Abstract
In this chapter, I introduce several fundamental aspects of Søren Kierkegaard’s thought. I discuss his philosophical anthropology and his related thoughts on becoming oneself, as well as on the different life-views. Other important themes are Kierkegaard’s critique on the modern ideal of objectivity, his views on the ethical and the religious, and his complex ideas about communication. The important point I aim to establish is that we should understand Kierkegaard’s authorship as a Socratic attempt to assist modern human beings in becoming themselves: it seeks to motivate them to embrace ethical and (ultimately) Christian existence.
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- 1.
I have spelled out a more detailed analysis of this subject in: Compaijen (2011).
- 2.
The allusion is, of course, to Heidegger’s famous notion of ‘thrownness’ (Geworfenheit).
- 3.
See for example: SUD, 121/SKS 11, 233; FT, 111, 113, 120/SKS 4, 199, 201, 207; UDVS, 129/SKS 8, 229.
- 4.
In the same section, Kierkegaard also reflects on the questions ‘what does it mean to be immortal?’, ‘what does it mean that I should thank God for the good that he gives me?’ and ‘what does it mean to marry?’. Each of these reflections aims to establish the same conclusion: many things in life will be deeply misconstrued when approached objectively (in the rigorous sense discussed above) (cf. CUP, 165–181/SKS 7, 153–167).
- 5.
In this section I am referring to Kierkegaard’s and Williams’ thoughts on modernity’s objectifying and theoretical approach to the ethical. While there are significant differences between both authors on this issue, there are also remarkable similarities. An interesting article that discusses their relation on this topic is Tietjen (2012).
- 6.
Although many Kierkegaard-scholars today aim to clarify Kierkegaard’s ethical thought by asking which kind of ethical theory it most closely resembles, there have also been sceptics about this approach. Two authors who are critical of interpreting Kierkegaard as a moral philosopher in this sense are Robert C. Roberts and Mark A. Tietjen. Roberts writes: “My thesis is that Kierkegaard does not have a theory in the sense that ethics professors are supposed to, and that what he is doing in his writings is better thought of as a conceptual exploration, within a given moral tradition (Christianity ), that expresses, seeks, and seeks to engender wisdom” (Roberts 2008, 73). Tietjen (2013, 2) places Kierkegaard on the side of Socrates and Aristotle, over against modern moral philosophers such as Henry Sidgwick . He quotes the latter who writes: “I have thought that the predominance in the minds of moralists of a desire to edify has impeded the real progress of ethical science: and that this would be benefited by an application to it of the same disinterested curiosity to which we chiefly owe the great discoveries of physics” (Sidgwick 1874, vi–vii). Tietjen contrasts this view on ethics with Aristotle’s remark that “we are not inquiring into what excellence is for the sake of knowing it, but for the sake of becoming good, since otherwise there would be no benefit in it at all” (Aristotle 2002, 1103b27–1103b29). Now, although it definitely makes sense to contrast Aristotle with Sidgwick and other moral theorists in this way, it might obscure the fact that, for Aristotle, knowledge is very important in ethics. However, ethical knowledge, according to him, is practical knowledge, which is distinguished from theoretical knowledge among others because it has the particular instead of the general as its object. For Aristotle, this also implies that practical knowledge is less certain (Aristotle 2002, 1094b11–1095a13). Returning to Kierkegaard, I agree with Roberts and Tietjen that Kierkegaard is not a moral philosopher in the sense that he wants to develop ethical theory as envisaged by Sidgwick . Yet, I do think that it is legitimate to ask how Kierkegaard’s ethical thought relates to ethical theories and whether his own thought could, for instance, be described as deontological or virtue-ethical.
- 7.
See for instance the dialogue Meno (Plato 1997c, 85e–86b) in which Socrates has an uneducated slave prove a mathematical proposition. This leads Socrates to conclude that the soul lives eternally and has already gathered all knowledge in the life it lived before it was united with the body.
- 8.
See also Kierkegaard’s remark: “for if I am supposed to get to know something first of all, then this ‘shall’ is not foremost, not absolute” (JP1, 285/SKS 27, 409).
- 9.
Tietjen believes that this is what Kierkegaard actually means. He describes Kierkegaard’s ambitious claim as implying “innate, universal ethical knowledge” (2013, 54). However, nowhere does Kierkegaard suggest that this knowledge is universal.
- 10.
“Let him be offended; even so, he is a human being. Let him despair of ever becoming a Christian himself; even so, he may be closer than he thinks. Let him to his very last drop of blood work to root out Christianity; even so, he is a human being—but if here he also has it in him to say, ‘It is true to a certain degree,’ then he is obtuse” (CUP, 229/SKS 7, 209). This, of course, is an allusion to the Biblical thought that it is better to be cold than to be lukewarm with regard to Christ. See: Revelations 3:16.
- 11.
Kierkegaard is sensitive to the irony of learning to stand alone with the help of someone else (JP1, 280–281/SKS 27, 403). See also: Aumann (2008, 58).
- 12.
It is interesting to note that Climacus argues that Socrates in Gorgias betrays his own method of indirect communication, because he starts to lecture about the ideas he wants his interlocutor—Callicles —to arrive at. He writes: “Socrates, who ordinarily held so strictly to asking and answering (which is an indirect method), because the long speech, the didactic discourse, and reciting by rote lead only to confusion, at times himself speaks at length and then states as the reason that the person with whom he is speaking needs an elucidation before the conversation can begin. This he does in the Gorgias, for example. But this seems to me an inconsistency, an impatience that fears it will take too long before they come to a mutual understanding” (CUP, 277–278/SKS 7, 252).
- 13.
Note that there might be a tension between deception and reduplication. Reduplication seems to imply that there is a correspondence between one’s teachings and one’s life, whereas deception seems to involve the idea of consciously creating discord between both.
- 14.
Paying attention to the other aspects (the communicator, the recipient and the communication itself) is important in this form of communication in so far as it should be guaranteed that they do not influence the objective communication of knowledge. But this is, of course, a purely negative importance.
- 15.
Kierkegaard puts ‘the teacher’ between quotation marks here because he wants to emphasize the fact that such a teacher is not just someone who communicates knowledge.
- 16.
He adds that, in elaborating this question, “here, perhaps, a few dialogues by Plato could be studied.” Whether virtue can be learned is an important question in Plato’s dialogues. Socrates discusses it in, among others, Meno, Protagoras, and Gorgias.
- 17.
There remains a problem here. We have come to understand aesthetic capabilities as ‘ordinary’ capabilities—a category which comprises, as we have seen, qualities that are related to talents that some possess but others do not (such as the capability of dancing or playing football), as well as qualities that are general (such as walking or reading). By stressing the ‘universally human’ character of ethical capabilities (virtues ), Kierkegaard seems to want to draw a contrast between these capabilities and aesthetic capabilities. Yet, it does not seem very convincing to argue that not every person is able to learn how to walk or read, but that each person is capable of developing temperance or courage.
- 18.
See the historical introduction to Practice in Christianity (PC, xiv–xvi).
- 19.
See also: “modern speculative thought […] [has] forgotten in a kind of world-historical absentmindedness what it means to be a human being, not what it means to be human in general, for even speculators might be swayed to consider that sort of thing, but what it means that we, you and I and he, are human beings, each one on his own” (CUP, 120/SKS 7, 116).
Bibliography
Works by Kierkegaard
Concept of Anxiety [CA], ed. and transl. by R. Thomte and A.B. Anderson, Kierkegaard’s writings, vol. 8, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments [CUP], Volume 1, ed. and transl. by H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong, Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 12, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992.
Either/Or. Part II [EO2], ed. and transl. by H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong, Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 4, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.
Fear and Trembling & Repetition [FT], ed. and transl. by H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong, Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 6, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983.
Søren Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers [JP], vols. 1–7, ed. and transl. by H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967–1978.
Practice in Christianity [PC], ed. and transl. by H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong, Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 20, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991.
Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter [SKS], vols. 1–28, ed. by N.J. Cappelørn et al., Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1997–2013.
The Sickness Unto Death [SUD], ed. and transl. by H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong, Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 19, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980.
Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits [UDVS], ed. transl. by H.V. Hong and E.H. Hong, Kierkegaard’s Writings, vol. 15, Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1993.
Works by Other Authors
Aristotle. 2002. Nicomachean Ethics. Ed. and Trans. Roger Crisp. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Aumann, Antony. 2008. Kierkegaard on the Need for Indirect Communication. PhD diss., Indiana University.
Compaijen, Rob. 2011. Authenticity and Imitation. On the Role of Moral Exemplarity in Anti-Climacus’ Ethics. In Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2011, ed. Heiko Schulz, Jon Stewart, and Karl Verstrynge, 341–364. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
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———. 1997. Exemplars, Inwardness, and Belief: Kierkegaard on Indirect Communication. In International Kierkegaard Commentary: Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 129–148. Macon: Mercer University Press.
Muench, Paul. 2003. The Socratic Method of Kierkegaard’s Pseudonym Johannes Climacus: Indirect Communication and the Art of ‘Taking Away’. In Søren Kierkegaard and the Word(s). Essays on Hermeneutics and Communication, ed. Paul Houe and G.D. Marino, 139–150. Copenhagen: C.A. Reitzel.
Nagel, Thomas. 1986. The View from Nowhere. New York: Oxford University Press.
———. 2012. Subjective and Objective. In Mortal Questions, 196–214. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nelson, Christopher A.P. 2010. Kierkegaard’s Undelivered Lectures and His Author-Activity Writings: “The Dialectic of Ethical and Ethical-Religious Communication” Revisited. In International Kierkegaard Commentary: The Point of View, ed. Robert L. Perkins, 391–410. Macon: Mercer University Press.
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Plato. 1997a. Theaetetus. In Complete Works, trans. M.J. Levett, and ed. John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson, 157–234. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
———. 1997b. Charmides. In Complete Works, trans. Rosamond K. Sprague, and ed. John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson, 639–663. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
———. 1997c. Meno. In Complete Works, trans. G.M.A. Grube, and ed. John M. Cooper and D.S. Hutchinson, 870–897. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company.
Poole, Roger. 1997. ‘My wish, my prayer’: Keeping the Pseudonyms Apart. Preliminary Considerations. In Kierkegaard Revisited: Proceedings from the Conference “Kierkegaard and the Meaning of Meaning It”. Copenhagen, May 5–9, 1996, ed. Niels J. Cappelørn and Jon Stewart, 156–176. New York: Walter de Gruyter.
———. 1998. The Unknown Kierkegaard: Twentieth-century Receptions. In The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard, ed. Allastair Hannay and Gordon Marino, 48–75. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Roberts, Robert C. 2008. Kierkegaard and Ethical Theory. In Ethics, Love, and Faith in Kierkegaard. Philosophical Engagements, ed. Edward F. Mooney, 72–92. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
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———. 2003. A More Primitive Thinking. In Immediacy and Reflection in Kierkegaard’s Thought, ed. Paul Cruysberghs, Johan Taels, and Karl Verstrynge, 55–70. Leuven: Leuven University Press.
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———. 2013. Kierkegaard, Communication, and Virtue. Authorship as Edification. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
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———. 1985. Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
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Compaijen, R. (2018). Kierkegaard on Being Human. In: Kierkegaard, MacIntyre, Williams, and the Internal Point of View. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-74552-7_4
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