The Establishment of Subjectivity and Subsequent Duality: The Deeper Manifestations of Kierkegaard’s Purpose, Research Paper Example

Abstract

During the course of this paper, we will examine Søren Kierkegaard’s The Point of View of My Work as an Author, Either / Or, Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. From these texts, we will demonstrate that Kierkegaard sought to promote the merits and truths of subjectivity as a means to produce the greatest personal and spiritual self-reflection, to “always be able to dance lightly in the service of thought, as far as possible to the honor of the god, and for my own enjoyment, renouncing…the concordance of joys that go with having an opinion.”[1]

Introduction

Søren Kierkegaard made an indelible mark upon the philosophy of the spirit. In keeping with his philosophy, his dependence upon the use of pseudonyms and his resistance to traditional approaches founded an entire movement, existentialism, which took upon itself the weight of proving (or, in other cases, disproving) the justness of faith and subjectivity. During the course of this paper, we will examine Søren Kierkegaard’s The Point of View of My Work as an Author, Either / Or, Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. From these texts, we will demonstrate that Kierkegaard sought to promote the merits and truths of subjectivity as a means to produce the greatest personal and spiritual self-reflection. In The Point of View, he embodies his purpose and outlook in the short poem: “Whoever believes is great and rich, He has God and the Kingdom of Heaven. Whoever believes is small and poor, he only cries Lord have mercy!”[2]

Kierkegaardian philosophies often capitalized on the duality of the relationship between god and man and even within one single person. As a self-proclaimed religious author, he posed a Christian paradox: either Christianity was a state of being or it was a heightened sense of reflection. To address this paradox, Kierkegaard developed a clearer concept of subjective truth through the examination of specific scenarios, such as that of the fervent idolater and the dispassionate Christian. “Without risk there is no faith, and the greater the risk the greater the faith…the less objective security the more profound the possible inwardness.”[3] In matters of subjectivity, the Christian who took the minimal risk was the embodiment of a parsimonious believer and was too skeptical to invest his faith in a matter of uncertainty. However, as Kierkegaard frequently reiterated, there never were and never will be certainty- especially in objective study.

Kierkegaard would not accept that empiricism based on earthly sciences was wholly true; even if had ever explicitly accepted the idea, he would not limit the realm of truth to only that which can be measured by objective observation and measurement. On the contrary, education would lull the student into a false sense of temporal and eternal stability, knowledge, and certainty. Indeed, a centerpiece of existentialist philosophy depended upon Kierkegaard’s support of subjective truth. He utilized the Biblical example of Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, to illustrate that “Abraham acts by virtue of the absurd, for the absurd is precisely that he as the single individual is higher than the universal…Abraham is therefore at no moment a tragic hero but something entirely different, either a murderer or believer.”[4]

Even believers would question such a large sacrifice as a gamble risking years of grief for a sense of faith which was non-essential to everyday life. However, these perspectives often also assumed that the eternal life must have been a false promise. Kierkegaard stressed the perceptive gap between divinity and humanity and even wrote that “To suffer is to be as a joy, a matter of honor; one comes to God and asks permission- and God says: Yes, indeed, my little friend.”[5] The account of Abraham and Isaac echoed this sentiment, as God said: “Because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you”.[6]

In the Concluding Unscientific Postscript there was a rare glimpse into the deeper subjective responsibility to acknowledge the duality of man in respect to his relationship with himself and his peers and to place the needs of the soul above the desires of this world. This duality was commonly recognized as the knowledge of both good and evil. Kierkegaard (as Climacus) wrote that “every man who shouts bravo shouts also pareat [die or vanish], if not crucify, and that even without being untrue to his character, since on the contrary he remains true to himself.”[7]  Kierkegaard admonished those people who endlessly seek perfection, for, as creations placed in opposition to God, humankind will not reach this state of full self-realization. Instead, the premiere existentialist urged his audience to “realize the task that everyone is assigned- that of expressing the universally human in his individual life.”[8]

Subjectivity did not come without effort and cost, “since objective knowledge, in grasping the absurd, has literally gone bankrupt down to its last shilling.”[9] Kierkegaard proposed that the scientific reality is a demoralized dualistic zone of futile hyper-rationality:

“If in the final analysis the individual is not the absolute, empirical reality is the only road open to him, and as for where it issues, that road has the same property as the river Niger in respect of its source: no one knows its location. If I am shown the road to the finite, it is gratuitous to remain stationary at any one point. On that road, then, one never arrives at the point of beginning.”[10]

Kierkegaard lamented the emphasis on systematic analysis, writing that the excitement of scientific discovery “is self-contradictory if it fools itself and falsely ascribes necessity to what has come into existence.”[11] This teleological inner struggle is comparable to Kierkegaard’s assertions that it defies subjective logic “to poetize that the god poetized himself in the likeness of a human being, for if the god gave no indication, how could it occur to a man that the blessed god could need him?”[12] The philosophical links presented knowledge as an attempt to reach a godlike status through human vanity- but advocated the risk of faith as a step toward the establishment of a transcending closeness to God.

Regardless, attempting to reach an unshakable earthly truth beyond that of the soul is deemed by Kierkegaard to be an arbitrary pursuit. The human perspective was not found to be evil in existence but was judged to be a temporal diversion from the reflection of the eternal. For, even if a man reached such an ironclad conclusion, “he will transform the particular into the universal, he will see in the particular much more than is contained in it as such; for him it is the universal.”[13] Furthermore, once acknowledged, the facts were rarely superseded by new discovery. Thus the rationalistic, objective inquiries are a façade which deprive men of their imagination and, subsequently, their moral self-education through uncontrolled experience. Kierkegaard did not propose that the inexperienced youths be left without any guidance, but he proposed that an experienced and spiritual elder should attempt to convey the poetry of the principle, “to create pathos”.[14]

Kierkegaardian literature expressed that the discovery of knowledge was essential to the realization of the knowledge itself, and each individual would come upon the realization in their own time and in due course. This did not always exclude the scientific realm from the scope of subjectivity and imagination, as human influence would often influence the findings or categorization of the empirical concepts in a way which rendered it subject to the passion of not certainly knowing, the realm of the subjectively absurd.  Kierkegaard, in no uncertain terms, defined truth as “an objective uncertainty held fast in an appropriation-process of the most passionate inwardness in the truth, the highest truth attainable for an existing individual.”[15] This statement created a ripple effect regarding the importance of subjective truth. Additionally, it introduced the reader to passion (or some said absurdity) as an indicator of possible truthfulness. This opposed all traditional logic of the time but did not contradict the previous reflections.

Morality, as a human perception of a divine concept, would be flawed and subject to constant change as the experience of the religious followers culturally evolve. Whether it was a manifestation of a subconscious, nagging void of knowledge or existence or a long-standing source of public tension, reaction was then- as now- a physical representation of self-reflection and doubt. In such a case, when “my relation to what it is I am thinking is one of necessity…the difference between good and evil does not arise.”[16] The common man builds the same foundation as the philosopher, who, according to Kierkegaard, happened upon the new thought as randomly as Newton was literally struck by inspiration to form his laws of gravity.[17]

In Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard posed a poetic question, with which you have already been introduced. True to the form of the philosopher-author, the poem wondered about God’s favor shown to mankind and whether the soul-centrism of existentialism was vanity or a natural consequence of this favor. Humanity basked in the grace of possibility and uncertainty, and this subjectivity afforded us a moral leniency of perspective which allows our individualistic experiences of education, rationalization, debate, and duality to develop our personal and spiritual sense of self. The passion of the question was not recorded in the same book as was the question itself, but Kierkegaard admitted to the reader that his “aim was for [the reader] to tear [himself] away from the illusions of the aesthetic, and from a dream of half despair, in order to awaken to the earnest of spirit.”[18] He came to invite us to cast off earthly pursuits and take a risk which could yield a transcendent and eternal reward: fully realized spirituality.

Bibliography

The Holy Bible. New International Version. Genesis 22:16-17.

Kierkegaard, Søren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Translated by David Swenson (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009).

Kierkegaard, Søren. Either/ Or, Translated by Alistair Hannay (London, Penguing Books, LTD., 1992).

Kierkegaard, Søren. Fear and Trembling. Edited by C. Stephen Evans and Sylvia Walsh (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

Kierkegaard, Søren. Philosophical Fragments, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1985).

Kierkegaard, Søren. The Point of View, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1998).

[1] Kierkegaard, Søren. Philosophical Fragments, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1985). 7.

[2] Kierkegaard, Søren. The Point of View, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1998). 490.

[3] Kierkegaard, Søren. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Translated by David Swenson (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 2009). 191.

[4] Søren Kierkegaard. Fear and Trembling. Ed. by C. Stephen Evans and Sylvia Walsh (Cambridge University Press, 2006).

[5] Kierkegaard, Søren. The Point of View, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1998). 229.

[6] The Holy Bible. New International Version. Genesis 22:16-17.

[7] Søren Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Translated by David Swenson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). 166ff.

[8] Kierkegaard, Søren. The Point of View, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1998). 587.

[9] Kierkegaard, Søren. Philosophical Fragments, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1985). 221.

[10] Søren Kierkegaard. Either/ Or, Trans. by Alistair Hannay (London, Penguing Books, LTD., 1992). 555.

[11] Kierkegaard, Søren. Philosophical Fragments, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1985). 80.

[12] Kierkegaard, Søren. Philosophical Fragments, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1985). 36.

[13] Søren Kierkegaard. Either/ Or, Trans. by Alistair Hannay (London, Penguing Books, LTD., 1992). 587.

[14] Kierkegaard, Søren. The Point of View, Edited and Translated by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1998). 218.

[15] Søren Kierkegaard. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Translated by David Swenson (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press). 190.

[16] Søren Kierkegaard. Either/ Or, Trans. by Alistair Hannay (London, Penguing Books, LTD., 1992). 524.

[17] Søren Kierkegaard. Philosophical Fragments, Ed. and Trans. by Howard Hong and Edna Hong (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1985). 80.

[18] Søren Kierkegaard. Either/ Or, Trans. by Alistair Hannay (London, Penguing Books, LTD., 1992). 520.