The stuff that got mangled into a sunglasses smiley in that quote is pretty superfluous parenthetical terminology, so I'm gonna re-edit it for better flow...
The reader who has not heard or has not heeded S.K.'s warning not to attribute to him personally a single word the pseudonyms say may need here to be reminded that it is not S.K. who reiterates so insistently that he cannot understand Abraham. It is Johannes de silentio who says this, and the purpose of it is to emphasize the fact that the paradoxical religiousness...is and remains a paradox to everyone who stands on a lower plane...
The stuff that got mangled into a sunglasses smiley in that quote is pretty superfluous parenthetical terminology, so I'm gonna re-edit it for better flow...
The reader who has not heard or has not heeded S.K.'s warning not to attribute to him personally a single word the pseudonyms say may need here to be reminded that it is not S.K. who reiterates so insistently that he cannot understand Abraham. It is Johannes de silentio who says this, and the purpose of it is to emphasize the fact that the paradoxical religiousness...is and remains a paradox to everyone who stands on a lower plane...
Happy to be so grounded. And unaware of any paradox. I understand the story of Abraham just fine. I'm missing nothing. And it stands alone without the absurd desperate anachronism of Hebrews. And the sad empty pretension of Kierkegaard. The poor sod was trying to big up having thrown away the love of his life for nothing.
What are the relevant passages from Hebrews that you've been referencing?
?!
Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
What are the relevant passages from Hebrews that you've been referencing?
?!
Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
That's worse than Kierkegaard.
I'm not sure I'd say it's WORSE than Kierkegaard, though I suppose it depends what you mean by worse. Abraham in that passage actually comes off as slightly less a Knight Of Faith, at least on a straightforward reading of the words, because he "reasoned" that God had the power to reverse death, whereas according to Fear And Trembling...
God could give him a new Isaac, could recall to life him who had been sacrificed. He believed by virtue of the absurd, for all human reckoning had long since ceased to function..
(Italics mine)
Though I suppose it might depend on what Paul meant by "reasoned". If it's just something like "Assumed that God, being God, could bring the dead back to life", there might not be that huge a difference with Kierkegaard.
In terms of my chronological reading of the canon, I am now into the Preliminary Expectorations. (A text I had no idea about until a few hours ago.)
So, like, it's a day in the life of a knight of faith? He's hummin' merrily down the street wondering what his wife is making for dinner, perhaps the big chicken, but if not, that's fine too, and so on and so forth.
That's probably the only part I can remember right now. From my totally pop-culture infused perspective, I'm getting strong "continental" vibes from this guy.
[Yes, I know Denmark itself is continental in every sense of the word, but I mean someone who would seem continental even to a Dane.
In his academic history of western philosophy, Fred Copleston SJ passively-aggressively suggests that had Kierkegaard lived longer, he might have become Catholic. With all due respect to old FCSJ, I don't really buy it, certainly not from a soteriological angle, anyway, but I CAN sorta see how Kierkegaard's stylistic aesthetics might appeal to Catholics and others accustomed to a more visual and esoteric style of worship. Caveat I know nothing of any other Danish literature besides Andersen, so have no real context for knowing how foreign or domestic his style woulda seemed to his peers.]
Yeah. I can't say anything about Danish culture, either, but SK studied in Berlin. His writing exudes the ethos of German Romanticism. The Knight of Infinite Resignation is pure German Romanticism. And beautifully drawn. (Maybe Jds wants to show himself off to best advantage.)
The portrayal of the Knight of Faith in Preliminary Expectoration makes him look like a goofball, doesn't it. "Good Lord, he looks just like a capitalist!" "Vegetating as he smokes his pipe in the dusk." Etc.
If your prof didn't have you read this section, s/he was negligent. My impression is that regularly profs want to dive right into the Teleological Suspension of the Ethical (starting where others left off, maybe) and go further, straight to interpretation.
Ideally, the book could certainly be condensed. And that way the student would have a much more complete overview of all the lines of enquiry in the book, as there are many and they are related.
I can't quite recall if my prof assigned the entirety of Fear And Trembling, and then lectured on the academic philosophy of it while drawing examples from the more obscure stuff as he saw fit, OR if he assigned fragments(eg. the Problems), and focused the lectures on the academic philosophy contained therein. I do remember Don Juan as the main protagonist at the aesthetic level, wherever that came from.
In any case, given the limited time frame(we eventually ended up skipping Heidegger entirely because of the focus on the other three guys), and the need to situate each thinker in a recognizable context with the others, it sort of made sense to focus the lectures on the teleological suspension of the ethical.
The existentialists do like their parables, though. Nietzsche's opus is full of them(our class covered the madman in the market, possibly others), and there's even Sartre's young fellow torn between caring for his sick mother and joining the Resistance and what will the priest tell him to do but he knows the answer before he even asks because he chose which priest to go to in the first place.
I'm gonna try to get through the Expectorations tomorrow. Right now, it's coming off as a little hokey-charming, unless it's meant ironically. But I'm doubting it is, because, given Kierkegaard's attack on Christendom, why would he simultaneously mock the Knights Of Faith? I don't see the book as fighting a two-front war.
And, honestly, my original reading of "capitalists" was that he was using it to mean something like "average successful businessman", with no significant disdain intended, just that that's who a Knight Of Faith would superficially resemble to our eyes. I might think differently after I've read some more, but that's how I'm seeing it right now.
What are the relevant passages from Hebrews that you've been referencing?
?!
Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
That's worse than Kierkegaard.
I'm not sure I'd say it's WORSE than Kierkegaard, though I suppose it depends what you mean by worse. Abraham in that passage actually comes off as slightly less a Knight Of Faith, at least on a straightforward reading of the words, because he "reasoned" that God had the power to reverse death, whereas according to Fear And Trembling...
God could give him a new Isaac, could recall to life him who had been sacrificed. He believed by virtue of the absurd, for all human reckoning had long since ceased to function..
(Italics mine)
Though I suppose it might depend on what Paul meant by "reasoned". If it's just something like "Assumed that God, being God, could bring the dead back to life", there might not be that huge a difference with Kierkegaard.
Paul?! What's he got to do with it? Whoever the writer was (Junia, a mere woman?), another genius of their time, they were projecting on Abraham.
How Johannes de silentio handles that I don't know, apart from with more complexity.
Read on, Stetson. You have read the preface and Tuning Up, right? If not, you should.
Don Juan comes from Either/Or. Your prof was doing an overview of SK then. His modes or stages (Aesthetic, Ethical and Religious)
That's forgivable, but I think the obsession with the TSoE really is not, and that seems to be universal in phil courses. If anyone knows anything about SK, it's that, and of course the Leap of Faith, which is technically Lessing's idea.
It would be, in my opinion, like reading the book of Proverbs, and feeling like one knew what the Bible was all about.
................
15 minutes later (draft still open, because it didn't post, when I pressed "post comment"):
I ran acrossed an article in Wikipedia, when I was checking on something from F&T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispositio#Exordium
I don't have a classical education, which would really come in handy reading T.S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, and Kierkegaard, because they clearly did, and as one would hope, used it. I want to read this more thoroughly and think about if, or to what degree, the structure of F&T, particularly the three prefaces (Preface, Tuning Up and Preliminary Ezpectoration (Getting Something off My Chest)) are similar or different in structure. And in what ways form and function operate here.
And yet, laterer:
I would not look to F&T for bibical exegesis, or even a faithful rendering of what any biblical passage about Abraham.
SK's method with scripture reflected in F&T is clear in at least some of his discourses as well.
Do you think the Knight of Faith is (behind the scenes somewhere) in Either/Or?
I don't think the 'leap' into the Religious exists in that book. Either the hedonistic, aesthetic life after Geothe or the ethical staid life after Hegel.
AFF, would you be willing to go over the Chassidic a bit? I don't know a thing about it, so I don't understand the connections are that you're making. Thanks.
Certainly.
The ChaBaD interpretation of the text can be found here:
But for the sake of discussion the relevant portion is
Abraham was the pioneer of self-sacrifice. And the first instance of true self-sacrifice in all of history was the binding of Isaac.
For to sacrifice one’s self is not the same as to sacrifice one’s life. There is a world of difference between the two.
...
When Abraham bound Isaac upon the altar, it was not in the service of any calling or cause. In fact, it ran contrary to everything he believed in and taught, to everything for which he had sacrificed his life, to everything G‑d Himself had told him. He could see no reason, no purpose for his act. Every element of his self cried out against it—his material self, his spiritual self, his transcendent and altruistic self. But he did it. Why? Because G‑d had told him to.
Abraham was the pioneer of self-sacrifice. Before Abraham, the self was inviolable territory. Man could enlighten the self’s priorities, he could even broaden and sublimate it, but he could not supersede it. Indeed, how could he? As a creature of free choice, man’s every act stems from within. His every deed has a motive (conscious or otherwise), and his every motive has a rationale, a reason why it is beneficial to his own existence. So how could he be motivated to annihilate his own self? The instinct to preserve and enhance one’s self is the source and objective of a creature’s every drive and desire; man could no more transcend it than lift himself up by pulling on the hair of his own head.
Yet Abraham did the impossible. He sacrificed his self for the sake of something beyond the scope of the most transcendent of identities. Had he not done so, no other act of self-sacrifice—previous or subsequent, of his own or of his descendants—could be presumed to be of any “substance,” to be anything more than a product of the self. But when Abraham bound Isaac upon the altar, the heavenly voice proclaimed: “Now I know that you fear G‑d.” Now I know that the will of G‑d supersedes even your most basic instincts. Now I know that all your deeds, including those which could be explained as self-motivated, are, in essence, driven by the desire to serve your Creator. Now I know that your entire life was of true, selfless substance.
It's Abraham's identity as it was acquired through his belief in God's promise to him that he would be the "father of a great nation" that was demanded in sacrifice.
Indeed ISTM that he was offered this opportunity once before this event when he made the decision to expel Hagar and Ishmael - but this could be externally and rationally justified as being a decision in service of the promise of his Great Nation fatherhood.
And so it was only by the contravention of the ethical norms of the Noahide Law that such a feat could be accomplished. The self-immolation of any illusion that Abraham was a righteous enough human being to claim the parenthood of such a favored nation was the sacrifice demanded. Only the TSoE could bring him to such a critical pass.
Abraham was faced forever after with the utterly humiliating reality that he would endure in the sight of others. Not much is said afterwards of Abraham's relationships with his family or tribe. We don't know how he lived and died with the understanding of the depth of his faith that only he could grasp at the time.
Thanks for the proper location of Don Juan in Kierkegaard. As for the TSOTE being over-emphasized in philosophy classes, well, as I say, in an existentialism course, that makes a bit of sense, because the whole point of the existentialist analysis is that no system can be of any use in making ethical decisions.
Oh, and speaking as someone else without a classical education, I don't know how much helpful it would be for reading TS Eliot. At least in The Waste Land, almost every allusion is footnoted, and in any case, alot of it strikes me as stuff that wouldn't be included in a typical classical education anyway(I doubt that even the average graduate of the Boston Latin School woulda a clue about Women Beware Women, for example). Yeats wrote something to the effect that Eliot seems to think that everyone has enough time to read all the obscure literature that he does.
And so it was only by the contravention of the ethical norms of the Noahide Law that such a feat could be accomplished. The self-immolation of any illusion that Abraham was a righteous enough human being to claim the parenthood of such a favoured nation was the sacrifice demanded. Only the TSoE could bring him to such a pass.
So, if I've got this straight, with the TSoE, Abraham showed everybody what an absolute monster he was prepared to be, thus giving up any claim to being some great statesman among the Israelites.
If so, it seems to me that it was his self in the sense of his social identity, ie. how he was perceived "in the sight of others", as you say, that was destroyed by his decision to carry out the sacrifice. As an individual in the metaphysical sense, he continued to exist, just without all the trappings of glory that had previously been such a major part of who he was.
So, if I've got this straight, with the TSoE, Abraham showed everybody what an absolute monster he was prepared to be, thus giving up any claim to being some great statesman among the Israelites.
If so, it seems to me that it was his self in the sense of his social identity, ie. how he was perceived "in the sight of others", as you say, that was destroyed by his decision to carry out the sacrifice. As an individual in the metaphysical sense, he continued to exist, just without all the trappings of glory that had previously been such a major part of who he was.
Yes I believe that's a certain part of it - the "exoteric truth" as it were.
But it's not just the "social identity" that he sacrificed. Because remember, he never lived to see "the great nation" that was promised to arise from the fruit of his loins. The promise of a "great nation" arising from his progeny, until Isaac was born, was to most, a story he told himself and some kind of social narrative that was accepted among the people who followed him.
He was asked to pit his own self-perception against the value of his actions - and could not conclude that he was in truth "that guy". He had to put to death the idea that he was anything other than what he showed himself to be, and only he knew how obedience to the command of the Most High was worth more than all the self-identification and social currency in the world. From that moment on he could only have faith that the sacrifice had been sufficient but he never lived to see the proof of it.
Kind of like Jesus - there was a lot of hoopla at the beginning, then nothing nothing nothing nothing, then three years of something culminating in a death reserved for common criminals. At the very end Jesus begged for the cup to be taken from His lips but the final surrender was in "Not my will, but Thine". Who knows what kind of despair and failure He might have felt on the road to Golgotha? He didn't march triumphantly, that much is pretty certain.
All of these moments would qualify as moments of existential horror and dread.
It's amazing how full of them our Christian tradition seems to be.
It's strange, in a sense, that more religious people don't try this as an excuse.
"Yes I was having an affair with Mabel. But you see, I didn't really want to, I was following the direct instruction from the deity to either do it or renounce the faith. By doing it, you see, I was showing everyone exactly how faithful I am and how I will do anything that God tells me to do..."
It's strange, in a sense, that more religious people don't try this as an excuse.
"Yes I was having an affair with Mabel. But you see, I didn't really want to, I was following the direct instruction from the deity to either do it or renounce the faith. By doing it, you see, I was showing everyone exactly how faithful I am and how I will do anything that God tells me to do..."
Except that there's no absurdity in that guy's philandering, because the affair with Mabel gives him material gain(sex, companionahip etc ), which is a factor not present in the act of sacrificing Isaac. In kierkegaardian terms, I think your scenario would be like God ordering Don Juan to seduce widows, ie. a command originating in the Religious, but to commit an Aesthetic act.
It's strange, in a sense, that more religious people don't try this as an excuse.
"Yes I was having an affair with Mabel. But you see, I didn't really want to, I was following the direct instruction from the deity to either do it or renounce the faith. By doing it, you see, I was showing everyone exactly how faithful I am and how I will do anything that God tells me to do..."
Except that there's no absurdity in that guy's philandering, because the affair with Mabel gives him material gain(sex, companionahip etc ), which is a factor not present in the act of sacrificing Isaac. In kierkegaardian terms, I think your scenario would be like God ordering Don Juan to seduce widows, ie. a command originating in the Religious, but to commit an Aesthetic act.
Well I was trying to think of something relatively mild to type. Because I can't really bring myself to write something that would be on the same kind of level as sacrificing your own son.
"yes, I know that it would be nice to spend family time with the children, but the thing is that God has told me I have to do x y and z and sacrifice my family.."
"yes, I know that it would be nice to spend family time with the children, but the thing is that God has told me I have to do x y and z and sacrifice my family.."
I think it would depend on what those things were. If it was "Spend more time at the bar watching sporting events with my buddies", and that's something he enjoys doing moreso than looking after his kids, it wouldn't qualify him as a Knight Of Faith.
But if it was "Stop living at home and sleep on the bench at the bus stop all day, for no evident benefit beyond you know that it's what God asked of you", that could work.
And I think many scholars would say that Soren's own dumping of Regine would qualify as trying to put religious lipstick on an ethical pig. But there's probably not much direct evidence for that in the texts, beyond "Seems kinda strange that right after he did that, he started scrounging around for religious rationales for treating people like shit."
Well, I suppose there might be a reason why Kierkegaard chose martial imagery ("Knight Of Faith") to describe a person living at the Religious Stage of existence.
But would he know in 1840s Denmark that that is Bushido? Unless it's a universal way of the warrior? That those who live by the sword die by the sword?
"Put up your sword. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword" are words straight out of the Bible.
"God told me to dump my fiancee and spend the rest of my days writing impenetrable philosophy books and writing angry letters to Bishops.."
And he knew that he would get her back, in a sense, because she'd be so thrilled at being even the jilted fiancee of such a genius that she'd spend the rest of her days bragging about it to her friends.
All good dear - it's a multi-tiered conversation. Most intriguing.
AFF
FWIW, while Jesus may be a Knight Of Faith, I don't think "Live by the sword, die by the sword" is any sort of command to leap into the absurd, since it contains within it the very practical advice that avoiding the use of violence yourself is a good way to help stop violence from happening to you.
Now, "If a man slaps you on the cheek, turn around and offer him the other one" might qualify, since there really doesn't seem to be any practical good in allowing, in fact, inviting, a violent criminal to continue his rampage, beyond that it's what God apparently asks of us.
(That's assuming the Matthew 5: 38-39 isn't just a hyperbolized way of saying that it's best to find non-violent solutions to violent situations.)
There's a lot of "calling" going on in the gospels. I would think that leaving everything you know for an uncertain future would be the kind of "leap of faith" Kierkegaard might approve of.
There's a lot of "calling" going on in the gospels. I would think that leaving everything you know for an uncertain future would be the kind of "leap of faith" Kierkegaard might approve of.
Indeed. But which biblical passage are you refering to?
I'm not very good at bible passages - wasn't there a story about the disciples fishing?
Yeah. Be fishers of men, or some such. I thought that might be what you mean, but wasn't sure.
And it might qualify as a leap of faith, assuming the fishermen gave no more thought to it than: "Wow, I am clearly in the presence of God, and He's asking me to join Him, so off I go."
Somewhere in Fear And Trembling, Kierkegaard also defends the more literal interpretation(*) of "You can't follow me unless you hate your whole family", which seems pretty much in the general spirit of a leap into the absurd.
(*) As opposed to "Jesus just meant we should love Him more than we love anyone else", which is a pretty underwhelming commandment, if Jesus is assumed to be God.
And I think many scholars would say that Soren's own dumping of Regine would qualify as trying to put religious lipstick on an ethical pig. But there's probably not much direct evidence for that in the texts, beyond "Seems kinda strange that right after he did that, he started scrounging around for religious rationales for treating people like shit."
Just finished the Expectoration. I'll prob'ly have a bit more to say about it later, but for now, I'll just tentatively hypothesize...
The reason that Kierkegaard writes as de silentio is because he doesn't wanna show his hand in regards to whether or not he considers himself, Soren Kierkegaard, a Knight Of Faith. So he writes as de silentio, a character who clearly states himself to be a Knight Of Infinite Resignation.
Trying to catch up. I've listened to the recent posts but need to spend more time with them and think them over. Brain is taking the pace of Abraham's donkey.
@A_Feminine_Force thank you for the ChaBaD interpretation and what you highlighted. I think there are similarities between what you shared and F&T.
The idea of Abraham sacrificing the self is interesting, certainly seems to me like what would be necessary to attempt to follow through on the commanded deed. And certainly, in life as we know it, the aftermath would be permanent humiliation. If Isaac were to try to defend his father, having been the one witness, he, too would be seen as a victim of abuse, still suffering Stockholm syndrome.
What similarities and differences do you see between what SK and ChaBaD propose?
Does one or the other seem more useful to you?
Thanks for the proper location of Don Juan in Kierkegaard. As for the TSOTE being over-emphasized in philosophy classes, well, as I say, in an existentialism course, that makes a bit of sense, because the whole point of the existentialist analysis is that no system can be of any use in making ethical decisions.
Sure. You're welcome.
SK's 3 modes or stages of life are creeping in to the conversation. I am aware that they exist. I know that Either/Or (E/O) contrasts the aesthetic and the ethical modes. And Fear and Trembling (F&T) contrasts the ethical and religious modes.
The only part of E/O that I've read is Ultimatum, a sermon at the end (of all places) of the 2-massive-volume epistolary "novel"/"work".
For our viewers' benefit, could you give a brief overview of what these are, and how they apply? Thanks!
Ok. I know there's more to respond to, but not tonight. Hope to be more with it tomorrow.
Just finished the Expectoration. I'll prob'ly have a bit more to say about it later, but for now, I'll just tentatively hypothesize...
The reason that Kierkegaard writes as de silentio is because he doesn't wanna show his hand in regards to whether or not he considers himself, Soren Kierkegaard, a Knight Of Faith. So he writes as de silentio, a character who clearly states himself to be a Knight Of Infinite Resignation.
Yes, it certainly opens up a lot of strategies. I think there are yet more reasons.
Have you read anything about SK's "indirect" technique and stated purpose for it? Although we can never be sure how much a person is telling the truth or not regarding their motives.
Thanks for the invitation on the Three Stages, @Kendel. I should start off by saying that while I have a pretty good idea of how people are posited as operating WITHIN the stages, I've never been entirely clear why people want to rise up from one to the next, especially between Ethical and Religious. So I might be a bit rusty on that latter part.
For the Aesthetic Stage, I'm first gonna switch to calling it the Hedonistic Stage, which I think I've seen somewhere the last few days, and is clearer for an early C21 readership.
Okay...
Remember the sports-bar dad that @KoA and I conjured up a few posts back? Hangs out at the bar watching sports on TV with his buddies instead of spending time with his kids. In our example, he was(incoherently, for our purposes) portrayed as acting on orders from God, but let's assume he's just doing it for fun as a matter of habit, been that way his whole life, and just doesn't give a shit about anyone else.
Sports Bar Dad is living at the Hedonistic Stage.
Now, one day, some philosophy undergrads are slumming it at the sports bar, and one of them gets into a discussion with SBD(hereafter known as Josh), and explains to him why it's unethical to hang out at the bar all day and night while ignoring his family. So, Josh decides to change his ways, stop hanging out at the sports bar, spend lots of time with his family, and maybe even volunteer at some respectable children's charities in town in order to spread the good works around.
Josh is now operating at the Ethical Stage.
Which is great. BUT...
The Ethical Stage is universal, binding on everybody, so in following its morality, Josh is doing exactly the same thing that everyone else is supposed to do.
And this is where it's always gotten a little murky for me. I'm not sure why Kierkegaard thinks anyone would be dis-satisfied at the Ethical Stage, but, apparently, he does. Something to do with the individual not being uniquely called by God.
In any case, if you're going to be called to the next stage, that means being called OUT OF the Ethical Stage, so one day Josh hears a voice announcing itself to be God, and asking Josh to sacrifice all his beloved children via cyanide in their morning milk. This command obviously violates basic morality, and Josh has no way of verifying if it's really God, or if it's the devil, or a fever dream etc.
But in any case, Josh believes the voice to be God, and assumes that his children will somehow be returned to him even if they have died, and decides to start the sacrifice by trying to get his hands on some cyanide.
^ I should say that the Ethical above is basically the kantian categorical imperative. I don't want to get into Kant right now, except to say that he thought ethics was a subcategory of logic, IOW saying "It's okay to poison your kids" would be like saying "Some blue houses are not blue."
I think, to state the very obvious, that we need to keep in mind the audience for "Either/Or" - which was very largely Danish Christians living in a society that prized a fairly puritanical form of Christianity.
What is K trying to do with the book? It seems unlikely that he is trying to persuade readers of the attraction of a hedonistic lifestyle and yet he spends a very long time debating it. Presumably readers are supposed to see themselves in the Judge, disapproving of the pointless and worthless lives of these other young people he is reading about.
And yet. It feels like the hedonists are more alive and full of passion for life. It feels like the Judge is an old fart and a fuddy-duddy.
It feels, perhaps only to me, that the Judge is over-stating his disapproval because secretly he is jealous.
^ I should say that the Ethical above is basically the kantian categorical imperative. I don't want to get into Kant right now, except to say that he thought ethics was a subcategory of logic, IOW saying "It's okay to poison your kids" would be like saying "Some blue houses are not blue."
I understand why you've gone for and extreme metaphor, but I don't think that's necessarily the only one to reach for - and continued use only blunts the impact.
The point of the TSoE, in my view, is that it is unintelligible from the Ethical, which in Kierkegaard's time was apparently Danish state church Christianity.
That's not the case in our situation. So we don't need Josh to murder his children with cyanide. We just need him to move from a listless life of hedonism into a more organised respectable life and then into an unintelligible religious life.
Which, to be clearer, Kierkegaard is suggesting is by definition going to be outrageous to Danish people when they all already think they are Christians.
Also, I ought to repeat that I'm not convinced that the idea of a universal-ethical exists beyond cultural norms.
Thanks for the invitation on the Three Stages, @Kendel. I should start off by saying that while I have a pretty good idea of how people are posited as operating WITHIN the stages, I've never been entirely clear why people want to rise up from one to the next, especially between Ethical and Religious. So I might be a bit rusty on that latter part.
For the Aesthetic Stage, I'm first gonna switch to calling it the Hedonistic Stage, which I think I've seen somewhere the last few days, and is clearer for an early C21 readership.
Okay...
Remember the sports-bar dad that @KoA and I conjured up a few posts back? Hangs out at the bar watching sports on TV with his buddies instead of spending time with his kids. In our example, he was(incoherently, for our purposes) portrayed as acting on orders from God, but let's assume he's just doing it for fun as a matter of habit, been that way his whole life, and just doesn't give a shit about anyone else.
Sports Bar Dad is living at the Hedonistic Stage.
Now, one day, some philosophy undergrads are slumming it at the sports bar, and one of them gets into a discussion with SBD(hereafter known as Josh), and explains to him why it's unethical to hang out at the bar all day and night while ignoring his family. So, Josh decides to change his ways, stop hanging out at the sports bar, spend lots of time with his family, and maybe even volunteer at some respectable children's charities in town in order to spread the good works around.
Josh is now operating at the Ethical Stage.
Which is great. BUT...
The Ethical Stage is universal, binding on everybody, so in following its morality, Josh is doing exactly the same thing that everyone else is supposed to do.
And this is where it's always gotten a little murky for me. I'm not sure why Kierkegaard thinks anyone would be dis-satisfied at the Ethical Stage, but, apparently, he does. Something to do with the individual not being uniquely called by God.
In any case, if you're going to be called to the next stage, that means being called OUT OF the Ethical Stage, so one day Josh hears a voice announcing itself to be God, and asking Josh to sacrifice all his beloved children via cyanide in their morning milk. This command obviously violates basic morality, and Josh has no way of verifying if it's really God, or if it's the devil, or a fever dream etc.
But in any case, Josh believes the voice to be God, and assumes that his children will somehow be returned to him even if they have died, and decides to start the sacrifice by trying to get his hands on some cyanide.
Josh is now operating at the Religious Stage.
And people get all huffy when atheists point out all the evil done in the name of religion. And there it is.
If God is good, there should be no conflict between these two - doing what is good, and following God. When there clearly is, notwithstanding shifting human ideas of good and the possibility of being mistaken about it, then meseems Josh does have means of determining that the thought in his head is not from God - it is commanding him to do evil.
And people get all huffy when atheists point out all the evil done in the name of religion. And there it is.
If God is good, there should be no conflict between these two - doing what is good, and following God. When there clearly is, notwithstanding shifting human ideas of good and the possibility of being mistaken about it, then meseems Josh does have means of determining that the thought in his head is not from God - it is commanding him to do evil.
This is my frustration in a nutshell. If Kierkegaard is suggesting anything like this, I don't see the point of printing his work at all. Let it fall from memory as the vast majority of publications have done since writing was made durable and could be disseminated.
I'm optimistic that this is not the point of his work, of this work, that is F&T. What I am proposing we can get out of the text requires a lot more than "just the text." And it delivers a lot more as well.
I cogitate.
But that seems to be the view of this one, particulated, single individual.
Thanks for the invitation on the Three Stages, @Kendel. I should start off by saying that while I have a pretty good idea of how people are posited as operating WITHIN the stages, I've never been entirely clear why people want to rise up from one to the next, especially between Ethical and Religious. So I might be a bit rusty on that latter part.
For the Aesthetic Stage, I'm first gonna switch to calling it the Hedonistic Stage, which I think I've seen somewhere the last few days, and is clearer for an early C21 readership.
Okay...
Remember the sports-bar dad that @KoA and I conjured up a few posts back? Hangs out at the bar watching sports on TV with his buddies instead of spending time with his kids. In our example, he was(incoherently, for our purposes) portrayed as acting on orders from God, but let's assume he's just doing it for fun as a matter of habit, been that way his whole life, and just doesn't give a shit about anyone else.
Sports Bar Dad is living at the Hedonistic Stage.
Now, one day, some philosophy undergrads are slumming it at the sports bar, and one of them gets into a discussion with SBD(hereafter known as Josh), and explains to him why it's unethical to hang out at the bar all day and night while ignoring his family. So, Josh decides to change his ways, stop hanging out at the sports bar, spend lots of time with his family, and maybe even volunteer at some respectable children's charities in town in order to spread the good works around.
Josh is now operating at the Ethical Stage.
Which is great. BUT...
The Ethical Stage is universal, binding on everybody, so in following its morality, Josh is doing exactly the same thing that everyone else is supposed to do.
And this is where it's always gotten a little murky for me. I'm not sure why Kierkegaard thinks anyone would be dis-satisfied at the Ethical Stage, but, apparently, he does. Something to do with the individual not being uniquely called by God.
In any case, if you're going to be called to the next stage, that means being called OUT OF the Ethical Stage, so one day Josh hears a voice announcing itself to be God, and asking Josh to sacrifice all his beloved children via cyanide in their morning milk. This command obviously violates basic morality, and Josh has no way of verifying if it's really God, or if it's the devil, or a fever dream etc.
But in any case, Josh believes the voice to be God, and assumes that his children will somehow be returned to him even if they have died, and decides to start the sacrifice by trying to get his hands on some cyanide.
Josh is now operating at the Religious Stage.
And people get all huffy when atheists point out all the evil done in the name of religion. And there it is.
If God is good, there should be no conflict between these two - doing what is good, and following God. When there clearly is, notwithstanding shifting human ideas of good and the possibility of being mistaken about it, then meseems Josh does have means of determining that the thought in his head is not from God - it is commanding him to do evil.
Well, that's what Kant thought. And I've been inclined to agree with him. But Kierkegaard's philosophy was presented to us as a criticism of the idea that Ethics and Religion are synonymous.
As for "evil being done in the name of religion"...
Let's say that Josh gets arrested before he is able to poison his kids. Kierkegaard is not advocating that he, as a Knight Of Faith, should be able to walk into court and say "You have to declare me innocent, your honour! God gave me the command, and I have proof that I would have gotten my kids back somehow!"
Because Josh has no proof for any of that, in fact, there never could be proof for any of that, because it's entirely absurd, and the courts would be quite right to convict Josh and toss him in jail.
But, by the standards on which he himself is acting, Josh would know(and only he ALONE would know this) that he was uniquely called by God, that he would get his children back somehow, and that he is truly a Knight Of Faith(*).
(*) Even if he doesn't understand that exact phrase.
It seems to me that the practical moral of Fear and Trembling if pit tritely is along the lines that love is something that grows if you give it away, or if you love something you must set it free, or some such.
(The greater part of mankind more frequently require to be reminded than informed, said Doctor Johnson.)
(Isn't one of the marks of the knight of Faith that he or she can't be sure that they're a Knight of Faith?)
^ I should say that the Ethical above is basically the kantian categorical imperative. I don't want to get into Kant right now, except to say that he thought ethics was a subcategory of logic, IOW saying "It's okay to poison your kids" would be like saying "Some blue houses are not blue."
I understand why you've gone for and extreme metaphor, but I don't think that's necessarily the only one to reach for - and continued use only blunts the impact.
The point of the TSoE, in my view, is that it is unintelligible from the Ethical, which in Kierkegaard's time was apparently Danish state church Christianity.
That's not the case in our situation. So we don't need Josh to murder his children with cyanide. We just need him to move from a listless life of hedonism into a more organised respectable life and then into an unintelligible religious life.
Which, to be clearer, Kierkegaard is suggesting is by definition going to be outrageous to Danish people when they all already think they are Christians.
Well, I was trying to give a thumbnail of the three stages, using an example for the Religious close to Kierkegaard's. Here's one that is probably closer to his actual concerns...
Suppose I told you about a good man who, knowing that a criminal gang wants to kidnap him, torture him, and then kill him with excruciating pain, all while his loving mother is still alive and aware of what will be happening to him, willingly gives himself up to the gang, for no other reason than that God told him to, and he knows that even if he dies at the end, he will somehow, in a way he does not currently understand, return.
Most of us(hopefully) would say that that's unethical. Absurd, even.
And indeed it is. But it's also what Christ did when faced with Crucifixion. And if Christians can't accept that as the central, culminating part of Christ's earthly mission, they should question whether they are really Christians.
(Isn't one of the marks of the knight of Faith that he or she can't be sure that they're a Knight of Faith?)
Yeah, I think you might be correct about that, and I hesistated about using the word "know". Maybe better to say "He believes, according to standards that are incomprehensible to everyone else, and unverifiable even to him."
(Sartre says in his essay something like "I have joined the Communist Party, even though I have no way of knowing for sure if they will succeed." Which sounds pretty obvious, but a little bit more philosophical in the context.)
If you love something, set it free.
You mean that Abraham since he loves Isaac, so he must free him, via the sacrifice, as requested by God?
I'm trying to reply particularly to @stetson's and @KoF's discussion from yesterday and into today. But also pull in @KarlLB's questions as well as @Martin54's.
And much, Much MORE!
1) As far as I've counted, SK develops 3 different structures for:
Stages/Modes of Life
Knights of Infinite Resignation (aka Tragic Hero) and of Faith (no known associated category)
Teleological Suspension of the Ethical
and spills a lot of ink for the sake of these. Why three? How (if at all) do these three tools help us analyze the situation in this book, others, and outside of the universe of the books and narrators.
2) Stages/Modes of Life.
Thanks for more examples @stetson. How about we extract some concepts from these stages. What are hallmarks of them? In bullet points. Let's see if there are patterns? Sometimes patterns help. But I'm sure I'm missing categories that are belong to the different stages. Since F&T only touches on the Aesthetic, I know I'm missing things here.
Aesthetic/Hedonistic (I am missing a lot here.) Who: Single individual in relation to _____ Where: Outside the universal Drives: Personal desires, tastes Concerns: Boredom leads to ____ (despair? meaninglessness?) Goals: Avoid boredom at all costs Methods: Entertainment, luxury goods, seduction, constant change, the next new thing, _______
Ethical "The nail which stands out will be pounded in." Who: The single individual who has relinquished her individuality in order to join into the universal (society with its norms and expectations) (Does anyone see what Marx grabbed onto here?) Where: Within the realm of society, the social order, the universal Drives: The common good, social morality, the needs of the community Concerns: Conformity to social morality and norms; fitting in; well-being of society; meeting societal expectations. My best for the good of all. Social trust. Goals: The betterment of all aspects of society as expressed in Hegel. "Going further" -- faith as a stage in the continuing upward spiral of societal change. Methods: Individual's resignation of individuality and conformity to the methods employed by society and the state. The methods employed by the state to "foster" conformity including: laws, rules, social pressure, assessment, standards (of all kinds).
Religious Who: Single individual particulated out of the universal (after having been a part of it) Where: Outside the universal/society in direct communion with God. Drives: Call from God, love for God Concerns: Acting by faith in spite of conflicting demands on the single individual made by social morality/ethics and God Goals: Please, obey, love God
Methods:[/i] Do the work of faith, that is, what God requires, in the understanding that however extreme the demand is (SK exposes us to the MOST extreme demand) God will fulfill the wish for whatever the faithful person gives up in order to obey.
I appreciate @KarlLB and @Martin54 for trying to keep it real. Isn't that what philosophy and theory are for? Their concern for attempts to justify the unjustifiable is reasonable. Do we have any evidence that SK was attempting to provide a heavenly "pass" for horrific deeds? For example, I understand he seemed to be obsessed about having broken his engagement with Regine -- it's a major topic and thematic reference in his dairies as well as his published work -- however, seeing a particular event in one's life as pivotal and processing things through it for years is a common human activity. If anyone would like to follow the line of enquiry that SK wrote F&T to provide a justifiable framework for the way he treated Regine, go for it. With primary sources and a full bibliography including page numbers. Do the math; show your work. Take your time. There's more than a bit to sift through.
Returning to application, I think the original thread (Shall We Leap) that inspired this one included the very real question in the OP, what examples anyone could give for a leap of faith. I think the question was asking for real examples. Few were offered. Maybe as we discuss this book, whether one would call the act of faith in F&T a leap or not, it would be worth considering how the concept applies to us personally -- actual application of philosophy. I'm not asking for confession or even admission, but thinking in the background, if nowhere else.
This post is more than long enough, and I have other things I want to cover. The ideas and questions spin out in every direction.
I find the association between adherence to societal norms, and the Ethical rather strange. Societal norms are by no means automatically ethical. They can be quite the opposite.
I find the association between adherence to societal norms, and the Ethical rather strange. Societal norms are by no means automatically ethical. They can be quite the opposite.
Right. I'm not sure "ethical" is a very good choice of word for modern ears.
I believe Kierkegaard is harping back to the Greeks to postulate that "ethical behaviour" is that which all Real Greeks would agree to.
Some of Ancient Greek behaviour was disgusting and yet tolerated by society.
Personally I don't think there's a lot of mileage in a discussion about whether Kierkegaard was trying to ex post facto use his books to justify to himself his broken relationship with Regine.
Who cares? What difference would it make?
Here is a bunch of complicated philosophical works that many over the years have found useful. The question might be accurate or not - but surely a more interesting question is whether Kierkegaard has anything useful for us.
Excellent extractions, and as far as I am aware, they basically fill out the broad contours of my own parable of Josh and his journey through the Stages.
(SK exposes us to the most extreme demand)
Well, this is why I think the TSOTE really needs to be kept in mind as the overarching context here. As a result of the Suspension, the rules of ethics no longer apply, and God could pretty much demand ANYTHING of the aspirant Knight Of Faith, without it contradicting the protocols of the Religious Stage.
I mean, sure, you can come up with less shocking examples: maybe my wife and I sweat and slave for 25 years to pay the mortgage on our home, but the day after the last payment, when my wife is at work and the kids at school, a voice claiming to be God asks me to pour gasoline all over the inside and burn the house down, without consulting anyone else. And I obey.
Or my son asks me to mail off his application form for university on the last day for an acceptable postmark, and I agree to do that, but on my way across the bridge to the post office, the VCTBG tells me to tear up the envelope and toss the shreds into the river. And I obey.
And so on and so forth. These would all suffice as examples of actions outside the Ethical, though I don't think either quite approximates the story of God's Earthly incarnation willingly surrendering himself to a gang who are planning to have him tortured and murdered with extreme agony over a period of several hours.
Personally I don't think there's a lot of mileage in a discussion about whether Kierkegaard was trying to ex post facto use his books to justify to himself his broken relationship with Regine.
Who cares? What difference would it make?
Here is a bunch of complicated philosophical works that many over the years have found useful. The question might be accurate or not - but surely a more interesting question is whether Kierkegaard has anything useful for us.
I'm inclined to agree, and I think an academic philosopher would say that focusing on Regine is an ad hominem, like saying that Karl Marx was just a chronically-unemployed failed grad student, trying to rationalize his own inability to function in a modern economy. Possibly true, but irrelevant to a discussion of his ideas.
But it does make the books more of an interesting literary experience. As I said, Fear And Trembling actually contains several references to Regine, one of which apparently hides her identity with the pronoun "he".
Comments
Happy to be so grounded. And unaware of any paradox. I understand the story of Abraham just fine. I'm missing nothing. And it stands alone without the absurd desperate anachronism of Hebrews. And the sad empty pretension of Kierkegaard. The poor sod was trying to big up having thrown away the love of his life for nothing.
What are the relevant passages from Hebrews that you've been referencing?
?!
Hebrews 11:17 By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, 18 even though God had said to him, “It is through Isaac that your offspring will be reckoned.” 19 Abraham reasoned that God could even raise the dead, and so in a manner of speaking he did receive Isaac back from death.
That's worse than Kierkegaard.
I'm not sure I'd say it's WORSE than Kierkegaard, though I suppose it depends what you mean by worse. Abraham in that passage actually comes off as slightly less a Knight Of Faith, at least on a straightforward reading of the words, because he "reasoned" that God had the power to reverse death, whereas according to Fear And Trembling...
Though I suppose it might depend on what Paul meant by "reasoned". If it's just something like "Assumed that God, being God, could bring the dead back to life", there might not be that huge a difference with Kierkegaard.
So, like, it's a day in the life of a knight of faith? He's hummin' merrily down the street wondering what his wife is making for dinner, perhaps the big chicken, but if not, that's fine too, and so on and so forth.
That's probably the only part I can remember right now. From my totally pop-culture infused perspective, I'm getting strong "continental" vibes from this guy.
[Yes, I know Denmark itself is continental in every sense of the word, but I mean someone who would seem continental even to a Dane.
In his academic history of western philosophy, Fred Copleston SJ passively-aggressively suggests that had Kierkegaard lived longer, he might have become Catholic. With all due respect to old FCSJ, I don't really buy it, certainly not from a soteriological angle, anyway, but I CAN sorta see how Kierkegaard's stylistic aesthetics might appeal to Catholics and others accustomed to a more visual and esoteric style of worship. Caveat I know nothing of any other Danish literature besides Andersen, so have no real context for knowing how foreign or domestic his style woulda seemed to his peers.]
The portrayal of the Knight of Faith in Preliminary Expectoration makes him look like a goofball, doesn't it. "Good Lord, he looks just like a capitalist!" "Vegetating as he smokes his pipe in the dusk." Etc.
If your prof didn't have you read this section, s/he was negligent. My impression is that regularly profs want to dive right into the Teleological Suspension of the Ethical (starting where others left off, maybe) and go further, straight to interpretation.
Ideally, the book could certainly be condensed. And that way the student would have a much more complete overview of all the lines of enquiry in the book, as there are many and they are related.
'Til tomorrow. I think.
I can't quite recall if my prof assigned the entirety of Fear And Trembling, and then lectured on the academic philosophy of it while drawing examples from the more obscure stuff as he saw fit, OR if he assigned fragments(eg. the Problems), and focused the lectures on the academic philosophy contained therein. I do remember Don Juan as the main protagonist at the aesthetic level, wherever that came from.
In any case, given the limited time frame(we eventually ended up skipping Heidegger entirely because of the focus on the other three guys), and the need to situate each thinker in a recognizable context with the others, it sort of made sense to focus the lectures on the teleological suspension of the ethical.
The existentialists do like their parables, though. Nietzsche's opus is full of them(our class covered the madman in the market, possibly others), and there's even Sartre's young fellow torn between caring for his sick mother and joining the Resistance and what will the priest tell him to do but he knows the answer before he even asks because he chose which priest to go to in the first place.
I'm gonna try to get through the Expectorations tomorrow. Right now, it's coming off as a little hokey-charming, unless it's meant ironically. But I'm doubting it is, because, given Kierkegaard's attack on Christendom, why would he simultaneously mock the Knights Of Faith? I don't see the book as fighting a two-front war.
And, honestly, my original reading of "capitalists" was that he was using it to mean something like "average successful businessman", with no significant disdain intended, just that that's who a Knight Of Faith would superficially resemble to our eyes. I might think differently after I've read some more, but that's how I'm seeing it right now.
Paul?! What's he got to do with it? Whoever the writer was (Junia, a mere woman?), another genius of their time, they were projecting on Abraham.
How Johannes de silentio handles that I don't know, apart from with more complexity.
Don Juan comes from Either/Or. Your prof was doing an overview of SK then. His modes or stages (Aesthetic, Ethical and Religious)
That's forgivable, but I think the obsession with the TSoE really is not, and that seems to be universal in phil courses. If anyone knows anything about SK, it's that, and of course the Leap of Faith, which is technically Lessing's idea.
It would be, in my opinion, like reading the book of Proverbs, and feeling like one knew what the Bible was all about.
................
15 minutes later (draft still open, because it didn't post, when I pressed "post comment"):
I ran acrossed an article in Wikipedia, when I was checking on something from F&T: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispositio#Exordium
I don't have a classical education, which would really come in handy reading T.S. Elliot, Ezra Pound, and Kierkegaard, because they clearly did, and as one would hope, used it. I want to read this more thoroughly and think about if, or to what degree, the structure of F&T, particularly the three prefaces (Preface, Tuning Up and Preliminary Ezpectoration (Getting Something off My Chest)) are similar or different in structure. And in what ways form and function operate here.
And yet, laterer:
I would not look to F&T for bibical exegesis, or even a faithful rendering of what any biblical passage about Abraham.
SK's method with scripture reflected in F&T is clear in at least some of his discourses as well.
I don't think the 'leap' into the Religious exists in that book. Either the hedonistic, aesthetic life after Geothe or the ethical staid life after Hegel.
Apparently it discusses some more the Religious 'stage'
Certainly.
The ChaBaD interpretation of the text can be found here:
https://www.chabad.org/parshah/article_cdo/aid/2538/jewish/The-Binding-of-Isaac.htm
But for the sake of discussion the relevant portion is
It's Abraham's identity as it was acquired through his belief in God's promise to him that he would be the "father of a great nation" that was demanded in sacrifice.
Indeed ISTM that he was offered this opportunity once before this event when he made the decision to expel Hagar and Ishmael - but this could be externally and rationally justified as being a decision in service of the promise of his Great Nation fatherhood.
And so it was only by the contravention of the ethical norms of the Noahide Law that such a feat could be accomplished. The self-immolation of any illusion that Abraham was a righteous enough human being to claim the parenthood of such a favored nation was the sacrifice demanded. Only the TSoE could bring him to such a critical pass.
Abraham was faced forever after with the utterly humiliating reality that he would endure in the sight of others. Not much is said afterwards of Abraham's relationships with his family or tribe. We don't know how he lived and died with the understanding of the depth of his faith that only he could grasp at the time.
AFF
Thanks for the proper location of Don Juan in Kierkegaard. As for the TSOTE being over-emphasized in philosophy classes, well, as I say, in an existentialism course, that makes a bit of sense, because the whole point of the existentialist analysis is that no system can be of any use in making ethical decisions.
Oh, and speaking as someone else without a classical education, I don't know how much helpful it would be for reading TS Eliot. At least in The Waste Land, almost every allusion is footnoted, and in any case, alot of it strikes me as stuff that wouldn't be included in a typical classical education anyway(I doubt that even the average graduate of the Boston Latin School woulda a clue about Women Beware Women, for example). Yeats wrote something to the effect that Eliot seems to think that everyone has enough time to read all the obscure literature that he does.
@A Feminine Force
So, if I've got this straight, with the TSoE, Abraham showed everybody what an absolute monster he was prepared to be, thus giving up any claim to being some great statesman among the Israelites.
If so, it seems to me that it was his self in the sense of his social identity, ie. how he was perceived "in the sight of others", as you say, that was destroyed by his decision to carry out the sacrifice. As an individual in the metaphysical sense, he continued to exist, just without all the trappings of glory that had previously been such a major part of who he was.
Yes I believe that's a certain part of it - the "exoteric truth" as it were.
But it's not just the "social identity" that he sacrificed. Because remember, he never lived to see "the great nation" that was promised to arise from the fruit of his loins. The promise of a "great nation" arising from his progeny, until Isaac was born, was to most, a story he told himself and some kind of social narrative that was accepted among the people who followed him.
He was asked to pit his own self-perception against the value of his actions - and could not conclude that he was in truth "that guy". He had to put to death the idea that he was anything other than what he showed himself to be, and only he knew how obedience to the command of the Most High was worth more than all the self-identification and social currency in the world. From that moment on he could only have faith that the sacrifice had been sufficient but he never lived to see the proof of it.
Kind of like Jesus - there was a lot of hoopla at the beginning, then nothing nothing nothing nothing, then three years of something culminating in a death reserved for common criminals. At the very end Jesus begged for the cup to be taken from His lips but the final surrender was in "Not my will, but Thine". Who knows what kind of despair and failure He might have felt on the road to Golgotha? He didn't march triumphantly, that much is pretty certain.
All of these moments would qualify as moments of existential horror and dread.
It's amazing how full of them our Christian tradition seems to be.
AFF
"Yes I was having an affair with Mabel. But you see, I didn't really want to, I was following the direct instruction from the deity to either do it or renounce the faith. By doing it, you see, I was showing everyone exactly how faithful I am and how I will do anything that God tells me to do..."
Except that there's no absurdity in that guy's philandering, because the affair with Mabel gives him material gain(sex, companionahip etc ), which is a factor not present in the act of sacrificing Isaac. In kierkegaardian terms, I think your scenario would be like God ordering Don Juan to seduce widows, ie. a command originating in the Religious, but to commit an Aesthetic act.
Well I was trying to think of something relatively mild to type. Because I can't really bring myself to write something that would be on the same kind of level as sacrificing your own son.
"yes, I know that it would be nice to spend family time with the children, but the thing is that God has told me I have to do x y and z and sacrifice my family.."
I think it would depend on what those things were. If it was "Spend more time at the bar watching sporting events with my buddies", and that's something he enjoys doing moreso than looking after his kids, it wouldn't qualify him as a Knight Of Faith.
But if it was "Stop living at home and sleep on the bench at the bus stop all day, for no evident benefit beyond you know that it's what God asked of you", that could work.
And I think many scholars would say that Soren's own dumping of Regine would qualify as trying to put religious lipstick on an ethical pig. But there's probably not much direct evidence for that in the texts, beyond "Seems kinda strange that right after he did that, he started scrounging around for religious rationales for treating people like shit."
"God told me to dump my fiancee and spend the rest of my days writing impenetrable philosophy books and writing angry letters to Bishops.."
Indeed AFF. Sorry I missed you.
And he knew that he would get her back, in a sense, because she'd be so thrilled at being even the jilted fiancee of such a genius that she'd spend the rest of her days bragging about it to her friends.
All good dear - it's a multi-tiered conversation. Most intriguing.
AFF
FWIW, while Jesus may be a Knight Of Faith, I don't think "Live by the sword, die by the sword" is any sort of command to leap into the absurd, since it contains within it the very practical advice that avoiding the use of violence yourself is a good way to help stop violence from happening to you.
Now, "If a man slaps you on the cheek, turn around and offer him the other one" might qualify, since there really doesn't seem to be any practical good in allowing, in fact, inviting, a violent criminal to continue his rampage, beyond that it's what God apparently asks of us.
(That's assuming the Matthew 5: 38-39 isn't just a hyperbolized way of saying that it's best to find non-violent solutions to violent situations.)
Indeed. But which biblical passage are you refering to?
Yeah. Be fishers of men, or some such. I thought that might be what you mean, but wasn't sure.
And it might qualify as a leap of faith, assuming the fishermen gave no more thought to it than: "Wow, I am clearly in the presence of God, and He's asking me to join Him, so off I go."
Somewhere in Fear And Trembling, Kierkegaard also defends the more literal interpretation(*) of "You can't follow me unless you hate your whole family", which seems pretty much in the general spirit of a leap into the absurd.
(*) As opposed to "Jesus just meant we should love Him more than we love anyone else", which is a pretty underwhelming commandment, if Jesus is assumed to be God.
Nah HAH! We converge.
The reason that Kierkegaard writes as de silentio is because he doesn't wanna show his hand in regards to whether or not he considers himself, Soren Kierkegaard, a Knight Of Faith. So he writes as de silentio, a character who clearly states himself to be a Knight Of Infinite Resignation.
@A_Feminine_Force thank you for the ChaBaD interpretation and what you highlighted. I think there are similarities between what you shared and F&T.
The idea of Abraham sacrificing the self is interesting, certainly seems to me like what would be necessary to attempt to follow through on the commanded deed. And certainly, in life as we know it, the aftermath would be permanent humiliation. If Isaac were to try to defend his father, having been the one witness, he, too would be seen as a victim of abuse, still suffering Stockholm syndrome.
What similarities and differences do you see between what SK and ChaBaD propose?
Does one or the other seem more useful to you?
@stetson
Sure. You're welcome.
SK's 3 modes or stages of life are creeping in to the conversation. I am aware that they exist. I know that Either/Or (E/O) contrasts the aesthetic and the ethical modes. And Fear and Trembling (F&T) contrasts the ethical and religious modes.
The only part of E/O that I've read is Ultimatum, a sermon at the end (of all places) of the 2-massive-volume epistolary "novel"/"work".
For our viewers' benefit, could you give a brief overview of what these are, and how they apply? Thanks!
Ok. I know there's more to respond to, but not tonight. Hope to be more with it tomorrow.
Yes, it certainly opens up a lot of strategies. I think there are yet more reasons.
Have you read anything about SK's "indirect" technique and stated purpose for it? Although we can never be sure how much a person is telling the truth or not regarding their motives.
More tomorrow
For the Aesthetic Stage, I'm first gonna switch to calling it the Hedonistic Stage, which I think I've seen somewhere the last few days, and is clearer for an early C21 readership.
Okay...
Remember the sports-bar dad that @KoA and I conjured up a few posts back? Hangs out at the bar watching sports on TV with his buddies instead of spending time with his kids. In our example, he was(incoherently, for our purposes) portrayed as acting on orders from God, but let's assume he's just doing it for fun as a matter of habit, been that way his whole life, and just doesn't give a shit about anyone else.
Sports Bar Dad is living at the Hedonistic Stage.
Now, one day, some philosophy undergrads are slumming it at the sports bar, and one of them gets into a discussion with SBD(hereafter known as Josh), and explains to him why it's unethical to hang out at the bar all day and night while ignoring his family. So, Josh decides to change his ways, stop hanging out at the sports bar, spend lots of time with his family, and maybe even volunteer at some respectable children's charities in town in order to spread the good works around.
Josh is now operating at the Ethical Stage.
Which is great. BUT...
The Ethical Stage is universal, binding on everybody, so in following its morality, Josh is doing exactly the same thing that everyone else is supposed to do.
And this is where it's always gotten a little murky for me. I'm not sure why Kierkegaard thinks anyone would be dis-satisfied at the Ethical Stage, but, apparently, he does. Something to do with the individual not being uniquely called by God.
In any case, if you're going to be called to the next stage, that means being called OUT OF the Ethical Stage, so one day Josh hears a voice announcing itself to be God, and asking Josh to sacrifice all his beloved children via cyanide in their morning milk. This command obviously violates basic morality, and Josh has no way of verifying if it's really God, or if it's the devil, or a fever dream etc.
But in any case, Josh believes the voice to be God, and assumes that his children will somehow be returned to him even if they have died, and decides to start the sacrifice by trying to get his hands on some cyanide.
Josh is now operating at the Religious Stage.
What is K trying to do with the book? It seems unlikely that he is trying to persuade readers of the attraction of a hedonistic lifestyle and yet he spends a very long time debating it. Presumably readers are supposed to see themselves in the Judge, disapproving of the pointless and worthless lives of these other young people he is reading about.
And yet. It feels like the hedonists are more alive and full of passion for life. It feels like the Judge is an old fart and a fuddy-duddy.
It feels, perhaps only to me, that the Judge is over-stating his disapproval because secretly he is jealous.
I understand why you've gone for and extreme metaphor, but I don't think that's necessarily the only one to reach for - and continued use only blunts the impact.
The point of the TSoE, in my view, is that it is unintelligible from the Ethical, which in Kierkegaard's time was apparently Danish state church Christianity.
That's not the case in our situation. So we don't need Josh to murder his children with cyanide. We just need him to move from a listless life of hedonism into a more organised respectable life and then into an unintelligible religious life.
Which, to be clearer, Kierkegaard is suggesting is by definition going to be outrageous to Danish people when they all already think they are Christians.
Also, I ought to repeat that I'm not convinced that the idea of a universal-ethical exists beyond cultural norms.
And people get all huffy when atheists point out all the evil done in the name of religion. And there it is.
If God is good, there should be no conflict between these two - doing what is good, and following God. When there clearly is, notwithstanding shifting human ideas of good and the possibility of being mistaken about it, then meseems Josh does have means of determining that the thought in his head is not from God - it is commanding him to do evil.
This is my frustration in a nutshell. If Kierkegaard is suggesting anything like this, I don't see the point of printing his work at all. Let it fall from memory as the vast majority of publications have done since writing was made durable and could be disseminated.
I'm optimistic that this is not the point of his work, of this work, that is F&T. What I am proposing we can get out of the text requires a lot more than "just the text." And it delivers a lot more as well.
I cogitate.
But that seems to be the view of this one, particulated, single individual.
Well, that's what Kant thought. And I've been inclined to agree with him. But Kierkegaard's philosophy was presented to us as a criticism of the idea that Ethics and Religion are synonymous.
As for "evil being done in the name of religion"...
Let's say that Josh gets arrested before he is able to poison his kids. Kierkegaard is not advocating that he, as a Knight Of Faith, should be able to walk into court and say "You have to declare me innocent, your honour! God gave me the command, and I have proof that I would have gotten my kids back somehow!"
Because Josh has no proof for any of that, in fact, there never could be proof for any of that, because it's entirely absurd, and the courts would be quite right to convict Josh and toss him in jail.
But, by the standards on which he himself is acting, Josh would know(and only he ALONE would know this) that he was uniquely called by God, that he would get his children back somehow, and that he is truly a Knight Of Faith(*).
(*) Even if he doesn't understand that exact phrase.
(The greater part of mankind more frequently require to be reminded than informed, said Doctor Johnson.)
(Isn't one of the marks of the knight of Faith that he or she can't be sure that they're a Knight of Faith?)
Well, I was trying to give a thumbnail of the three stages, using an example for the Religious close to Kierkegaard's. Here's one that is probably closer to his actual concerns...
Suppose I told you about a good man who, knowing that a criminal gang wants to kidnap him, torture him, and then kill him with excruciating pain, all while his loving mother is still alive and aware of what will be happening to him, willingly gives himself up to the gang, for no other reason than that God told him to, and he knows that even if he dies at the end, he will somehow, in a way he does not currently understand, return.
Most of us(hopefully) would say that that's unethical. Absurd, even.
And indeed it is. But it's also what Christ did when faced with Crucifixion. And if Christians can't accept that as the central, culminating part of Christ's earthly mission, they should question whether they are really Christians.
Yeah, I think you might be correct about that, and I hesistated about using the word "know". Maybe better to say "He believes, according to standards that are incomprehensible to everyone else, and unverifiable even to him."
(Sartre says in his essay something like "I have joined the Communist Party, even though I have no way of knowing for sure if they will succeed." Which sounds pretty obvious, but a little bit more philosophical in the context.)
You mean that Abraham since he loves Isaac, so he must free him, via the sacrifice, as requested by God?
And much, Much MORE!
1) As far as I've counted, SK develops 3 different structures for:
Stages/Modes of Life
Knights of Infinite Resignation (aka Tragic Hero) and of Faith (no known associated category)
Teleological Suspension of the Ethical
and spills a lot of ink for the sake of these. Why three? How (if at all) do these three tools help us analyze the situation in this book, others, and outside of the universe of the books and narrators.
2) Stages/Modes of Life.
Thanks for more examples @stetson. How about we extract some concepts from these stages. What are hallmarks of them? In bullet points. Let's see if there are patterns? Sometimes patterns help. But I'm sure I'm missing categories that are belong to the different stages. Since F&T only touches on the Aesthetic, I know I'm missing things here.
Aesthetic/Hedonistic (I am missing a lot here.)
Who: Single individual in relation to _____
Where: Outside the universal
Drives: Personal desires, tastes
Concerns: Boredom leads to ____ (despair? meaninglessness?)
Goals: Avoid boredom at all costs
Methods: Entertainment, luxury goods, seduction, constant change, the next new thing, _______
Ethical "The nail which stands out will be pounded in."
Who: The single individual who has relinquished her individuality in order to join into the universal (society with its norms and expectations) (Does anyone see what Marx grabbed onto here?)
Where: Within the realm of society, the social order, the universal
Drives: The common good, social morality, the needs of the community
Concerns: Conformity to social morality and norms; fitting in; well-being of society; meeting societal expectations. My best for the good of all. Social trust.
Goals: The betterment of all aspects of society as expressed in Hegel. "Going further" -- faith as a stage in the continuing upward spiral of societal change.
Methods: Individual's resignation of individuality and conformity to the methods employed by society and the state. The methods employed by the state to "foster" conformity including: laws, rules, social pressure, assessment, standards (of all kinds).
Religious
Who: Single individual particulated out of the universal (after having been a part of it)
Where: Outside the universal/society in direct communion with God.
Drives: Call from God, love for God
Concerns: Acting by faith in spite of conflicting demands on the single individual made by social morality/ethics and God
Goals: Please, obey, love God
Methods:[/i] Do the work of faith, that is, what God requires, in the understanding that however extreme the demand is (SK exposes us to the MOST extreme demand) God will fulfill the wish for whatever the faithful person gives up in order to obey.
I appreciate @KarlLB and @Martin54 for trying to keep it real. Isn't that what philosophy and theory are for? Their concern for attempts to justify the unjustifiable is reasonable. Do we have any evidence that SK was attempting to provide a heavenly "pass" for horrific deeds? For example, I understand he seemed to be obsessed about having broken his engagement with Regine -- it's a major topic and thematic reference in his dairies as well as his published work -- however, seeing a particular event in one's life as pivotal and processing things through it for years is a common human activity. If anyone would like to follow the line of enquiry that SK wrote F&T to provide a justifiable framework for the way he treated Regine, go for it. With primary sources and a full bibliography including page numbers. Do the math; show your work. Take your time. There's more than a bit to sift through.
Returning to application, I think the original thread (Shall We Leap) that inspired this one included the very real question in the OP, what examples anyone could give for a leap of faith. I think the question was asking for real examples. Few were offered. Maybe as we discuss this book, whether one would call the act of faith in F&T a leap or not, it would be worth considering how the concept applies to us personally -- actual application of philosophy. I'm not asking for confession or even admission, but thinking in the background, if nowhere else.
This post is more than long enough, and I have other things I want to cover. The ideas and questions spin out in every direction.
Right. I'm not sure "ethical" is a very good choice of word for modern ears.
I believe Kierkegaard is harping back to the Greeks to postulate that "ethical behaviour" is that which all Real Greeks would agree to.
Some of Ancient Greek behaviour was disgusting and yet tolerated by society.
Who cares? What difference would it make?
Here is a bunch of complicated philosophical works that many over the years have found useful. The question might be accurate or not - but surely a more interesting question is whether Kierkegaard has anything useful for us.
Excellent extractions, and as far as I am aware, they basically fill out the broad contours of my own parable of Josh and his journey through the Stages.
Well, this is why I think the TSOTE really needs to be kept in mind as the overarching context here. As a result of the Suspension, the rules of ethics no longer apply, and God could pretty much demand ANYTHING of the aspirant Knight Of Faith, without it contradicting the protocols of the Religious Stage.
I mean, sure, you can come up with less shocking examples: maybe my wife and I sweat and slave for 25 years to pay the mortgage on our home, but the day after the last payment, when my wife is at work and the kids at school, a voice claiming to be God asks me to pour gasoline all over the inside and burn the house down, without consulting anyone else. And I obey.
Or my son asks me to mail off his application form for university on the last day for an acceptable postmark, and I agree to do that, but on my way across the bridge to the post office, the VCTBG tells me to tear up the envelope and toss the shreds into the river. And I obey.
And so on and so forth. These would all suffice as examples of actions outside the Ethical, though I don't think either quite approximates the story of God's Earthly incarnation willingly surrendering himself to a gang who are planning to have him tortured and murdered with extreme agony over a period of several hours.
I'm inclined to agree, and I think an academic philosopher would say that focusing on Regine is an ad hominem, like saying that Karl Marx was just a chronically-unemployed failed grad student, trying to rationalize his own inability to function in a modern economy. Possibly true, but irrelevant to a discussion of his ideas.
But it does make the books more of an interesting literary experience. As I said, Fear And Trembling actually contains several references to Regine, one of which apparently hides her identity with the pronoun "he".