–196
About this conflict within me, I do not dare as yet to say "today,"[54] but I feel that I owe her much with respect to venturing. The one who has made another person unhappy can be very useful for persevering in battles such as this: the one who is sentenced to life is given rasp work to do, which is mortally dangerous, but then, after all, he is condemned.This, too, I also realize-that the unmarried person can venture more in the world of the spirit than the married, and risk everything and be concerned only about the idea, and is qualified in a totally different way to be in the discrimen [crucial movement] of decision, where it is almost impossible to stand, to say nothing of taking up residence. But definitely this was not my reason for not wishing to marry. Indeed, I, too, wished for a somewhat quieter happiness in life, and her beseeching made my own wish my one and only wish. And even if I had not wished it, I would have done it, because I always believe that obedience is more precious to God than, cosmopolitan, philanthropic, patriotic sacrifices upon the altar of humanity, that quietness in the fulfilling of a modest duty is infinitely more valuable and more befitting to every human being than luxuriance in the world of the spirit and prodigality of concern for the whole human race, as if one were God in heaven. Let them talk vehemently about God's wrath and the consuming fire ({Hebrews 12.29})-there is also something I fear and fear just as much, and that is that I might force God to pull rank on me, make me vanish as a lie before his stately and superior majesty. As soon as I disdain duty, God becomes exclusive, for only in duty am I in humble harmony with his sublimity, and therefore his majesty is not exclusiveness. Therefore it is not God who makes himself exclusive which he never does (this is paganism), but it is I who make him exclusive, and this is a punishment. This is the profound consistency: that the person who wants to come closer to God by disdaining what is simple, distances God in his exclusiveness, in an exclusiveness that not even the most wretched of human beings has to experience. Here, too, I am quick of hearing, and even though many a philosopher who shouts to the world give me a place to stand does not hear it, I hear a voice that says: I will give you your Dosmoi, you dunces [Dosmere]! No! if I had not believed that I had a divine counterorder, I never would have retreated, and as soon as this order is revoked I shall choose my wish again. God forbid that the effort and tension weaken my wish before this is allowed! My counterorder I can understand, for it goes through repentance. A repentant individuality who is able to take a whole lifetime to recant cannot advance. This is a very simple protest against marriage. I have neither visions nor dreams to guide me; my collision is quite simply the collision of repentance with existence, a collision of suspension with a present actuality. Until it is resolved, I am in suspenso; as soon as it is resolved, I am free again. This is why I am doing all I can to keep myself at the pinnacle of love. As soon as she is free, the religious crisis are my task. Just suppose, to think quite theoretically, suppose that she found herself again; just suppose that the remark about death had been only an exaggeration, not intended as a pathos-filled reply but something like the utterance when one says in the course of a conversation: I am almost dying from the heat in this cramped apartment. Just suppose she had meant it but did not understand herself, or suppose she had suffered unto death but had been victorious; just suppose I had contributed a little to this victory or nothing at all; just suppose she seized the defense that she had never cared about me at all-what then? Good God, as if this were possible! How my soul snatches at every explanation from this quarter! ... You see, if this was the situation, then my position becomes difficult in an odd way. I would have to have a human life on my conscience in order to be awakened and torn out of the lethargy of depression. I humble myself under the earnestness of this thought. But then along comes my understanding and says: No, this is not true; you perceived, of course that it was not a question of a human life, it was your imagination that created this hallucination and showed it to your depression, and both agreed that it was possible. But then it was not a human life; it was a word that you perhaps would even have laughed at in many another's mouth. Yes, in one sense that is true. And yet I regret nothing; I do not regret having suffered all this pain, which nevertheless has not yet paralyzed me, although it would do that if I were to talk about it. I have felt it in loneliness, in sleeplessness, when in one second one can think more thoughts together than one can write in months, when the imagination conjures up anxieties with which no pen dares to become involved, when the conscience gives a start of alarm and terrifies with optical illusions. But alas, all this is only a theory. To grasp a theory is just like embracing a cloud instead of Juno, and it is also unfaithfulness to her. But to use the theory as a means of exercising, to unbuckle the soul in it so as to give one's energy new elasticity, that is permissible-indeed it is what one ought to do. Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, pp. 259–261, 262, 265ff Hong.[55]
On 29 September 1841, Kierkegaard wrote and defended his dissertation, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates. The university panel considered it noteworthy and thoughtful, but too informal and witty for a serious academic thesis.[57] The thesis dealt with irony and Schelling's 1841 lectures, which Kierkegaard had attended with Mikhail Bakunin, Jacob Burckhardt, and Friedrich Engels; each had come away with a different perspective.[58] Kierkegaard graduated from university on 20 October 1841 with a Magister Artium. He was able to fund his education, his living, and several publications of his early works with his family's inheritance of approximately 31,000 rigsdaler.[44]
Authorship (1843–1846)
Kierkegaard published some of his works using pseudonyms and for others he signed his own name as author. Pseudonyms were used often in the early 19th century as a means of representing viewpoints other than the author's own; examples include the writers of the Federalist Papers and the Anti-Federalist Papers. Kierkegaard employed the same technique as a way to provide examples of indirect communication.After On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, his university thesis, he had written his first book under the pseudonym "Johannes Climacus" between 1841–1842. De omnibus dubitandum est (Latin: "Everything must be doubted") was not published until after his death.[59]
Either/Or was published 20 February 1843; it was mostly written during Kierkegaard's stay in Berlin, where he took notes on Schelling's Philosophy of Revelation.[60] Edited by Victor Eremita, the book contained the papers of an unknown "A" and "B" which were discovered by Victor Eremita (the pseudonymous author) claimed to have found these papers in a secret drawer of his secretary.[61] Eremita had a hard time putting the papers of "A" in order because they were not straightforward. "B"'s papers were arranged in an orderly fashion.[62] Both these characters are trying to become religious individuals.[63] Each approach the idea of first love from an esthetic and an ethical point of view. The book is basically an argument about faith and marriage with a short discourse at the end telling them they should stop arguing. Eremita thinks "B", a judge, makes the most sense.
Three months after the publication of Either/Or, 16 May 1843, he published Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 and continued to publish discourses along with his pseudonymous books. These discourses were published under Kierkegaard's own name and are available as Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses today.
David F. Swenson first translated the works in the 1940s and titled them the Edifying Discourses; however, in 1990, Howard V. and Edna H. Hong translated the works again but called them the Upbuilding Discourses. The word "upbuilding" was more in line with Kierkegaard's thought after 1846, when he wrote Christian deliberations about works of love.[64] An upbuilding discourse or edifying discourse isn't the same as a sermon because a sermon is preached to a congregation while a discourse can be carried on between several people or even with oneself. The discourse or conversation should be "upbuilding", which means one would build up the other person, or oneself, rather than tear down in order to build up. Kierkegaard said: "Although this little book (which is called "discourses," not sermons, because its author does not have authority to preach, "upbuilding discourses," not discourses for upbuilding, because the speaker by no means claims to be a teacher) wishes to be only what it is, a superfluity, and desires only to remain in hiding".[65]
On 16 October 1843, Kierkegaard published three more books about love and faith and several more discourses. Fear and Trembling, published under the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio, was about Abraham wishing he did not have to sacrifice his son, Isaac, to show his love for God. Kierkegaard compared Abraham's situation with that of Agamemnon who saw it as his duty to sacrifice his daughter, Iphigenia, to show his love for the Greek state. Abraham couldn't understand how sacrificing Isaac would be a good gift while Agamemnon was certain that sacrificing Iphigenia would be a good gift to the Greek state. Repetition is about a Young Man (Soren Kierkegaard) who is suffering from anxiety and depression because he feels he has to sacrifice his love for a girl (Regine Olsen) to God. He tries to see if the new science of psychology can help him understand himself. Constantin Constantius, who is the pseudonymous author of that book, is the psychologist. At the same time, he published Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 under his own name, which dealt specifically with how love can be used to hide things from yourself or others.[66] These three books, all published on the same day, are an example of Kierkegaard's method of indirect communication.
Kierkegaard questioned whether an individual can know if something is a good gift from God or not and concludes by saying, "it does not depend, then, merely upon what one sees, but what one sees depends upon how one sees; all observation is not just a receiving, a discovering, but also a bringing forth, and insofar as it is that, how the observer himself is constituted is indeed decisive."[67] God's love is imparted indirectly just as our own sometimes is. He wrote the following in 1845, 1846, and in 1847.
"God creates out of nothing, but here, if I dare say so, he does more-he dresses an instinct in all the beauty of erotic love so that the lovers see only the beauty and are unaware of the instinct." .... "The how of the truth is precisely the truth. .... Every human being is spirit and truth is the self-activity of appropriation." .... "There is no work, not one single one, not even the best, about which we unconditionally dare to say: The one who does this unconditionally demonstrates love by it. It depends on how the work is done." Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, p. 122-123, Concluding Postscript p. 322-323, 242, Works of Love, Hong p. 13During 1844, he published two, three, and four more upbuilding discourses just as he did in 1843, but here he discussed how an individual might come to know God as theologians, philosophers and historians were all engaged in debating about the existence of God. This is direct communication and Kierkegaard thinks this might be useful for theologians, philosophers, and historians (associations) but not at all useful for the "single individual" that is interested in becoming a Christian. Kierkegaard always wrote for "that single individual whom I with joy and gratitude call my reader"[68] The single individual must put what is understood to use or it will be lost. Reflection can take an individual only so far before the imagination begins to change the whole content of what was being thought about. Love is won by being exercised just as much as faith and patience are.
He also wrote several more pseudonymous books in 1844: Philosophical Fragments, Prefaces and The Concept of Anxiety and finished the year up with Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1844. He used indirect communication in the first book and direct communication in the rest of them. He doesn't believe the question about God's existence should be an opinion held by one group and differently by another no matter how many demonstrations are made. He says it's up to the single individual to make the fruit of the Holy Spirit real because love and joy are always just possibilities. Christendom wanted to define God's attributes once and for all but Kierkegaard was against this. His love for Regine was a disaster but it helped him because of his point of view. In 1845 he wrote:
There is one person, one single person, about whom everything revolves. I gaze and gaze so long at this girl-until I draw out of myself what I perhaps would otherwise never have come to see, even if I had seen ever so much, for this would not imply that my inwardness had become transparent to me. If she had been unusually gifted with spirit, she would never have affected me in this way. She is quite enough for me when it comes to responsibility, and again the responsibility is mine, and yet it is she who in this responsibility brings my inwardness to consciousness. The testing quietness of responsibility teaches a person to have to help himself by virtue of spirit; achievement, action, activities, so often lauded and deservedly so, can still have an admixture of diversion so that one does not find out what one is capable of by virtue of spirit and what the manifold external stimuli help one to attain; one also escapes many a terror that does not have time to reach one, but to escape them does not mean to have conquered them or to have understood oneself. She will go on helping me with responsibility, for I will not be finished where she is finished. Suppose she became another's and I became free. Then I am not finished, for then I would still have the possibility that it would suddenly strike me-perhaps prompted by some thinker or by a chance word, which at times has the greatest power—that it would suddenly strike me that a marriage could have been built out of our relationship. Precisely because in that case I would not have the sympathetic consternation on her behalf, the pain would grip me again, but autopathetically. What will responsibility be to me then? It will become my very consolation, and in that very responsibility I shall come to understand myself. Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, Hong, pp. 363–368.Kierkegaard believed "each generation has its own task and need not trouble itself unduly by being everything to previous and succeeding generations".[69] In an earlier book he had said, "to a certain degree every generation and every individual begins his life from the beginning",[70] and in another, "no generation has learned to love from another, no generation is able to begin at any other point than the beginning", "no generation learns the essentially human from a previous one."[71] He was against the Hegelian idea of mediation[72] because it introduces a "third term"[73] that comes between the single individual and the object of desire. Kierkegaard asked if logic ends in actuality, can a person logically prove God's existence? Logic says no. Then he turns from logic to ethics and finds that Hegelian philosophy is negative rather than positive.[74] This "third term" isn't mediation, it's love that proves God's existence. He addressed this again in 1847:
You know that God is, but it seems as if he has withdrawn into himself. You know that Christ existed eighteen-hundred years ago, but that was a long time ago. Meet all the terrors of the future with this comfort: love abides; meet all the anxiety and listlessness of the present with this comfort; love abides. This is an upbuilding thought: love abides. This little work is continually dealing only with the works of love, therefore not with God's love, but with human love. There is the one who loves then the object of love and love itself as the third. .... God's being merciful points away from himself. "If you want to love me, then love the people you see; what you do for them, you do for me. If you want to show that your life is intended to serve God, then let it serve people, yet continually with the thought of God." Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Hong, pp. 301, 160-161.
Hidden Inwardness
Kierkegaard believed God comes to each individual mysteriously. He wrote:"Revelation is marked by mystery, eternal happiness by suffering, the certitude of faith by uncertainty, easiness by difficulty, truth by absurdity; if this is not maintained, then the esthetic and the religious merge in common confusion. ... The religious lies in the dialectic of inwardness deepening and therefore, with regard to the conception of God, this means that he himself is moved, is changed. An action in the eternal transforms the individual's existence."Kierkegaard published Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions (first called Thoughts on Crucial Situations in Human Life, in David F. Swenson's 1941 translation) under his own name on 29 April, and Stages on Life's Way edited by Hilarius Bookbinder, 30 April 1845. The Stages is a rewrite of Either/Or which Kierkegaard did not think had been adequately read by the public and in Stages he predicted "that two-thirds of the book's readers will quit before they are halfway through, out of boredom they will throw the book away."[75] He knew he was writing books but had no idea who was reading them. His sales were meager and he had no publicist or editor. He was writing in the dark, so to speak.
This was part of Kierkegaard's theory of "indirect communication." He wrote:
"No anonymous author can more slyly hide himself, and no maieutic can more carefully recede from a direct relation than God can. He is in the creation, everywhere in the creation, but he is not there directly, and only when the single individual turns inward into himself (consequently only in the inwardness of self-activity) does he become aware and capable of seeing God." Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Hong 1992 p. 243
Despite everything people ought to have learned about my maieutic carefulness, in addition to proceeding slowly and continually letting it seem as if I knew nothing more, not the next thing — now on the occasion of my new upbuilding discourses they will probably bawl out that I do not know what comes next, that I know nothing about sociality. You fools! Yet on the other hand I owe it to myself to confess before God that in a certain sense there is some truth in it, only not as men understand it — namely, that when I have first presented one aspect sharply, then I affirm the other even more strongly. Now I have my theme of the next book. It will be called: Works of Love. Journals of Soren Kierkegaard VIII1A4
My dear reader-but to whom am I speaking? Perhaps no one at all is left. Probably the same thing has happened to me in reverse as happened to that noble king whom a sorrowful message taught to hurry, whose precipitous ride to his dying beloved had been made unforgettable by the unforgettable ballad in its celebration of the hundred young men who accompanied him from Skanderborg, the fifteen who rode with him over Randbol Heath, but when he crossed the bridge at Ribe the noble lord was alone. The same, in reverse, to be sure, and for opposite reasons, happened to me, who, captivated by one idea, did not move from the spot-all have ridden away from me. In the beginning, no doubt, the favorably disposed reader reined in his swift steed and thought I was riding a pacer, but when I did not move from the spot, the horse (that is, the reader) or, if you please the rider, became impatient, and I was left alone: a nonequestrian or a Sunday rider whom everybody outrides. Inasmuch as there is nothing at all to hasten after, I have forever and a day for myself and can talk with myself about myself undisturbed and without inconveniencing anyone. In my view, the religious person is the wise. But the person who fancies himself to be that without being that is a fool, but the person who sees one side of the religious is a sophist. Of these sophists I am one, and even if I were capable of devouring the others I would still not become fatter-which is not inexplicable as in the case of the lean cows in Egypt, for with respect to the religious the sophists are not fat cows but skinny herring. I look at the religious position from all sides, and to that extent I continually have one more side than the sophist, who sees only one side, but what makes me a sophist is that I do not become a religious person. The very least one in the sphere of religiousness if infinitely greater than the greatest sophist. The gods have alleviated my pain over this by granting me a beautiful observation and by equipping me with a certain amount of wittiness, which will be taken away from me if I use it against the religious. Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way, Hong p. 485-486He then went to Berlin for a short rest. Upon returning he published his Discourses of 1843–44 in one volume, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, 29 May 1845 and finished the first part of his authorship with Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments which was a rewrite of Philosophical Fragments as well as an explanation of the first part of his authorship. In 1851 he further explained himself in his Journal. "What I have understood as the task of the authorship has been done. It is one idea, this continuity from Either/Or to Anti-Climacus, the idea of religiousness in reflection. The task has occupied me totally, for it has occupied me religiously; I have understood the completion of this authorship as my duty, as a responsibility resting upon me." He advised his reader to read his books slowly and also to read them aloud since that might aid in understanding.[76] He identified this leap of faith as the good resolution. This is how he discussed resolution in 1845.
The resolution should not make the happy individual ungrateful, on the contrary it should make him worthy, and only in the resolution does gratitude become earnest. Therefore the gratitude of the resolution knows that this happiness is a task, and that the grateful individual now stands at the beginning. Hence the thanksgiving of resolution is sober-minded; it understands that God has in this happiness spoken to a resolved individual, but also understands that this is the beginning of the conversation. Is this to think deprecatingly of happiness? Is it not rather to think worthily of God? If someone talked with a wise man, and immediately upon the first words of the wise man, he interrupted him with his thanks, because he now needed no more help: what would this show other than that he did not talk with a wise man, but with a wise man whom he himself transformed into a fool? A wise man is a human being, and so something external, and in so far someone may say with truth, even if he talked foolishly, that he had talked with a wise man; but God only exists inwardly. Whoever speaks with Him therefore, as this man did with the wise man, does not really speak with God. Just as there is an immature love that says, “True love conquers all,” without having any conception of the struggle; just as there is an immature enthusiasm that says the same things with a similar rashness: so there is also an immature gratitude that would thank God, and yet only deceives itself into thinking that it thanks God, and defrauds God of the thanksgiving. The thankfulness of resolution is earnest, and therefore acceptable unto God; its thankfulness is also the good beginning by which the task is half done; and with God’s help the resolution will certainly conquer all. Soren Kierkegaard, Thoughts on Crucial Situations in Human Life, (1845), Swenson translation p. 69-70He was writing about the inner being in all of these books and his goal was to get the single individual away from all the speculation that was going on about God and Christ. Speculation creates quantities of ways to find God and his Goods but finding faith in Christ and putting the understanding to use stops all speculation because then one begins to actually exist as a Christian or in an ethical/religious way. In Kierkegaard's view the Church should not try to prove Christianity or even defend it. It should help the single individual to make a leap of faith. He wrote:
It is in the living room that the battle must be fought, lest the skirmishes of religiousness become a changing-of-the-guard parade one day a week. It is in the living room that the battle must be fought, not imaginatively in church, with the pastor shadowboxing and the listeners looking on. It is in the living room that the battle must be fought, because the victory must be that the home becomes a shrine. Let the work be done directly in the church by holding an inspection of the contending forces-under whose banner the battle will be fought, in whose name the victory will be won-by describing the position of the enemy, by imitating the attack, by praising the omnipotent ally and strengthening trust by arousing mistrust, trust in him through mistrust of oneself. Let the work be done indirectly by the ironic but yet most tender sympathy of secret concern. But the main point still is that the single individual will go home from church willing wholeheartedly and eagerly to battle in the living room. If the pastor's activity in the church is merely a once-a-week attempt to tow the congregation's cargo ship a little closer to eternity, the whole thing comes to nothing, because a human life, unlike a cargo ship, cannot lie in the same place until the next Sunday. Therefore, the church is the very place where the difficulty must be presented, and it is better to go from the church discouraged and to find the task easier than one thought than to go from church overly confident and to become discouraged in the living room. Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments P. 465He described his early writing this way in 1846:
"The movement: from the poet (from aesthetics), from philosophy (from speculation), to the indication of the most central definition of what Christianity is—from the pseudonymous ‘Either/Or’, through ‘The Concluding Postscript’ with my name as editor, to the ‘Discourses at Communion on Fridays’, two of which were delivered in the Church of our Lady. This movement was accomplished or described uno tenore, in one breath, if I may use this expression, so that the authorship integrally regarded, is religious from first to last—a thing which everyone can see if he is willing to see, and therefore ought to see."[77][78]Kierkegaard wrote his Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments in 1846 and here he tried to explain the intent of the first part of his authorship. He said, "Christianity will not be content to be an evolution within the total category of human nature; an engagement such as that is too little to offer to a god. Neither does it even want to be the paradox for the believer, and then surreptitiously, little by little, provide him with understanding, because the martyrdom of faith (to crucify one's understanding) is not a martyrdom of the moment, but the martyrdom of continuance."[79]
"The highest His Imperial Highness is able to do is to make the decision before God. The lowliest human being can also make his decision before God. .... Irony is the cultivation of the spirit and therefore follows next after immediacy; then comes the ethicist, then the humorist, then the religious person. The religious person discovers that what engages him absolutely seems to engage others very little, but he draws no conclusions, partly because he has no time for that and partly because he cannot know for sure whether all these people are not knights of faith in hidden inwardness. .... The human is hidden inwardness in absolute passion; here again is the implication that everyone else must be equally able to approach God, because the person who in absolute inwardness wants to be conscious of being a chosen one eo ipso lacks inwardness, since his life is comparative. ... In the religiousness of hidden inwardness, a person does not consider himself better than anyone else, does not consider himself distinguished by the relationship with God in a way that is not possible for everyone. .... The storing up of guilt cannot find its expression in any externality, whereby it is made finite; it belongs, therefore, to hidden inwardness. .... Scientific scholarship wants to take charge of the dialectical and to that end bring it over into the medium of abstraction, whereby the issue is again mistreated, since it is an existence-issue, and the actual dialectical difficulty disappears by being explained in the medium of abstraction, which ignores existence. If the turbulent religious address is for sentimental people who are quick to sweat and to be sweated out, then the speculative interpretation is for pure thinking; but neither of the two is for acting and, by virtue of acting, for existing human beings." Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Hong, pp. 496–497, 501–505, 510, 538–539, 556Early Kierkegaardian scholars, such as Theodor W. Adorno and Thomas Henry Croxall argue that the entire authorship should be treated as Kierkegaard's own personal and religious views.[80] This view leads to confusions and contradictions which make Kierkegaard appear philosophically incoherent.[81] Later scholars, such as the post-structuralists, interpreted Kierkegaard's work by attributing the pseudonymous texts to their respective authors.[citation needed] Postmodern Christians present a different interpretation of Kierkegaard's works.[82] Kierkegaard used the category of "The Individual"[83] to stop[84] the endless Either/Or.[85]
Pseudonyms
Kierkegaard's most important pseudonyms,[86] in chronological order, were:- Victor Eremita, editor of Either/Or
- A, writer of many articles in Either/Or
- Judge William, author of rebuttals to A in Either/Or
- Johannes de silentio, author of Fear and Trembling
- Constantin Constantius, author of the first half of Repetition
- Young Man, author of the second half of Repetition
- Vigilius Haufniensis, author of The Concept of Anxiety
- Nicolaus Notabene, author of Prefaces
- Hilarius Bookbinder, editor of Stages on Life's Way
- Johannes Climacus, author of Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript
- Inter et Inter, author of The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress
- H.H., author of Two Ethical-Religious Essays
- Anti-Climacus, author of The Sickness Unto Death and Practice in Christianity
The Corsair Affair
On 22 December 1845, Peder Ludvig Møller, who studied at the University of Copenhagen at the same time as Kierkegaard, published an article indirectly criticizing Stages on Life's Way. The article complimented Kierkegaard for his wit and intellect, but questioned whether he would ever be able to master his talent and write coherent, complete works. Møller was also a contributor to and editor of The Corsair, a Danish satirical paper that lampooned everyone of notable standing. Kierkegaard published a sarcastic response, charging that Møller's article was merely an attempt to impress Copenhagen's literary elite.
Kierkegaard's response earned him the ire of the paper and its second editor, also an intellectual of Kierkegaard's own age, Meïr Aron Goldschmidt.[88] Over the next few months, The Corsair took Kierkegaard up on his offer to "be abused", and unleashed a series of attacks making fun of Kierkegaard's appearance, voice and habits. For months, Kierkegaard perceived himself to be the victim of harassment on the streets of Denmark. In a journal entry dated 9 March 1846, Kierkegaard made a long, detailed explanation of his attack on Møller and The Corsair, and also explained that this attack made him rethink his strategy of indirect communication.[89]
On 27 February 1846, Kierkegaard published Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, under his first pseudonym, Johannes Climacus. On 30 March 1846 he published Two Ages: A Literary Review, under his own name. A critique of the novel Two Ages (in some translations Two Generations) written by Thomasine Christine Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd, Kierkegaard made several insightful observations on what he considered the nature of modernity and its passionless attitude towards life. Kierkegaard writes that "the present age is essentially a sensible age, devoid of passion [...] The trend today is in the direction of mathematical equality, so that in all classes about so and so many uniformly make one individual".[90] In this, Kierkegaard attacked the conformity and assimilation of individuals into "the crowd"[91] which became the standard for truth, since it was the numerical.
As part of his analysis of the "crowd", Kierkegaard accused newspapers of decay and decadence. Kierkegaard stated Christendom had "lost its way" by recognizing "the crowd," as the many who are moved by newspaper stories, as the court of last resort in relation to "the truth." Truth comes to a single individual, not all people at one and the same time. Just as truth comes to one individual at a time so does love. One doesn't love the crowd but does love their neighbor, who is a single individual. He says, "never have I read in the Holy Scriptures this command: You shall love the crowd; even less: You shall, ethico-religiously, recognize in the crowd the court of last resort in relation to 'the truth.'"[92] He wrote it this way in 1845 in the book that sparked the Corsair Affair, Stages on Life's Way.
"This is how I understand myself. Satisfied with the lesser-hoping that the greater may some day be granted me, engaged in the pursuits of the spirit in which it seems to me every human being is bound to have abundance enough for the longest life, even if this were composed of nothing but the longest days-I am happy in life, happy in the little world that is my environment. Some of my countrymen no doubt think that Copenhagen is a boring town and small. To me, on the contrary, Copenhagen, refreshed by the sea on which it lies and without being able even in winter to surrender the recollection of beech forests, seems to be the most fortunate place of residence I could wish. It is large enough to be a fair sized city, small enough so that there is no marketplace on people. The statistical consolation they have in Paris over so and so many suicides, the statistical joy they have in Paris over so and so many superlative people, cannot intrude disturbingly and churn the individual into a froth so that life has no meaning, his Sabbath no comfort, his festival day no joy, because everything slips away into emptiness and surfeit. Some of my countrymen find people who live in this city not lively enough, not moved quickly enough, I do not think so. The speed with which thousands in Paris form a crowd around someone may well flatter the one around whom they gather, but I wonder if it pays for the loss of the more tranquil temperament that lets the single individual feel that he, too, still has some significance? Precisely because individuals have not entirely fallen in price, as if it took so and so many dozens to make one human being, precisely because the people fortunately are too slow to comprehend this half-hour erudition that only flatters the desperate and the hoodwinked, precisely for these reasons life in this metropolis is so entertaining for the person who knows how to delight in people, which is more entertaining and yields much richer dividends than getting a thousand people to shout one’s acclaim for half an hour.
The error here may rather be that one individual dreams about foreign places, a second individual is absorbed in himself, a third individual is prejudiced and separatistic, etc. –consequently that all these individuals prevent themselves from taking what is offered richly, from finding what is there in overabundance when it is sought. Someone who wants to do nothing at all could still, if he had his eyes open, lead a very enjoyable life merely by paying attention to others; and the person who also has his work does well to see to it that he does not become too trapped in it. But what a pity if there were many who missed out on what costs nothing, no entrance fee, no banquet expenses, no society dues, no trouble and worry, what costs the richest and the poorest just as little and yet is the richest enjoyment, who missed out on an education that is not acquired from a particular teacher but from any passerby whatsoever, from, a stranger in a conversation, from any chance contact. Something on which one has in vain sought enlightenment in books suddenly dawns on one upon hearing a servant girl talking with another servant girl; a phase that one has tried in vain to torture out of one’s own brain, sought in vain in dictionaries, even in the dictionary of the Academy of Sciences and Letters, is heard in passing-a soldier says it and does not dream what a rich man he is."
- Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life’s Way, (1845) p. 487-488 Hong translation
Authorship (1847–1855)
Kierkegaard began to write again in 1847. His first work in this period was Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits,[52] which included Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, and Works of Love, both authored under his own name. There had been much discussion in Denmark about the pseudonymous authors until the publication of Concluding Unscientific Discourses where he openly admitted to be the author of the books because people began wondering if he was, in fact, a Christian or not.[93][94] Several Journal entries from that year shed some light on what Kierkegaard hoped to achieve.In 1848 he published Christian Discourses under his own name and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress under the pseudonym Inter et Inter. Kierkegaard also developed The Point of View of My Work as an Author, his autobiographical explanation for his prolific use of pseudonyms. The book was finished in 1848, but not published until after his death.I am accused of causing young people to acquiesce in subjectivity. Maybe, for a moment. But how would it be possible to eliminate all these phantoms of objectivity such as the public, etc. except by stressing the category of the particular? Under the pretext of objectivity the aim has been to sacrifice individualities altogether. Soren Kierkegaard, Journals and papers VIII IA8 1847
Most people are subjective towards themselves and objective towards everyone else, sometimes frightfully objective-but the task is precisely to be objective to themselves and subjective towards all others. Soren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers VIII IA165 1847[95]
In 1851, Kierkegaard began openly presenting his case for Christianity to the "Single Individual". In Practice In Christianity, his last pseudonymous work, he stated, "In this book, originating in the year 1848, the requirement for being a Christian is forced up by the pseudonymous authors to a supreme ideality."[98] He now pointedly referred to the single individual in his next three publications; For Self-Examination, Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, and in 1852 Judge for Yourselves!.[99][100] In 1843 he had written in Either/Or:
"I ask: What am I supposed to do if I do not want to be a philosopher, I am well aware that I like other philosophers will have to mediate the past. For one thing, this is no answer to my question 'What am I supposed to do?' for even if I had the most brilliant philosophical mind there ever was, there must be something more I have to do besides sitting and contemplating the past. Second, I am a married man and far from being a philosophical brain, but in all respect I turn to the devotees of this science to find out what I am supposed to do. But I receive no answer, for philosophy mediates the past and is in the past-philosophy hastens so fast into the past that, as a poet says of an antiquarian, only his coattails remain in the present. See, here you are at one with the philosophers. What unites you is that life comes to a halt. For the philosopher, world history is ended, and he mediates. This accounts for the repugnant spectacle that belongs to the order of the day in our age-to see young people who are able to mediate Christianity and paganism, who are able to play games with the titanic forces of history, and who are unable to tell a simple human being what he has to do here in life, nor do they know what they themselves have to do." Either/Or Vol II, Hong, pp. 171ffKierkegaard began his 1843 book Either/Or with a question: "Are passions, then, the pagans of the soul? Reason alone baptized?"[101] He didn't want to devote himself to Thought or Speculation like Hegel did. Faith, hope, love, peace, patience, joy, self-control, vanity, kindness, humility, courage, cowardliness, pride, deceit, and selfishness. These are the inner passions that Thought knows little about. Hegel begins the process of education with Thought but Kierkegaard thinks we could begin with passion, or a balance between the two, a balance between Goethe and Hegel.
"If anyone asks, "What is love?" Paul answers, "it is the fulfilling of the Law," and instantly every further question is precluded by that answer. Paul does not become involved with the questioner; least of all in prolixities. On the contrary, he imprisons with his answer, imprisons the questioner in obedience under the Law; with his answer he immediately points the direction and gives the impetus to act accordingly. This is not the case with only this answer of Paul's but it is the case with all of Paul's answers and with all of Christ's answers. This mode of answering, to swing away from the direction of the question toward the remote in order simultaneously to press the task as close as possible to the questioner, what he has to do-this is especially characteristic of the essentially Christian." Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Hong translation, pp. 95-96He was against endless reflection with no passion involved. But at the same time he did not want to draw more attention to the external display of passion but the internal (hidden) passion of the single individual. A journal entry about Practice in Christianity from 1851 clarified his intention:
What I have understood as the task of the authorship has been done. It is one idea, this continuity from Either/Or to Anti-Climacus, the idea of religiousness in reflection. The task has occupied me totally, for it has occupied me religiously; I have understood the completion of this authorship as my duty, as a responsibility resting upon me. Whether anyone has wanted to buy or to read has concerned me very little. At times I have considered laying down my pen and, if anything should be done, to use my voice. Meanwhile I came by way of further reflection to the realization that it perhaps is more appropriate for me to make at least an attempt once again to use my pen but in a different way, as I would use my voice, consequently in direct address to my contemporaries, winning men, if possible. The first condition for winning men is that the communication reaches them. Therefore I must naturally want this little book to come to the knowledge of as many as possible. If anyone out of interest for the cause—I repeat, out of interest for the cause—wants to work for its dissemination, this is fine with me. It would be still better if he would contribute to its well-comprehended dissemination. I hardly need say that by wanting to win men it is not my intention to form a party, to create secular, sensate togetherness; no, my wish is only to win men, if possible all men (each individual), for Christianity. A request, an urgent request to the reader: I beg you to read aloud, if possible; I will thank everyone who does so; and I will thank again and again everyone who in addition to doing it himself influences others to do it." Journals of Søren Kierkegaard, 1 June 1851
Attack upon the State Church and death
Kierkegaard first moved to action after Professor (soon bishop) Hans Lassen Martensen gave a speech in church in which he called the recently deceased Bishop Jacob Peter Mynster a "truth-witness, one of the authentic truth-witnesses."[9] Kierkegaard explained, in his first article, that Mynster's death permitted him—at last—to be frank about his opinions. He later wrote that all his former output had been "preparations" for this attack, postponed for years waiting for two preconditions: 1) both his father and bishop Mynster should be dead before the attack and 2) he should himself have acquired a name as a famous theologic writer.[104] Kierkegaard's father had been Mynster's close friend, but Søren had long come to see that Mynster's conception of Christianity was mistaken, demanding too little of its adherents. Kierkegaard strongly objected to the portrayal of Mynster as a 'truth-witness'.
Before the tenth issue of his periodical The Moment could be published, Kierkegaard collapsed on the street. He stayed in the hospital for over a month and refused communion. At that time he regarded pastors as mere political officials, a niche in society who was clearly not representative of the divine. He said to Emil Boesen, a friend since childhood who kept a record of his conversations with Kierkegaard, that his life had been one of immense suffering, which may have seemed like vanity to others, but he did not think it so.[52]
"I want honesty. The leniency which is the common Christianity in the land I want to place alongside of the New Testament in order to see how these two are related to one another. Then, if it appears, if I or another can prove, that it can be maintained face to face with the New Testament, then with the greatest joy I will agree to it. .... I have quite distinctly pointed out the difference between preaching Christianity in such a way that the preacher is "a government official, a man of rank, and his preaching his own glittering career, rich in enjoyment," and on the other hand a "suffering witness to the truth," without maintaining in any way whatsoever that suffering must signify suffering unto death. .... inasmuch as Christianity is spirit, the sobriety of spirit, the honesty of eternity, there is of course nothing which to its detective eye is so suspicious as are all fantastic entities: Christian states, Christian lands, a Christian people, and (how marvelous!) a Christian world.
"In a little masterpiece by State Counselor Heiberg called "The Fairies" the schoolmaster Grimmermann had, as everyone knows, the experience of plunging down inadvertently 70,000 fathoms below the surface of the earth, and, still more unexpectedly if possible than his fall was inadvertent, he found himself surrounded by gnomes. "What nonsense," says Grimmermann, "there are no gnomes, and here is my commission [to prove it]." But, alas, to come to the gnomes with a royal commission is labor lost. What the devil do the gnomes care about a royal commission? Their kingdom is not of this world; obviously for them a royal commission = 0, at the very most it has the value of paper." Soren Kierkegaard Attack Upon "Christendom,"" 1854-1855, Lowrie 1944, pp. 37, 6, 31, 27–28.
Kierkegaard's pamphlets and polemical books, including The Moment, criticized several aspects of church formalities and politics.[105] According to Kierkegaard, the idea of congregations keeps individuals as children since Christians are disinclined from taking the initiative to take responsibility for their own relation to God. He stressed that "Christianity is the individual, here, the single individual."[106] Furthermore, since the Church was controlled by the State, Kierkegaard believed the State's bureaucratic mission was to increase membership and oversee the welfare of its members. More members would mean more power for the clergymen: a corrupt ideal.[107] This mission would seem at odds with Christianity's true doctrine, which, to Kierkegaard, is to stress the importance of the individual, not the whole.[44] Thus, the state-church political structure is offensive and detrimental to individuals, since anyone can become "Christian" without knowing what it means to be Christian. It is also detrimental to the religion itself since it reduces Christianity to a mere fashionable tradition adhered to by unbelieving "believers", a "herd mentality" of the population, so to speak.[108] Kierkegaard always stressed the importance of the conscience and the use of it. Everyone has a conscience no matter how great or how small.
"I have something upon my conscience as a writer. Let me indicate precisely how I feel about it. There is something quite definite I have to say, and I have it so much upon my conscience that (as I feel) I dare not die without having uttered it. For the instant I die and so leave this world (so I understand it) I shall in the very same second (so frightfully fast it goes!), in the very same second I shall be infinitely far away, in a different place, where, still within the same second (frightful speed!), the question will be put to me: "Hast thou uttered the definite message quite definitely? And if I have not done so, what then?" Journals of Soren Kierkegaard, X6B 371 1853
Reception
Main article: Influence and reception of Søren Kierkegaard
19th century reception
In September 1850, the Western Literary Messenger wrote:"While Martensen with his wealth of genius casts from his central position light upon every sphere of existence, upon all the phenomena of life, Søren Kierkegaard stands like another Simon Stylites, upon his solitary column, with his eye unchangeably fixed upon one point. Upon this he places his microscope and examines its minutest atoms; scrutinizes its most fleeting movements; its innermost changes, upon this he lectures, upon this he writes again and again, infinite volumes. Everything exists for him in this one point. But this point is-the human heart: and as he ever reflects this changing heart in the eternal unchangeable, in ‘that’ "which became flesh and dwelt among us," and as he amidst his wearisome logical wanderings often says divine things, he has found in the gay, lively Copenhagen not a small public, and that principally of the ladies. The philosophy of the heart must be near to them."[109]In 1855, the Danish National Church published his obituary. Kierkegaard did have an impact there judging from the following quote from their article:
"The fatal fruits which Dr. Kierkegaard show to arise from the union of Church and State, have strengthened the scruples of many of the believing laity, who now feel that they can remain no longer in the Church, because thereby they are in communion with unbelievers, for there is no ecclesiastical discipline. Thus, the desire of leaving the Church becomes increasingly strengthened among them. They wish to see J. Lursen (the reader) ordained. One of his friends has lately declared in their journal, that pious laymen are more fit to ordain ministers than the unbelieving priests. An independent Lutheran Church was formed at Copenhagen last December."[109][110]
Another early critic was Magnús Eiríksson who criticized Martensen and wanted Kierkegaard as his ally in his fight against speculative theology.
Several of Kierkegaard's works were translated into German from 1861 onward, including excerpts from Practice in Christianity (1872), from Fear and Trembling and Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1874), Four Upbuilding Discourses and Christian Discourses (1875), and The Lillis of the Field and the Birds of the Air (1876) according to Kierkegaard's International Reception: Northern and Western Europe: Toma I, by John Stewart, see p. 388ff'[116]
Otto Pfleiderer in The Philosophy of Religion: On the Basis of Its History (1887), claimed that Kierkegaard presented an anti-rational view of Christianity. He went on to assert that the ethical side of a human being has to disappear completely in his one-sided view of faith as the highest good. He wrote, "Kierkegaard can only find true Christianity in entire renunciation of the world, in the following of Christ in lowliness and suffering especially when met by hatred and persecution on the part of the world. Hence his passionate polemic against ecclesiastical Christianity, which he says has fallen away from Christ by coming to a peaceful understanding with the world and conforming itself to the world's life. True Christianity, on the contrary, is constant polemical pathos, a battle against reason, nature, and the world; its commandment is enmity with the world; its way of life is the death of the naturally human.[109][117]
An article from an 1889 dictionary of religion revealed a good idea of how Kierkegaard was regarded at that time.
"Having never left his native city more than a few days at a time, excepting once, when he went to Germany to study Schelling's philosophy. He was the most original thinker and theological philosopher the North ever produced. His fame has been steadily growing since his death, and he bids fair to become the leading religio-philosophical light of Germany, not only his theological, but also his aesthetic works have of late become the subject of universal study in Europe. (...) Søren Kierkegaard's writings abound in psychological observations and experiences, great penetration and dexterous experimentations, all of which enable him to speak of that which but few know and fewer still can express, his diction is noble, his dialectics refined and brilliant; scarcely a page of his can be found which is not rich in poetic sentiment and passionate though pure enthusiasm. It is generally conceded that his literary productions overflow with intellectual wonders, still it must be said that he is often more fascinating and seductive than convincing. He defined his task to be 'to call attention to Christianity', to make himself an instrument to summon people to the truly Human. Ideal or true Christianity, so little known, as he claimed, and to which he wanted to call attention, is neither a theory, scientific or otherwise, but a life and a mode of existence; a life which nature can neither define nor teach. It is an existence rooted wholly in the beyond, though it must be realized in actual life. Christian truth is not and cannot be the subject of science, for it is not objective, but purely subjective. He does not deny the value of objective science; he admits its use and necessity in a real world, but he utterly discards any claims it may lay to the spiritual relations of the Christian—relations which are and can be only subjective, personal, and individual. Defined, his perception is this, "Subjectivity is the truth"—a doubtful proposition, and only true with regard to the One who could say about himself, "I am the truth." Rightly understood, it is the speculative principle of Protestantism; but wrongly conceived, it leads to a denial of the church idea. The main element of this philosophy would not have met with any determined opposition had Kierkegaard moderated his language. As it was he defiantly declared war against all speculation as a source of Christianity, and opposed those who seek to speculate on faith—as was the case in his day and before—thereby striving to get an insight into the truths of revelation. Speculation, he claimed, leads to a fall, and to a falsification of the truth."[109][118]The dramatist Henrik Ibsen became interested in Kierkegaard and introduced his work to the rest of Scandinavia.
Early 20th century reception
Brandes also introduced Friedrich Nietzsche to Europe in 1914 by writing a biography about him.[122]) Brandes opposed Kierkegaard's ideas.[123] He wrote elegantly about Christian doubt.I did not like Goldschmidt. He had dared to profane the great Sören Kierkegaard, had pilloried him for the benefit of a second-rate public. I disliked him on Kierkegaard's account. But I disliked him much more actively on my master, Professor Bröchner's account. Bröchner had an intense contempt for Goldschmidt; intellectually he thought him of no weight, as a man he thought him conceited, and consequently ridiculous. He had not the slightest perception of the literary artist in him. The valuable and unusual qualities of his descriptive talent he overlooked. But the ignorance Goldschmidt had sometimes shown about philosophy, and the incapacity he had displayed with regard to art, his change of political opinion, his sentimentality as a wit, all the weaknesses that one Danish critic had mercilessly dragged into the light, had inspired Bröchner with the strongest aversion to Goldschmidt. Add to this the personal collisions between the two men. George Brandes, Recollections of My Childhood and Youth (1906) p. 214
Hans Bröchner 1847 (1820-1875)
"But my doubt would not be overcome. Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both. I concluded there from that I had no consciousness of sin, and found this idea confirmed when I looked into my own heart. For however violently at this period I reproached myself and condemned my failings, they were always in my eyes weaknesses that ought to be combatted, or defects that could be remedied, never sins that necessitated forgiveness, and for the obtaining of this forgiveness, a Saviour. That God had died for me as my Saviour,—I could not understand what it meant; it was an idea that conveyed nothing to me. And I wondered whether the inhabitants of another planet would be able to understand how on the Earth that which was contrary to all reason was considered the highest truth."[109][124]
He also mentioned him extensively in volume 2 of his 6 volume work, Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature.[109]
During the 1890s, Japanese philosophers began disseminating the works of Kierkegaard, from the Danish thinkers.[126] Tetsuro Watsuji was one of the first philosophers outside of Scandinavia to write an introduction on his philosophy, in 1915."In Danish Romanticism there is none of Friedrich Schlegel's audacious immorality, but neither is there anything like that spirit of opposition which in him amounts to genius; his ardour melts, and his daring moulds into new and strange shapes, much that we accept as inalterable. Nor do the Danes become Catholic mystics. Protestant orthodoxy in its most petrified form flourishes with us: so do supernaturalism and pietism; and in Grundtvigianism we slide down the inclined plane which leads to Catholicism; but in this matter, as in every other, we never take the final step; we shrink back from the last consequences. The result is that the Danish reaction is far more insidious and covert than the German. Veiling itself as vice does, it clings to the altars of the Church, which have always been a sanctuary for criminals of every species. It is never possible to lay hold of it, to convince it then and there that its principles logically lead to intolerance, inquisition, and despotism. Kierkegaard, for example, is in religion orthodox, in politics a believer in absolutism, towards the close of his career a fanatic. Yet—and this is a genuinely Romantic trait—he all his life long avoids drawing any practical conclusions from his doctrines; one only catches an occasional glimpse of such a feeling as admiration for the Inquisition, or hatred of natural science.
- Main Currents in Nineteenth, Century Literature Vol. 2 Georg Brandes, 1906 Introduction p. 11
However, Kierkegaard does draw very essential conclusions from his understanding of Christianity. He didn't have any "doctrines" from which to draw conclusions. This is a sample of what he wrote about relationships. "Is it being in a relationship if one at every moment seems to begin all over to enter into the relationship; is it loving the person you see if you at every moment look at him, testing, as if it were the first time you saw him? If a person is to fulfill the duty in loving to love the people he sees, then he must not only find among actual people those he loves, but he must root out all equivocation and fastidiousness in loving them so that in earnestness and truth he loves them as they are and in earnestness and truth takes hold of the task: to find the once given or chosen object loveable. By this we do not mean to recommend a childish infatuation with the beloved's accidental characteristics, still less a misplaced sentimental indulgence. Far from it, the earnestness consists in this, that the relationship itself will with integrated power fight against the imperfection, overcome the defect, and remove the heterogeneity. This is earnestness; fastidiousness makes the relationship itself equivocal. ... You see the defect, but the fact that your relationship then becomes more inward shows that you love the person in whom you see the defect or the weakness or the imperfection. Just as there are hypocritical tears, a hypocritical sighing and complaining about the world, so also there is a hypocritical sorrow over the beloved's weaknesses and imperfections.... Although we human beings are all imperfect, we very rarely see the healthy, strong, capable love that is designed for loving the more imperfect persons, that is, the people we see."
- Soren Kierkegaard, Works of Love, Hong translation p. 166-167
We live forward, we understand backward, said a Danish writer; and to understand life by concepts is to arrest its movement, cutting it up into bits as if with scissors, and, immobilizing these in our logical herbarium where, comparing them as dried specimens, we can ascertain which of them statically includes or excludes which other. This treatment supposes life to have already accomplished itself, for the concepts, being so many views taken after the fact, are retrospective and post mortem. Nevertheless we can draw conclusions from them and project them into the future. We cannot learn from them how life made itself go, or how it will make itself go; but, on the supposition that its ways of making itself go are unchanging, we can calculate what positions of imagined arrest it will exhibit hereafter under given conditions. William James, A Pluralistic Universe, 1909, p. 244[128]Høffding had written it this way:
We understand only what has already taken place; knowledge comes after experience. We cognize towards the past-but we live towards the future. This opposition between the past and the future accounts for the tension of life and impresses us with the irrationality of being. The denial of the reality of time by abstract speculation is the thing that constitutes the thorn in the problem of knowledge. Harald Hoffding, A Brief History of Modern Philosophy. p. 202This is how Kierkegaard actually wrote in 1843 and how Morris Raphael Cohen used it in 1954 regarding David F. Swenson, who translated many of Kierkegaard's works in the first part of the twentieth century;
"It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards. Which principle, the more one thinks it through, ends exactly with the thought that temporal life can never properly be understood precisely because I can at no instant find complete rest in which to adopt a position: backwards." Soren Kierkegaard, Journals IV A 164 (1843)
Swenson's general outlook has been strongly influenced by the late 19th century Danish thinker, Kierkegaard, an original philosopher as well as a most interesting personality, little known in English-speaking countries but very popular in Germany. Uncertainty, unrest and risk are essential to human existence. From this insecurity arise fundamental beliefs that are genuinely personal, and that are not merely a matter of evidence but of adventurous assertion. We live forward but we think backward. The peace and knowledge brought by thought are continually imperiled by the dangers and novelties of sheer living. All the more does the “chief glory” of man's life lie in the sense of wonder and enthusiasm with which he faces the unknown. We literally stake our lives upon our belief in what future experience will be. Our very metaphysical assumptions, as well as the highest principles of reason are, after all, when applied, articles of faith. American Thought: A Critical Sketch, Morris Raphael Cohen, Felix S. Cohen editor, 1954 by the Free Press, First Transaction Printing 2009 p. 402[129]One thing James did have in common with Kierkegaard was respect for the single individual.
A crowd is indeed made up of single individuals; it must therefore be in everyone's power to become what he is, a single individual; no one is prevented from being a single individual, no one, unless he prevents himself by becoming many. To become a crowd, to gather a crowd around oneself, is on the contrary to distinguish life from life; even the most well-meaning one who talks about that, can easily offend a single individual. Soren Kierkegaard, On the Dedication to "That Single Individual"
Individuality outruns all classification, yet we insist on classifying every one we meet under some general label. As these heads usually suggest prejudicial associations to some hearer or other, the life of philosophy largely consists of resentments at the classing, and complaints of being misunderstood. But there are signs of clearing up for which both Oxford and Harvard are partly to be thanked. A Pluralistic Universe', William James, 1909 p. 3-4[130]William James' ideas were mentioned often by French psychologist Théodule-Armand Ribot, (1839-1916). Ribot wrote about memory, creative imagination, attention, the will, English and German psychology and sounded much like Kierkegaard in his book Essay on the Creative Imagination which was translated into English in 1906. Ribot wrote:
The Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics had an article about him in 1908. The article began:The imagination is subjective, personal, anthropocentric; its movement is from within outwards toward an objectification. The understanding, i.e., the intellect in the restricted sense, has opposite characteristics—it is objective, impersonal, receives from outside. For the creative imagination the inner world is the regulator; there is a preponderance of the inner over the outer. For the understanding, the outside world is the regulator; there is a preponderance of the outer over the inner. The world of my imagination is my world as opposed to the world of my understanding, which is the world of all my fellow creatures. On the other hand, as regards the will, we might repeat exactly, word for word, what we have just said of the imagination. This is unnecessary. Back of both, then, we have our true cause, whatever may be our opinion concerning the ultimate nature of causation and of will. Essay on Creative Imagination, p. 10[131]
Theodule-Armand Ribot
"The life of Søren Kierkegaard has but few points of contact with the external world; but there were, in particular, three occurrences—a broken engagement, an attack by a comic paper, and the use of a word by H. L. Martensen—which must be referred to as having wrought with extraordinary effect upon his peculiarly sensitive and high-strung nature. The intensity of his inner life, again—which finds expression in his published works, and even more directly in his notebooks and diaries (also published)—cannot be properly understood without some reference to his father."[109][132]
"Kierkegaard, the deep, melancholy, strenuous, utterly uncompromising Danish religionist, is a spiritual brother of the great Frenchman, Blaise Pascal, and of the striking English Tractarian, Hurrell Froude, who died young and still full of crudity, yet left an abiding mark upon all who knew him well. Kierkegaard is specially interesting in that he, otherwise a modern of the moderns, is as massively ontological in his religion as any ancient; and that the tension of his spiritual life arises, not from any doubt as to whether or what God is, but from the keenest certainty both that God is the very source and home of man's spirit, and, yet, is utterly unlike this human spirit. "What the conception of God, or of man's eternal beatitude, is to effect in man is that he shall remodel his entire existence according to it; but by this remodelling (sic) man dies to his entire immediacy. As the fish lies out of its element when left upon the sand, so is the religious man caught in his absolute conception of God; for such absoluteness is not directly the element of a finite being. No wonder, then, if, for the Jew, to see God meant death; and if, for the Heathen, to stand in relation to God portended madness. For if the conception of God is our one absolute help, it is also the sole conception capable of absolutely showing to man his utter helplessness" ("Final Unscientific Postscript to the ' Philosophical Crumbs,' " chap. iv. " How can an Eternal Beatitude be based upon an Historical Knowledge?" German translation of the Gesammelte Werke, Jena, 1910, vol. vii. pp. 170, 171)[133]Theodor Haecker wrote an essay titled, Kierkegaard and the Philosophy of Inwardness in 1913 and David F. Swenson wrote a biography of Søren Kierkegaard in 1920.[109] Lee M. Hollander translated parts of Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Stages on Life's Way, and Preparations for the Christian Life (Practice in Christianity) into English in 1923,[134] with little impact. Swenson wrote about Kierkegaard's idea of "armed neutrality"[135] in 1918 and a lengthy article about Soren Kierkegaard in 1920.
A TRUE judgment and a false judgment have the same logical structure. This is of itself sufficient to show that an analysis of the forms of knowledge has no ontological significance. The nature of knowledge is the same, whatever may turn out to be the nature of the world. This position is one of armed neutrality, and
stands ready to defend itself against both pragmatism and intellectualism. Sixteen Logical Aphorisms The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods[136]
It would be interesting to speculate upon the reputation that Kierkegaard might have attained, and the extent of the influence he might have exerted, if he had written in one of the major European languages, instead of in the tongue of one of the smallest countries in the world."[137]
German and English translators of Kierkegaard's works
Hermann Gottsche published Kierkegaard's Journals in 1905. It had taken academics 50 years to arrange his journals.[138] Kierkegaard's main works were translated into German by Christoph Schrempf from 1909 onwards.[139] Emmanuel Hirsch released a German edition of Kierkegaard's collected works from 1950 onwards.[139] Both Harald Hoffding's and Schrempf's books about Kierkegaard were reviewed in 1892.There are two volumes from the pen of H. Hoffding, both of which are to be praised on account of the fresh and rich language and the clear, incisive exposition. They treat of Soren Kierkegaard, the poet-philosopher of melancholy, of abrupt transitions, of paradoxes, the preacher of the ‘true’ Christianity, full of suffering, and to which the world is a stranger; and Rousseau, the herald of humanity, good as it is by nature, the despiser of men, bad, artificial, and over refined as culture had made them. In both these men, the dependence of philosophical thinking upon the individual personality and experience of the thinker is strongly marked. An understanding of either one, therefore, must be based upon an analysis of his personality; and the historian must above all things-as is the case with Hoffding in a high degree-possess psychological insight and the ability to enter into another's personality and to feel and think from his standpoint. But it is just this which makes the subjectivity of the historian paramount, and thereby increases the probability of contradiction. That which is to one psychologically possible, or seems absolutely necessary, is unthinkable to another on account of his mental peculiarity. Thus, for instance, Chr. Schrempf, takes an entirely different standpoint in regard to Kierkegaard. He thinks that, if one regards him only from the point of view which Hoffding adopts, the great Dane can neither be rightly understood nor appreciated. Schremph-in opposition to Hoffding-agrees with Kierkegaard in the position that melancholy, ‘dread’ of oneself, of the world, and of God is the dominating frame of mind of every man who has become intensively conscious of himself. I, for my part, must take exception to the characterization of Rousseau. The pathological element in him is much too little emphasized. Kierkegaard may have been more strongly encumbered in a certain sense by the influence of heredity, still he possesses what Rousseau completely lacks, namely, a great strength of will and a strong power of concentration. The Philosophical Review, Volume I, Ginn and Company 1892 p. 282-283[140]In the 1930s, the first academic English translations,[141] by Alexander Dru, David F. Swenson, Douglas V. Steere, and Walter Lowrie appeared, under the editorial efforts of Oxford University Press editor Charles Williams, one of the members of the Inklings.[2][142] Thomas Henry Croxall, another early translator, Lowrie, and Dru all hoped that people would not just read about Kierkegaard but would actually read his works.[143] Dru published an English translation of Kierkegaard's Journals in 1958;[144] Alastair Hannay translated some of Kierkegaard's works.[52] From the 1960s to the 1990s, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong translated his works more than once.[145][146] The first volume of their first version of the Journals and Papers (Indiana, 1967–1978) won the 1968 U.S. National Book Award in category Translation.[145][147] They both dedicated their lives to the study of Soren Kierkegaard and his works, which are maintained at the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library.
Later 20th century reception
In 1964 Life Magazine traced the history of existentialism from Heraclitus (500BC) and Parmenides over the argument over The Unchanging One as the real and the state of flux as the real. From there to the Old Testament Psalms and then to Jesus and later from Jacob Boehme (1575-1624) to Rene Descartes (1596-1650) and Blaise Pascal (1623-1662) and then on to Nietzsche and Paul Tillich. Dostoevski and Camus are attempts to rewrite Descartes according to their own lights and Descartes is the forefather of Sartre through the fact that they both used a “literary style.” The article goes on to say,But the orthodox, textbook precursor of modern existentialism was the Danish theologian Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), a lonely, hunchbacked writer who denounced the established church and rejected much of the then-popular German idealism – in which though and ideas, rather than things perceived through the through the senses, were held to constitute reality. He built a philosophy based in part on the idea of permanent cleavage between faith and reason. This was an existentialism which still had room for a God whom Sartre later expelled, but which started the great pendulum-swing toward the modern concepts of the absurd. Kierkegaard spent his life thinking existentially and converting remarkably few to his ideas. But when it comes to the absurdity of existence, war is a great convincer; and it was at the end of World War I that two German philosophers, Karl Jaspers and Martin Heidegger, took up Kierkegaard’s ideas, elaborated and systematized them. By the 1930s Kierkegaard’s thinking made new impact on French intellectuals who, like Sartre, were nauseated by the static pre-Munich hypocrisy of the European middle class. After World War II, with the human condition more precarious than ever, with humanity facing the mushroom-shaped ultimate absurdity, existentialism and our time came together in Jean-Paul Sartre.Kierkegaard's comparatively early and manifold philosophical and theological reception in Germany was one of the decisive factors of expanding his works' influence and readership throughout the world.[148][149] Important for the first phase of his reception in Germany was the establishment of the journal Zwischen den Zeiten (Between the Ages) in 1922 by a heterogeneous circle of Protestant theologians: Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Rudolf Bultmann and Friedrich Gogarten.[150] Their thought would soon be referred to as dialectical theology.[150] At roughly the same time, Kierkegaard was discovered by several proponents of the Jewish-Christian philosophy of dialogue in Germany, namely by Martin Buber, Ferdinand Ebner, and Franz Rosenzweig.[151] In addition to the philosophy of dialogue, existential philosophy has its point of origin in Kierkegaard and his concept of individuality.[152] Martin Heidegger sparsely refers to Kierkegaard in Being and Time (1927),[153] obscuring how much he owes to him.[154][155][156] In 1935, Karl Jaspers emphasized Kierkegaard's (and Nietzsche's) continuing importance for modern philosophy.[157] Walter Kaufmann discussed Sartre, Jaspers, and Heidegger in relation to Kierkegaard, and Kierkegaard in relation to the crisis of religion.[158]
- Existentialism, Life, November 6, 1964, Volume 57, No. 19 ISSN 0024-3019 Published by Time Inc. P. 102-103, begins on page 86
Kierkegaard’s Influence on Karl Barth’s Early Theology
Kierkegaard’s influence on Karl Barth’s early theology is evident in The Epistle to the Romans. The early Barth read at least three volumes of Kierkegaard’s works: Practice in Christianity, The Moment, and an Anthology from his journals and diaries. Almost all key terms from Kierkegaard which had an important role in The Epistle to the Romans can be found in Practice in Christianity. The concept of the indirect communication, the paradox, and the moment of Practice in Christianity, in particular, confirmed and sharpened Barth’s ideas on contemporary Christianity and the Christian life.Kierkegaard and the early Barth think that in Christianity, direct communication is impossible because Christ appears incognito. For them Christ is a paradox, and therefore one can know him only in indirect communication. They are fully aware of the importance of the moment when the human being stands before God, and is moved by him alone from time to eternity, from the earth to which (s)he belongs to the heaven where God exists.
Barth endorses the main theme from Kierkegaard but also reorganizes the scheme and transforms the details. Barth expands the theory of indirect communication to the field of Christian ethics; he applies the concept of unrecognizability to the Christian life. He coins the concept of the “paradox of faith” since the form of faith entails a contradictory encounter of God and human beings. He also portrayed the contemporaneity of the moment when in crisis a human being desperately perceives the contemporaneity of Christ. In regard to the concept of indirect communication, the paradox, and the moment, the Kierkegaard of the early Barth is a productive catalyst.[159]
Philosophy and theology
Main article: Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard
Kierkegaard has been called a philosopher, a theologian,[160] the Father of Existentialism, both atheistic and theistic variations,[161] a literary critic,[91] a social theorist,[162] a humorist,[163] a psychologist,[11] and a poet.[164] Two of his influential ideas are "subjectivity",[165] and the notion popularly referred to as "leap of faith".[2]
However, the Danish equivalent to the English phrase "leap of faith"
does not appear in the original Danish nor is the English phrase found
in current English translations of Kierkegaard's works. Kierkegaard does
mention the concepts of "faith" and "leap" together many times in his
works.[166]
Kierkegaard also stresses the importance of the self, and the self's relation to the world, as being grounded in self-reflection and introspection. He argued in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments that "subjectivity is truth" and "truth is subjectivity." This has to do with a distinction between what is objectively true and an individual's subjective relation (such as indifference or commitment) to that truth. People who in some sense believe the same things may relate to those beliefs quite differently. Two individuals may both believe that many of those around them are poor and deserve help, but this knowledge may lead only one of them to decide to actually help the poor.[170] This is how Kierkegaard put it:
What a priceless invention statistics are, what a glorious fruit of culture, what a characteristic counterpart to the de te narratur fabula [the tale is told to you] of antiquity. Schleiermacher so enthusiastically declares that knowledge does not perturb religiousness, and that the religious person does not sit safeguarded by a lightning rod and scoff at God; yet with the help of statistical tables one laughs at all of life. And just as Archimedes was absorbed in his calculations and did not notice that he was being put to death, so, in my opinion, Börne is absorbed in collecting statistics and does not notice-but what am I saying! Oh, a person who is far from being as sensitive as B. will surely discover when life becomes too difficult for him, but as long as a person is himself saved from misfortune (for B. surely can easily save himself from sin by means of a non-Socratic ignorance) he certainly owes it to his good living to have means with which to keep horror away. After all, a person can shut the door on the poor, and if someone should starve to death, then he can just look at a collection of statistical tables, see how many die every year of hunger-and he is comforted.
- Soren Kierkegaard, Stages on Life's Way (1845) p. 479–480 and Either/Or Part I, p. 5 Swenson
Since I am not totally unfamiliar with what has been said and written about Christianity, I could presumably say a thing or two about it. I shall, however, not do so here but merely repeat that there is one thing I shall beware of saying about it: that it is true to a certain degree. It is indeed just possible that Christianity is the truth; it is indeed just possible that someday there will be a judgment in which the separation will hinge on the relation of inwardness to Christianity. Suppose that someone stepped forward who had to say, "Admittedly I have not believed, but I have so honored Christianity that I have spent every hour of my life pondering it." Or suppose that someone came forward of whom the accuser has to say, "He has persecuted the Christians," and the accused one responded, "Yes, I acknowledge it; Christianity has so inflamed my soul that, simply because I realized its terrible power, I have wanted nothing else than to root it out of the world." Or suppose that someone came forward of whom the accuser had to say, "He has renounced Christianity," and the accused one responded, "Yes, it is true, for I perceived that Christianity was such a power that if I gave it one finger it would take all of me, and I could not belong to it completely." But suppose now, that eventually an active assistant professor came along at a hurried and bustling pace and said something like this, "I am not like those three; I have not only believed but have even explained Christianity and have shown that what was proclaimed by the apostles and appropriated in the first centuries is true only to a certain degree. On the other hand, through speculative understanding I have shown how it is the true truth, and for that reason I must request suitable remuneration for my meritorious services to Christianity. Of these four, which position would be the most terrible?In other words he says:
- Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments Vol. I (1846) p. 231–232
"Who has the more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a meteor's distance from everyday life-or the learner who should put it to use?" Kierkegaard, Soren. Works of Love. Harper & Row, Publishers. New York, N.Y. 1962. p. 62Kierkegaard primarily discusses subjectivity with regard to religious matters. As already noted, he argues that doubt is an element of faith and that it is impossible to gain any objective certainty about religious doctrines such as the existence of God or the life of Christ. The most one could hope for would be the conclusion that it is probable that the Christian doctrines are true, but if a person were to believe such doctrines only to the degree they seemed likely to be true, he or she would not be genuinely religious at all. Faith consists in a subjective relation of absolute commitment to these doctrines.[171]
Philosophical criticism
Kierkegaard's famous philosophical 20th century critics include Theodor Adorno and Emmanuel Levinas. Atheistic philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger supported many aspects of Kierkegaard's philosophical views, but rejected some of his religious views.[172][173]One critic wrote that Adorno's book Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic is "the most irresponsible book ever written on Kierkegaard"[174] because Adorno takes Kierkegaard's pseudonyms literally, and constructs a philosophy which makes him seem incoherent and unintelligible. Another reviewer says that "Adorno is [far away] from the more credible translations and interpretations of the Collected Works of Kierkegaard we have today."[81]
Levinas' main attack on Kierkegaard focused on his ethical and religious stages, especially in Fear and Trembling. Levinas criticises the leap of faith by saying this suspension of the ethical and leap into the religious is a type of violence. He states:
"Kierkegaardian violence begins when existence is forced to abandon the ethical stage in order to embark on the religious stage, the domain of belief. But belief no longer sought external justification. Even internally, it combined communication and isolation, and hence violence and passion. That is the origin of the relegation of ethical phenomena to secondary status and the contempt of the ethical foundation of being which has led, through Nietzsche, to the amoralism of recent philosophies."[175]Levinas pointed to the Judeo-Christian belief that it was God who first commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and that an angel commanded Abraham to stop. If Abraham were truly in the religious realm, he would not have listened to the angel's command and should have continued to kill Isaac. To Levinas, "transcending ethics" seems like a loophole to excuse would-be murderers from their crime and thus is unacceptable.[176] One interesting consequence of Levinas' critique is that it seemed to reveal that Levinas viewed God as a projection of inner ethical desire rather than an absolute moral agent.[177] However, one of Kierkegaard's central points in Fear and Trembling was that the religious sphere entails the ethical sphere; Abraham had faith that God is always in one way or another ethically in the right, even when He commands someone to kill. Therefore, deep down, Abraham had faith that God, as an absolute moral authority, would never allow him in the end to do something as ethically heinous as murdering his own child, and so he passed the test of blind obedience versus moral choice.
Sartre objected to the existence of God: If existence precedes essence, it follows from the meaning of the term sentient that a sentient being cannot be complete or perfect. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre's phrasing is that God would be a pour-soi (a being-for-itself; a consciousness) who is also an en-soi (a being-in-itself; a thing) which is a contradiction in terms.[172][178] Critics of Sartre rebutted this objection by stating that it rests on a false dichotomy and a misunderstanding of the traditional Christian view of God.[179]
Sartre agreed with Kierkegaard's analysis of Abraham undergoing anxiety (Sartre calls it anguish), but claimed that God told Abraham to do it. In his lecture, Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre wondered whether Abraham ought to have doubted whether God actually spoke to him.[172] In Kierkegaard's view, Abraham's certainty had its origin in that 'inner voice' which cannot be demonstrated or shown to another ("The problem comes as soon as Abraham wants to be understood").[180] To Kierkegaard, every external "proof" or justification is merely on the outside and external to the subject.[181] Kierkegaard's proof for the immortality of the soul, for example, is rooted in the extent to which one wishes to live forever.[182]
Influence
Main article: Influence and reception of Søren Kierkegaard
Philosophers and theologians influenced by Kierkegaard include Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Barth, Simone de Beauvoir, Niels Bohr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Emil Brunner, Martin Buber, Rudolf Bultmann, Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Reinhold Niebuhr, Franz Rosenzweig, Jean-Paul Sartre, Joseph Soloveitchik, Paul Tillich, Northrop Frye, Malcolm Muggeridge, Thomas Merton, Miguel de Unamuno.[185] Paul Feyerabend's epistemological anarchism in the philosophy of science was inspired by Kierkegaard's idea of subjectivity as truth. Ludwig Wittgenstein was immensely influenced and humbled by Kierkegaard,[186] claiming that "Kierkegaard is far too deep for me, anyhow. He bewilders me without working the good effects which he would in deeper souls".[186] Karl Popper referred to Kierkegaard as "the great reformer of Christian ethics, who exposed the official Christian morality of his day as anti-Christian and anti-humanitarian hypocrisy".[187]
"The comparison between Nietzsche and Kierkegaard that has become customary, but is no less questionable for that reason, fails to recognize, and indeed out of a misunderstanding of the essence of thinking, that Nietzsche as a metaphysical thinker preserves a closeness to Aristotle. Kierkegaard remains essentially remote from Aristotle, although he mentions him more often. For Kierkegaard is not a thinker but a religious writer, and indeed not just one among others, but the only one in accord with the destining belonging to his age. Therein lies his greatness, if to speak in this way is not already a misunderstanding." Heidegger: Nietzsche's Word, "God is Dead." 1950 p. 94
Dear reader! Kierkegaard might say; pray be so good as to look for my thinking in these pages-not for Nietzsche's, Barth's, or Heidegger's, De Tocqueville's, or anyone else's. And least of all, dear reader, fancy that if you should find that a few others have said, too, what I have said, that makes it true. Oh, least of all suppose that numbers can create some small presumption of the truth of an idea. What I would have you ask, dear reader, is not whether I am in good company: to be candid, I should have much preferred to stand alone, as a matter of principle; and besides I do not like the men whom the kissing Judases insist on lumping me. Rather ask yourself if I am right. And if I am not, then for heaven's sake do not pretend that I am, emphasizing a few points that are reasonable, even if not central to my thought, while glossing over those ideas which you do not like, or which, in retrospect, are plainly wrong, although I chose to take my stand on them. Do not forget, dear reader, that I made a point of taking for my motto (in my Philosophical Scraps): 'Better well hung than ill wed!'
- Walter Kaufmann Introduction to The Present Age, Soren Kierkegaard, Dru 1940, 1962 p. 18-19
Hamann’s greatest importance lies in the field of philosophy. If one were to summarize, as briefly as possible, his greatest achievement in this area, it would have to be manner he surmounts the difficulty posed by the subject-object dualism –a problem which has plagued most Western philosophy since Descartes. For whenever a metaphysical status is assigned to these categories, one immediately faces certain strictly limited choices: like a Spinoza or a Hegel, one may hold that objectivity alone is ultimately real, or, like Kierkegaard, one may reverse that position and hold that subjectivity alone possesses ultimate validity. Or again, like a Leibniz, one may have recourse to the only possible remaining solution, namely, the idea of a pre-established harmony between the two. To be sure, various compromises between these logical extremes are possible, but such compromises always occur at the expense of basic consistency. Hamann’s Socratic Memorabilia, James C. O’Flaherty, 1967 P. 45Contemporary philosophers such as Emmanuel Lévinas, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Jürgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Richard Rorty, although sometimes highly critical, have also adapted some Kierkegaardian insights.[188][189][190] Hilary Putnam admires Kierkegaard, "for his insistence on the priority of the question, 'How should I live?'".[191]
Kierkegaard has also had a considerable influence on 20th-century literature. Figures deeply influenced by his work include W. H. Auden, Jorge Luis Borges, Don DeLillo, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka,[192] David Lodge, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Rainer Maria Rilke, J.D. Salinger and John Updike.[193] What George Henry Price wrote in his 1963 book The Narrow Pass regarding the "who" and the "what" of Kierkegaard still seems to hold true today. But Kierkegaard was always interested in the "how" The how of a Christian, the how to not commit suicide, the how not to go insane, the how to live a happy life and an ethical life rather than a depressed life.
"Kierkegaard was the sanest man of his generation....Kierkegaard was a schizophrenic....Kierkegaard was the greatest Dane....the difficult Dane....the gloomy Dane...Kierkegaard was the greatest Christian of the century....Kierkegaard's aim was the destruction of the historic Christian faith....He did not attack philosophy as such....He negated reason....He was a voluntarist....Kierkegaard was the Knight of Faith....Kierkegaard never found faith....Kierkegaard possessed the truth....Kierkegaard was one of the damned."[194]Kierkegaard had a profound influence on psychology. He is widely regarded as the founder of Christian psychology and of existential psychology and therapy.[11] Existentialist (often called "humanistic") psychologists and therapists include Ludwig Binswanger, Viktor Frankl, Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May. May based his The Meaning of Anxiety on Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety. Kierkegaard's sociological work Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age critiques modernity.[91] Ernest Becker based his 1974 Pulitzer Prize book, The Denial of Death, on the writings of Kierkegaard, Freud and Otto Rank. Kierkegaard is also seen as an important precursor of postmodernism.[188] In popular culture, he was the subject of serious television and radio programmes; in 1984, a six-part documentary Sea of Faith: Television series presented by Don Cupitt featured an episode on Kierkegaard, while on Maundy Thursday in 2008, Kierkegaard was the subject of discussion of the BBC Radio 4 programme presented by Melvyn Bragg, In Our Time. Google honoured him with a Google Doodle on his 200th anniversary.[195]
Kierkegaard is considered by some modern theologians to be the "Father of Existentialism."[196] Because of his influence and in spite of it, others only consider either Martin Heidegger or Jean-Paul Sartre to be the actual "Father of Existentialism."[197][198]
Kierkegaard predicted his posthumous fame, and foresaw that his work would become the subject of intense study and research. In his journals, he wrote:
"What the age needs is not a genius—it has had geniuses enough, but a martyr, who in order to teach men to obey would himself be obedient unto death. What the age needs is awakening. And therefore someday, not only my writings but my whole life, all the intriguing mystery of the machine will be studied and studied. I never forget how God helps me and it is therefore my last wish that everything may be to his honour."[199]In 1784 Immanuel Kant challenged the thinkers of Europe to think for themselves.[200]
"Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult. Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts."In 1851 Arthur Schopenhauer said the same as Kierkegaard had said about the reading public in Either/Or Part I and Prefaces.
"I have the courage, I believe, to doubt everything; I have the courage, I believe, to fight with everything; but I have not the courage to know anything; not the courage to possess, to own anything. Most people complain that the world is so prosaic, that life is not like romance, where opportunities are always so favorable. I complain that life is not like romance, where one had hard-hearted parents and nixies and trolls to fight, and enchanted princesses to free. What are all such enemies taken together, compared with the pale, bloodless, tenacious, nocturnal shapes with which I fight, and to whom I give life and substance?" Either/Or I, Swenson p. 23
It is incredible what a different effect is produced upon the mind by thinking for oneself, as compared with reading. It carries on and intensifies that original difference in the nature of two minds which leads the one to think and the other to read. What I mean is that reading forces alien thoughts upon the mind—thoughts which are as foreign to the drift and temper in which it may be for the moment, as the seal is to the wax on which it stamps its imprint. The mind is thus entirely under compulsion from without; it is driven to think this or that, though for the moment it may not have the slightest impulse or inclination to do so. Arthur Schopenhauer, On Thinking for Oneself[201]In 1854 Søren Kierkegaard wrote a note to "My Reader" of a similar nature.
"When a man ventures out so decisively as I have done, and upon a subject moreover which affects so profoundly the whole of life as does religion, it is to be expected of course that everything will be done to counteract his influence, also by misrepresenting, falsifying what he says, and at the same time his character will in every way be at the mercy of men who count that they have no duty towards him but that everything is allowable. Now, as things commonly go in this world, the person attacked usually gets busy at once to deal with every accusation, every falsification, every unfair statement, and in this way is occupied early and late in counterattacking the attack. This I have no intention of doing. ... I propose to deal with the matter differently, I propose to go rather more slowly in counteracting all this falsification and misrepresentation, all these lies and slanders, all the prate and twaddle. Partly because I learn from the New Testament that the occurrence of such things is a sign that one is on the right road, so that obviously I ought not to be exactly in a hurry to get rid of it, unless I wish as soon as possible to get on the wrong road. And partly because I learn from the New Testament that what may temporally be called a vexation, from which according to temporal concepts one might try to be delivered, is eternally of value, so that obviously I ought not to be exactly in a hurry to try to escape, if I do not wish to hoax myself with regard to the eternal. This is the way I understand it; and now I come to the consequence which ensues for thee. If thou really has ever had an idea that I am in the service of something true—well then, occasionally there shall be done on my part what is necessary, but only what is strictly necessary to thee, in order that , if thou wilt exert thyself and pay due attention, thou shalt be able to withstand the falsifications and misrepresentations of what I say, and all the attacks upon my character—but thy indolence, dear reader, I will not encourage. If thou does imagine that I am a lackey, thou hast never been my reader; if thou really art my reader, thou wilt understand that I regard it as my duty to thee that thou art put to some effort, if thou art not willing to have the falsifications and misrepresentations, the lies and slanders, wrest from thee the idea that I am in the service of something true."[202]
Soren Kierkegaard by Luplau Janssen 1902
Selected bibliography
For a complete bibliography, see Søren Kierkegaard bibliography.
See also: List of works about Søren Kierkegaard
- (1841) On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (Om Begrebet Ironi med stadigt Hensyn til Socrates)
- (1843) Either/Or (Enten-Eller)
- (1843) Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 (To opbyggelige Taler)
- (1843) Fear and Trembling (Frygt og Bæven)
- (1843) Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 (Tre opbyggelige Taler)
- (1843) Repetition (Gjentagelsen)
- (1843) Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 (Fire opbyggelige Taler)
- (1844) Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 (To opbyggelige Taler)
- (1844) Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 (Tre opbyggelige Taler)
- (1844) Philosophical Fragments (Philosophiske Smuler)
- (1844) The Concept of Anxiety (Begrebet Angest)
- (1844) Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 (Fire opbyggelige Taler)
- (1845) Stages on Life's Way (Stadier paa Livets Vei)
- (1846) Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift)
- (1847) Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits (Opbyggelige Taler i forskjellig Aand), which included Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing
- (1847) Works of Love (Kjerlighedens Gjerninger)
- (1848) Christian Discourses (Christelige Taler)
- (1848, published 1859) The Point of View of My Work as an Author "as good as finished" (IX A 293) ((Synspunktet for min Forfatter-Virksomhed. En ligefrem Meddelelse, Rapport til Historien))
- (1849) The Sickness Unto Death (Sygdommen til Døden)
- (1849) Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays (("Ypperstepræsten" – "Tolderen" – "Synderinden", tre Taler ved Altergangen om Fredagen))
- (1850) Practice in Christianity (Indøvelse i Christendom)
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