On Being Sidetracked by the Aesthetic: Kierkegaard’s Practical Paradox

Abstract

The difficulty that Kierkegaard presents us with in his remark about St Paul is a personally troubling one.¹ The very fact that I am here engaged in a philosophical discussion on the ‘aesthetic’ is a case of being sidetracked by the aesthetic. Moreover, most of the talk at philosophy conferences is little more than what O. K. Bouwsma has called ‘grammatical aberrations’² to make us look ‘intellectually respectable’. Our particular aberrations are themselves aesthetic exercises of a second order. And yet we are told by Kierkegaard that, if we want to be religious, we must set aside or leave behind the aesthetic.

St Paul must not appeal to his cleverness ... he must not enter into a purely aesthetic or philosophical discussion ... for in that case he is sidetracked.

(Kierkegaard, ‘On the Difference between a Genius and an Apostle’, tr. Dru)