Søren Kierkegaard – Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity.
Discussion question for Lecture 1: Usually when we are stumped or cannot find the answer to something, this is considered a bad thing. How can the negative situation or the state of aporia be regarded as something positive?
What is aporia?
Aporia, as described by The Collins English Dictionary means; (in rhetoric) a doubt, real or professed, about what to do or say, and (in philosophy) puzzlement occasioned by the raising of philosophical objections without any proffered solutions, esp. in the works of Socrates. Word origin: from Greek, literally: a state of being at a loss.
Professor Stewart defines ‘aporia’ as: ‘a Greek word, which means simply, being at a loss, or, being unable to answer… and in Plato’s dialog ‘Euthyphro’ concerning a definition of piety ‘the dialog itself ends in aporia, since no definition of piety is ever agreed to.’ (Lecture 1:2)
“Meno: Socrates, I certainly used to hear, even before meeting you, that you never did anything else than exist in a state of perplexity (aporia) yourself and put others in a state of perplexity. And now you seem to be bewitching me and drugging me and simply subduing me with incantations, so that I come to be full of perplexity… “ (Plato’s Meno 79e-80b. Berns and Anastaplo, Focus Philosophical Library, 2004)
Aporia is that state of being in which one realizes that nothing can be reduced to a simple formula or description. One might even say that ‘aporia’ itself is beyond definition. The complexities of life continue to baffle many, although numerous people claim insight, wisdom and answers to difficult questions – on closer and more critical analysis even they themselves crumble and eventually espouse defeat at the greater depths.
Peer Review Question. Maximum 2000 words.
What did Kierkegaard learn from his study of Socrates? Why is this connection between Socrates and Kierkegaard still relevant in the world today?
Kierkegaard
Introduction.
Many view Kierkegaard as an aberration, a disjointed link in the history and development of philosophy. As well as being awarded the title ‘Father of Existentialism’ (McDonald, 2012) he is not only regarded as a primitive psychologist but actually insane – using himself as a subject for experiments in which he is finally transformed in to a ‘groteque monster’ (Blucher, 1952). However, in order to understand the apparent contradictions, conflicts and ultimately paradoxical nature of Kierkegaard, his personality, life and work, he must be viewed in the context of his age. Kierkegaard was one that was immersed in specific time and space, not an abstract thinker, and though he preferred a self-imposed isolation in the latter half of his short life – to the end he was an active participant in the debates and issues that revolved around his native city of Copenhagen and the greater philosophical questions that occupied many European thinkers of that time. Obviously Kierkegaard was a major influence on subsequent schools of thought, particularly existentialists such as Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche (1844-1900), Jean Paul Sartre (1905-1980) and Albert Camus (1913-1960), as well as a host of artists and writers, but is Kierkegaard still relevant today? Kierkegaard still attracts a wide and diverse range of views and opinions, Dr. Edmund Phelps, professor of Political Economy at Columbia University claims that he was the ‘first philosopher of the modern economy,’ whilst others, accepting his critique of the ‘present age’ point out a defect in any recognizable political agenda, offering only a religious ‘balm’ to the general malaise (Conway, 2002). Indeed, Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951) proclaims him, not only the most profound thinker of the 19th century, but also a ‘saint’ (Fremstedal, 2006). But somehow we are still baffled when reading his works, and our question is; Is Kierkegaard still relevant to us as individuals and a society today, and in what practical way?
Context
Kierkegaard was the product of a peculiar age of transforming and often conflicting social dynamics, though he exhibited an individualistic perspective and aspired to prophetic vision (Davidson, 1966). In the midst of turmoil, social, political and intellectual unrest, I propose that he took a radical step backward, and reinvented archaic wisdom to reassess the ‘present dilemma’ and create a message that remains meaningful to us today. The term ‘modern’ with specific observation and reference to the radical changing and fluctuating transitions in society may arguably be first ascribed to the French poet Charles Baudelaire (1821-1867), who in 1846, in ‘On the Heroism of Modern Life.’ Baudelaire speaks of a ‘new heroism’ emerging from the death of an ancient tradition.
Whilst Baudelaire clearly evokes romanticism as an ideal, he is also pointing toward a more radical vision, albeit aesthetic; that the ancient concept of beauty be transformed into a new, modern and contemporary form that is both heroic and bold. We see a similar effort on the part of Kierkegaard as a ‘modern hero’ that accepts the ‘challenge’ – the struggle to apply classical philosophy to the ‘present age’ – amidst social, political, intellectual and cultural conflict, and prepare the ground for a new vision. The ‘aesthetic’ agenda of Romanticism whilst in opposition to the rationalism of the continuous unfolding of Enlightenment, since Rene Descartes (1596-1650), shares a curious bravado and courage that is epitomized by Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) in his 1784 slogan ‘Sapere Aude!’ (dare to know!) Within the context of a rapidly developing scientific era of reason, the power of man over nature, the emergence of the Industrial Revolution, on the verge of the social up-rest of the French Revolution and dissolution of absolute monarchism, and on the chaotic cusp of the Napoleonic Wars that would divide Europe – Kant proffers a challenge that is has a wholly religious target, that rejects the prominent ecclesiastical authority, and invites independent reasoning.
In the midst of social upheaval, turmoil and difference there were attempts to coordinate and direct the diversity of arising perspectives. In ‘The Critique of Pure Reason’ (1781), Kant attempted to synthesize pure rationalism and empiricism. Thereafter Georg Hegel (1770-1831) proposed a system of Absolute Idealism or absolute knowledge, that would somehow account for everything in his ‘Phenomenology of Spirit’ (1807) to avoid contradictions, oppositions and provide a link between the immanent and the transcendent. However, Hegel is more renowned for his dialectic process of reasoning in triad form; ‘Thesis, antithesis and synthesis.’
Keirkegaard, like many of his contemporaries was the product of a classical education, living in a transitional age and ultimately faced with the social crises of the time. His early training at ‘The School of Civic Virtue’ from 1821 to 1830 immersed him in the study of the ancient literary world of Latin, Greek and Hebrew, to the detriment of his native Danish language (Garff, 2005). the works of Homer, Herodotus, Plato, the Bible (specifically Genesis, Exodus and the Gospel of John). It was perhaps here, in his extended readings of the Euthyphro, Apology and the Crito, and especially the ‘Memorabilia’ of Xenophon, that the young Kierkegaard first became acquainted with the figure of Socrates (Stewart, 2014). In combination with a home life dominated by the Lutheran theology of his father, perhaps to an extreme, and in combination with his increasing interest in and devotion to Socrates and the Greek philosophical tradition, the question arises as to why a modern Christian writer would turn to an ancient, Greek Pagan philosopher (like Socrates) to understand contemporary problems and issues? We find the reply much later, with Kierkegaard saying in ‘My Point of View’ (1848):
“… I calmly stick to Socrates… he was a dialectician and understood everything in reflection… formally I can very well call Socrates my teacher – whereas I have believed and believe in only one, the Lord Jesus Christ…”
Paradoxically, and ironically it was only at the end of his life, in 1855 that Kierkegaard came to definitively enunciate his mission, to prevent any confusion. Of Kierkegaard’s opponents, the principal was the Lutheran State Church of Denmark. Perhaps it was, in this his struggle between the ‘official’ church and the concept of ‘original and authentic Christianity’ that Kierkegaard envisaged himself as some sort of martyr (Garff, 2005); in this ‘Attack Upon Christendom’ he states:
“The only analogy I have before me is Socrates. My task is a Socratic task, to revise the definition of what it is to be a Christian…”
My/The Task
What was the task? Kierkegaard defines his task as one of coming to understand himself, his identity – not merely objective knowledge, but a deeper meaning of truth. Kierkegaard evokes the Socratic dictum ‘Know Thyself’ as a means of realizing the self.
“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… something which is bound up with the deepest roots+ of my existence [Existents], through which I am, so to speak, grafted into the divine, to which I cling fast even though the whole world may collapse. This is what I need, and this is what I strive for… On must first learn to know himself before knowing anything else (γνωθι ρεαυτòν)…” - Journal entry, Gilleleie (1 August 1835) Journals 1A
In 1830 Kierkegaard was admitted to the University of Copenhagen. His principal teachers were; F.C. Sibbern, Poul Martin Moller, and H. L. Martensen. Of especial importance in his study were the philosophical (dialogues) writings of Plato, and through exposure to these, the developing a particular passion for Socrates that formed the basis for his Master’s Degree thesis ‘The Concept of Irony.’
Kierkegaard’s thesis exhibits not only a perceptive appreciation for Socrates and his implementation of irony is his investigative method, but also considers the relationships with the philosophical issues of his time. The thesis consists of two parts: Part One discusses the position of Socrates viewed as irony, as expressed through the works of Xenophon (The memorabilia), Plato (in the Symposium, Protagoras, Phaedo, Apology and The Republic) and Aristophanes (The Clouds), and ultimately contrasting his understanding of Socrates with that of the German philosopher Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831).
In Part Two ‘The Concept of Irony’ Kierkegaard applies the modern manifestation of irony to the contemporary German Romantic movement, addressing particularly Hegel (again) Johan Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814), Friedrich von Schlegel (1772-1829), and Johan Ferdinand Solger (1780-1819).
Kierkegaard intentionally gave the work an idiosyncratic, ‘witty’ tone (Journals, III B 3). He identifies two types of irony; rapid and integral, the other demanding and arrogant. Kierkegaard does not define irony itself, but in connection with and relationship to dialectic; irony that stimulates thought then , that activates to a goal,
1) An irony that is only a stimulus for thought - a dialectic that in perpetual movement continually sees to it that the question does not become entrapped in an incidental understanding - mythical
2) An irony that is itself the activator and in turn is itself the terminus striven for - a dialectic that, proceeding from the most abstract ideas, wants to let these display themselves in more concrete qualifications – metaphorical
irony [is] the infinite absolute negativity… Irony is a qualification of subjectivity… Irony is, namely, the first and most abstract qualification of subjectivity….
what doubt is to science, irony is to personal life… no genuinely human life is possible without irony…
“Irony is an existential determination, and nothing is more ridiculous than to suppose that it consists in the use of certain phraseology, or when an author congratulates himself upon succeeding in expressing himself ironically. Whoever has essential irony has it all day long, not bound to any specific form, because it is the infinite within him…” Kierkegaard –CUP – p, 276
“If our generation has any task at all, it must be to translate the achievement of scientific scholarship into personal life, to appropriate it personally…”
Hans Frederik Helveg 1856 Hegelianism in Denmark, on ‘The Concept of Irony’
"The members of the Faculty of Philosophy who were supposed to judge the work hardly suspected that in this effort of a young author they had not so much a qualification for a master's degree but a program for life. But here it was not a matter of giving a solution to an academic problem but of a task of life."
Conclusion
Paradoxically, despite the fact that Kierkegaard spent his life denouncing what he perceived as a complacent, state-supported church, he came to recognized as a teacher in the Lutheran calendar of saints, celebrated on 11th November.
Amongst Kierkegaard’s private library were several volumes on anthropology and psychology (Stewart, 2007) including works by Karl Rozenkranz (Psychology: Or, the science of subjective spirit, 1837), Carl Gustav Carus (Psyche; on the evolution of the soul, 1846) Johann Eduard Erdmann (Love and Soul, A Contribution to the Justification of Philosophical Anthropology, 1837), Heinrich Steffens (Anthropology, 1824) and Theodor Waitz (Textbook of Psychology as a Natural Science, 1849)
Kierkegaard’s theory of humor: In his theory of humor, the Danish philosopher presents a version of the incongruity theory in which humor is analyzed in terms of the ‘comical’ and suggests that the primary element in the comical is ‘contradiction.’ Kierkegaard examines humor, and it’s close relative ‘irony’, for their relations to the three ‘spheres of existence’ or the three ‘existential spheres of life’ – the aesthetic, the ethical. and the religious realms. Kierkegaard claims that ‘irony’ marks the boundary between the ethical and the aesthetic spheres, whereas ‘humor’ marks the boundary between the ethical and religious spheres. He asserts that ‘humor’ is the last stage of existential awareness before faith. Kierkegaard indicates, also, that a strong connection exists between having a religious view of life and possessing a sense of humor. He suggests that the humorous is present throughout Christianity and that Christianity is the most humorous view of life in the history of the world.
Reference:
Kierkegaard, S. (1846/1941). Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Roeckelein, J. E. ‘Elsevier’s Dictionary of Psychological Theories.’ Elsevier, 2006. p. 335.
Metaphor of the revolving door
The Cure (1917)
Charlie Chaplin plays a drunkard who checks into a health spa to dry out, but brings along a big suitcase full of alcohol. Along the way he aggravates a large man suffering from gout, evades him and encounters a beautiful young woman who encourages him to stop drinking. However, when the hotel owner learns his employees are getting drunk off Charlie's liquor, he calls an employee and orders him to have the liquor thrown out the window. The drunk employee hurls the bottles through the window, straight into the spa's health waters. The well becomes spurious with alcohol, sending the spa's inhabitants into a dancing stupor. Chaplin, encouraged by his new love to get sober, drinks from the spurious spa, gets drunk and offends her. She leaves him in anger and walks away. Charlie walks back to the door unsteadily, when he bumps into the large man, tripping him off his wheel chair and landing him into the alcoholic well. The next morning there are plenty of hangovers, but Chaplin turns sober, walks out and finds the lady. Realizing what had happened, she forgives him. They walk ahead, just then he accidentally steps into the liquor-laden well. One introduction which has since been added to the film explains that in 1917 drunkenness was a serious problem in the working class, so to keep it funny Chaplin changed from his "Little Tramp" character to an upper-class fop. Gout was at the time believed to be a disease of the wealthy, which is why Eric Campbell's character has it.
Bibliography
Blucher, Heinrich ‘XIV. A Fragment on Kierkegaard (1952)’ http://www.bard.edu/bluecher/lectures/kierkegaard/kierkegaard.htm
McDonald, William, "Søren Kierkegaard", The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Winter 2014 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), forthcoming URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2014/entries/kierkegaard/>.
M.B, “#Soren Kierkegaard” ‘The Economist.’ May 2013. http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2013/05/existential-economics
Conway, D. W. & Gover, K. E. ‘Søren Kierkegaard: Social and political philosophy : Kierkegaard and the "Present Age.’ Taylor & Francis, 2002.
Fremstedal, R. “Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard on the Ethico-Religious” in Ideas in History Vol. 1 (2206)
Davidson, R. M. “Herzen & Kierkegaard” ‘Slavic Review’ Vol 25, No. 2 (June., 1966) pp. 191-209
Baudelaire, C. ‘The Salon of 1846: On the Heroism of Modern Life’ ("De l'Héroïsme de la Vie Moderne,") - Salon de 1846 (Paris: Michel Lévy frères, 1846)
Kant, Immanuel. "Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklarung?" (What is Enlightenment?) Berlinische Monatsschrift Book. 4, 12. December, 1784), pages 481-494.
Garff, Joakim. Kierkegaard: A Biography. Princeton University Press, 2005.
Stewart, Jon. Søren Kierkegaard - Subjectivity, Irony and the Crisis of Modernity, University of Copehagen.
Kierkegaard, S. ‘The Point of View of My Work as an Author’ trans. W. Lowrie, New York, 1962
Kierkegaard, S. ‘Attack Upon Christendom’ Princeton University Press, 1946.
Stewart, J. B. ‘Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries: Theology. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., 2007
(The Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855) believed that philosophy should focus on deep questions related to God, humanity, ethics, and meaning in life. Kierkegaard discusses a process by which human beings can acquire deep satisfaction and become authentic persons. In order to understand this process he often discusses the stages on life’s way. The first stage on life’s way is the aesthetic stage. The main goal of a person in this stage is to satisfy her desires. The second stage is the ethical stage, in which the primary goal is to live according to ethical truth. In this stage, there are moral limits on what one can and cannot do. The religious stage is where the individual finds true fulfillment and becomes truly authentic. Here, one receives forgiveness from God, which resolves guilt and eradicates despair. She is now becoming an authentic individual because she is rightly related to God by a passionate faith in Him. - Michael W. Austin, Ph.D., is a Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Kentucky University)
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