KIERKEGAARD AND ANGST
SØREN KIERKEGAARD
(1844)
DR. D. J. MATTEY
Dr. D. J. Mattey's Lecture Notes -
Philosophy 151 November 9, 1995
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Dr. D. J. Mattey was born in Cleveland Ohio,
1950. His main interests in philosophy are
history of modern philosophy, theory of knowledge,
and logic. He received his B. A. at The Ohio
State University (1972), majoring in philosophy.
His Ph. D. is from the University of Pittsburgh
(1979). His dissertation was: The Idealism
of Kant and Berkeley, directed by Wilfrid
Sellars. He has two published papers on Kant
- "Kant's Conception of Berkeley's Idealism,"
and "Kant's Theory of Propositional
Attitudes." Both are in Kant Studien.
He is a member of the North American Kant
Society. He also has two published papers
in theory of knowledge, "Lehrer's Personal
Coherentism and the KK Thesis," and
"Personal Coherence, Objectivity and
Reliability."
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Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (b. 1813, d. 1855)
was a profound and prolific writer in the
Danish "golden age" of intellectual
and artistic activity. His work crosses the
boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology,
literary criticism, devotional literature
and fiction. Kierkegaard brought this potent
mixture of discourses to bear as social critique
and for the purpose of renewing Christian
faith within Christendom. At the same time
he made many original conceptual contributions
to each of the disciplines he employed. He
is known as the "father of existentialism",
but at least as important are his critiques
of Hegel and of the German romantics, his
contributions to the development of modernism,
his literary experimentation, his vivid re-presentation
of biblical figures to bring out their modern
relevance, his invention of key concepts
which have been explored and redeployed by
thinkers ever since, his interventions in
contemporary Danish church politics, and
his fervent attempts to analyse and revitalise
Christian faith. Kierkegaard burned with
the passion of a religious poet, was armed
with extraordinary dialectical talent, and
drew on vast resources of erudition.
Thus far, we have examined the way in which
Kierkegaard upheld the primacy of the individual
in the face of the system, which culminates
in the passionate embrace of a paradoxical
God. In other works, Kierkegaard emphasized
the psychological conditions leading up to
the leap of faith. Perhaps his most famous
analysis was of the state of angst (dread
or anxiety). Certainly it was influential
on a number of "existential" philosophers
in the twentieth century, most notably Jean
Paul Sartre.
Although his analysis was psychological,
Kierkegaard framed it in the context of a
theological question about the possibility
of original sin. How could Adam have become
guilty when he did not know the meaning of
good or evil? How could Adam's sin afflict
the entire human race? Ultimately there is
no rational explanation, but a psychological
investigation of angst can lead us up to
the point where the leap into guilt is made.
Kierkegaard's approach can be described as
"phenomenological" (cf. Hegel's
use of the term). He described how the condition
makes its appearance. Perhaps the best example
is in the behavior of children who are simultaneously
drawn toward and repelled by what is strange
or mysterious to them. The attitude is a
"sympathetic antipathy" or "antipathetic
sympathy." A wealth of possibility is
opened up, so much so that one has no idea
what the future will bring. In this way,
angst is distinguished from fear, which is
merely an antipathy and moreover directed
toward something specific. Putting the matter
paradoxically, Kierkegaard declared that
angst has nothing as its object.
It is the indeterminateness of the object
of angst which is supposed to bring us closer
to an understanding of a loss of innocence.
Although Adam did not know the meaning of
good and evil, or of the significance of
the penalty of death threatened by God, he
was attracted to the condemned object by
virtue of the possibility wrapped up in it.
He finally committed the offense, which was
a leap into guilt. Like the leap of faith,
this leap cannot be comprehended rationally
or psychologically, but is the subject of
religious "dogmatics."
Kierkegaard went on to argue that angst is
a condition for the salvation of every subsequent
individual. Salvation takes place only through
faith, and faith is attained through the
renunciation of the finite. It is angst which
opens up to us infinite possibility. It would
seem that the progression from angst through
faith would lead to an "other-worldly"
orientation, a loss of the finite world.
But here, astonishingly, Kierkegaard pronounced
that "through faith, one gets everything
back." Here there is more than a faint
echo of his longing to regain the woman he
once renounced.
The theme of regaining the finite through
its very renunciation is prominent in one
of Kierkegaard's most famous pieces, Fear
and Trembling. There is a story of a knight
who is beneath the station of a princess
whom he can never approach. His response
is infinite resignation. The knight of faith,
on the other hand, concentrates his power
of love for the princess on God. Through
faith, he is able to believe the absurd proposition
that he can be united with the princess.
"By faith I make renunciation of nothing;
on the contrary, by faith I acquire everything,
precisely in the sense in which it is said
that he who has faith like a grain of mustard
can move mountains." Like the God-human,
the knight of faith is otherwise an ordinary
person, indistinguishable from anyone else.
One of the major themes in Kierkegaard's
writing was the the validity of ethical norms,
particularly as reflected in the institution
of marriage. We have already seen that the
ethical constitutes a break or leap from
another way of living, one of innocence.
Ethical values attain significance for an
individual only through a choice to embrace
them. (In the case of Adam, this is
embodied in his eating the fruit of the tree
of knowledge of good and evil.)
In his early book Either/Or, Kierkegaard
contrasted the ethical life with the amoral
"aesthetic" life. Here we find
his famous description of the "rotation
method," which uses sheer arbitrariness
for the alleviation of boredom, the fatal
enemy of the aesthetic. Here as well is the
"diary of the Seducer," in which
the end of enjoyment is taken to horrible
extremes. The seducer wins the heart of a
young woman, inducing her to pursue him.
When his seduction succeeds, he abandons
her at once, having reached the highest point
of pleasure. All that would have remained
would be the tedium of marriage. In the second
part of the book, Kierkegaard's character
Judge Willhelm spins out lengthy sermons
about the virtues of the mundane ethical
life of faithful wedlock.
But the ethical life is superceded by the
calling of religion (or at least so Kierkegaard
tried to convince himself in the process
of giving up Regina). Ethical laws are universal,
subject to no exception. Yet faith could
call upon the individual to violate them
if it were the will of God. Such is the story
of Abraham, who was willing to act against
a most basic human moral norm, the protection
of one's own offspring, because God asked
him to kill his son. This "teleological
suspension of the ethical" once again
is incomprehensible, but such is the nature
of faith.
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