Humanism Lecture Ten

Humanism Lecture Ten 6/12/05


Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

Existentialism - emerged from Paris after WWII – in contemporary form – existential affected: the novel, theater, poetry, art, and theology.

There are many different kinds of existentialism – human existence.

Socrates summed it up when he said that all thought and activity should be directed toward enhancing the meaning of human existence.

Philosophy has mainly dealt with the problems of metaphysics, ethics, and knowledge - and has bypassed the concerns of humans and their destinies – where they are going in their lives.

Humans with the rise of science were becoming more and more de-humanized – forced to fit their lives into the rhythms of machines – ie. timepieces.

Also: the breakdown of religion had brought about a sense of meaninglessness in peoples lives.

This meant some people trying to recreate their lives without religion – and others returning to religion as a source of meaning – Christian Existentialism, and Existential Psychology.

But whether they were theists or atheists – the one thing that they had in common was that philosophy had become too academic for them – and that it was to far away from their real lives.

There is no “system” of existential philosophy – but some of its basic themes can be found in its main thinkers – we will look at a number of them over the next few classes – but we will begin Kiekegaard – a Danish philosopher who is an important early philosopher in existential thought.

Kierkegaard

Many of the ideas of the existentialism that first came out of Paris after WWII – is expressed in the thought of Soren Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard only lived to 42 years old, but during that time he wrote a lot of books – these books were soon forgotten after his death – they had a huge effect when they were rediscovered by German scholars in the early decades of the 20 century.

Kierkegaard was trained in the thought of Hegel – but when he heard the lectures of Schelling lectures in Berling which were critical of Hegel – Kierkegaard agreed with Schelling:


(quote 1)

“If Hegel had written the whole of his Logic and then said … that it was merely an experiment of thought, then he could certainly have been the greatest thinker who ever lived. As it is, he is merely comic.” – Kierkegaard

The term ‘existence’ is reserved for the individual human beings. To exist, for Kierkegaard, means being a certain kind of individual who strives, who considers alternatives, who chooses, who decides, and who, above all, commits himself. None of these acts are considered in Hegel’s philosophy.

Feuerbach: “Do not wish to be a philosopher in contrast to being a man … do not think as a thinker … think as a living, real being … think in Existence.”

What made Hegel “comic” for Kierkegaard was that Hegel tried to capture all of reality in his system of thought – but had lost the most important thing: existence.

What It Means to Think Existentially

For Kierkegaard: to think in Existence is to recognize that one is always faced with personal choices.

For this reason: thinking should deal with their own personal situation and how to make the best choices.

Hegel’s philosophy was about universals – and not about the individual – it wanted people to think not to be – to think the Absolute Idea rather than being involve in decisions and commitments.

Kierkegaard drew a distinction between spectator and actor – saying that only the actor is involved in existence.

The spectator can be said to exist but the term existence doesn’t really belong to things that are inactive.

Example: A horse and cart – a man asleep – a man awake – only the conscious driver can be said to exist – in that he or she is involved in existence.

Kierkegaard criticized rational knowledge very strongly – he reacted very strongly against the emphasis on rational knowledge in the early Greeks – which he said had continued through all of Western philosophy and the Christian religion.

Greek philosophy had been too greatly influenced by a high regard for mathematics – he did not want to reject mathematics – or science – in the proper uses – but he did reject the idea that we could use mathematically or scientific mode of thought when trying to understand human nature.

Mathematics and science have no place for the human individual – only for the universal.

Plato only emphasized the universal – platonic form, the true, the good – Plato thought if a human knew the good they would do it.

Kierkegaad thought this was false and did not show our real place in the world – our real predicament – even when we have knowledge we are still in the position of having to make a decision.

Philosophy can lead us all over the place – but eventually we have to come back to the moment of decision – the predicament of having to make a decision.

Kierkegaard saw in the Bible story of Abraham the typical condition of humans: what kind of knowledge could help Abraham to decide whether to obey God and kill his son?

The most important moments in life are very personal – where each person becomes aware of themselves as subjects.

Rational thought only what each person has in common – the same – but subjectivity is what makes each person different – thus mathematics and science cannot, according to Kierkegaard – leads us to genuine existence – true existence – authentic existence.

Truth as Subjectivity

Truth is subjectivity

What Kierkegaard meant by this is that for an existing, striving, deciding person there is not outside truth – a pre-made truth.

(quote 2)

“the highest truth attainable for an Existing individual [is simply] an objective uncertainty held fast in the most passionate personal experience …”

Kierkegaard did agree with Socrates’ claim of ignorance – and pointed to this as an example of his notion of truth, saying that:

“the Socratic ignorance which Socrates held fast with the entire passion his personal experience, was thus an expression of the principle that the eternal truth is related to the Existing in individual.”

This would suggest that the development of knowledge is not the only important thing in life – what is just as important is the development of the personality.

The Existential Situation

Kierkegaard describe the human beings’ existential situation – as the difference between what he or she is now and what he or she ought to be.



(quote 3)

Existential situation

what he or she is now

what he or she ought to be

We move from our essence to our existence

This is seen in Christianity as the idea of the Fall and original sin.

Kierkegaard saw that human beings are cut off from their essence because we know that we are going to die – that we are finite – we try to do something to make ourselves forget this but it only makes things worse – we add guilt and despair to our anxiety.

Our existential self is a movement away from our essential self – our essential self is our connection to the infinite – to God – who is infinite.

Until a human realizes his or her essential self – their life is full of anxiety.

This anxiety is caused by the feeling that one’s essence is separated from their existence.

This feeling of separation makes a human want to recover – bring together these two parts – this movement to bring them together – Kierkegaard calls: stages on life’s way.

(quote 4)

The Three Stages:

The Aesthetic Stage

The Ethical Stage

The Religious Stage

Kierkegaard’s system is different than Hegel’s – in that Hegel’s system moves via thinking and dialectic process – whereas Kierkegaard’s is the movement from one level to other via an act of choice – Hegel’s moves gradual toward a knowledge of the Absolute Idea – whereas for Kierkegaard it is an actualization of the individual through an act of personal commitment.

The Aesthetic Stage

First stage.

Acts according to impulses and emotions – the chief motivation is to enjoy the pleasure of the senses.

Resents anything that would limit his choices – Kierkegaard says that the aesthetic man exists in that he chooses the aesthetic.

However – he senses that there ought to be more than just the emotions and the senses to life.

Kierkegaard makes a difference between human’s as spirit and as sensuousness.

Kierkegaard says it is the spirit that calls us past sensuousness.

It is one thing to be able to discuss or think about this theoretically – but Kierkegaard says that the thing is for each individual to discover these two possibilities in themselves.

The individual is faced with an either/or situation – to stay with what in known in the aesthetic or to move on to the next stage – this cannot be done through thinking but only through an act of choice – or decision.

The Ethical Stage

Second level.

The aesthetic human has no universal standards but accepts only what he likes or doesn’t like – the ethical human accepts rules of conduct that reason makes.

Ethical rules give the ethical man’s life form and consistency.

The ethical human accepts limits on his or her life that ethical rules create.

The aesthetic human accepts on whatever feels good at the time – the ethical human limits themselves to ethical rules formed through reason.

However, eventually the ethical human sees that no matter how hard they try or think about it that they cannot keep their ethical rules absolutely – that he or she can’t fulfill the moral law.

This creates another either/or situation – the ethical human can remain at the ethical level or recognize his or her need for God to whom he belongs and from whom he or she must get their strength.

The movement from the ethical to the next stage – the religious stage – again, cannot not be done by thinking – but the movement to this stage can also not be done by an act of choice or decision - it must be done by an act of faith – by a leap of faith.

The Religious Stage

The difference between reason and faith is important in the religious stage.
A human’s move from the aesthetic to the ethical needed reason – because ethical laws and rules are an expression of the universal reason of humankind.

But the movement for the ethical to the religious needs something else other than reason – it needs faith – this is because the God which one becomes aware of is not object but subject – so God cannot be known objectively – as in reason.

(quote 5)

The secret of religious consciousness is that the existing individual cannot pursue God in an objective way or bring God to light objectively.

This is in all eternity impossible because God is subject , and therefore exists only for subjectivity in inwardness.

The relationship between God and each individual is a unique and subjective experience. There is no way, before the actual relationship, to get any knowledge about it.

The despair of the aesthetic stage moves one to the ethical stage – the guilt of the ethical stage moves on to the either/or moment of the leap of faith into the religious stage.