Problems with Kierkegaard

Christian existentialism? When I was very young and into Kierkegaard, a minister asked me what was my religious preference. "Christian existentialism, "I proudly replied. “That’s a contradiction of terms,” he said.
He was right. Jesus was not Socrates. Socrates, the first Western existentialist, taught “know thyself”. Jesus taught that God knows who and what you are. You can learn all you need to know about yourself from divine revelation, as told to you by priests. You can spare yourself any troublesome doubts about the way things are.
Kant botched the job of trying to make Christianity reasonable. Kierkegaard came to the conclusion that reason cannot explain the truths of religion, that one must take a leap of faith over the gulf that separates reason from belief. His “A Panegyric on Abraham” notes that religion is absurd, hence a knowing unto itself.
The fear, dread and absurdity K. speaks of stem not from shedding personal and social masks as Nietzsche and Sartre understood, it becomes a characteristic of lost souls, recognizing their own personal responsibility for being lost in sin.
Nietzsche had noted that Hegel’s concept of the history of ideas as process anticipates Darwin. Although N. rejected H’s notion of process as progress, he fully embraced the dynamism of H’s philosophic system–so long as it did not lead to absolutes. K. needed absolutes such as sin in order to justify his notions of human responsibility. Thus he spent his lifetime trying to refute Hegelian dynamism with Kantian ideas.
While I thoroughly enjoy such beautiful writings as “Diapsalmata” and the beginning of “The Gospel of Our Suffering”, it is clear to me that suffering does not always redeem. Sometimes it drives one mad. According to Nietzsche, it shows illness, nothing else.
What price absolutes? Human suffering appears to me–at least that suffering which we do not impose on each other–as caused by our self consciousness in the teeth of temporality.

are you familiar with either/or?

-Imp

Imp,
Thanks for responding. I vaguely remember “Either/Or”, so I await your take on how it applies to Kierkegaard’s belief in a subjective absolute.
In all honesty, back when I was in college, what I was learning was tantamount to culture shock. I was a child of five generations of fundamentalist Christian ministers and an inheritor of madness. Naturally, I clung to romanticism, with all of its warm, fuzzy comfort and approached Kierkegaard in search of a personal absolute. Perhaps my later considerations of his works have much to do with pains of trying to overcome my own heritage.
I’m beginning to realize that Nietzsche’s tirades against historical Christianity and against much of Western philosophy amount to his own search for an absolute, maybe in the ubermensche. Were Kiergaard’s passionate arguments for truth as static merely more of the same? Both N. & K. espoused a personalized aristocracy that held them above the rabble. I can’t buy that for myself. Is my personal heritage to blame for my not being able to do so?

Ierrellus,

Your wrote:

Out of curiosity, why do you think human suffering is caused by our awareness of death, “teeth of temporality,” – I’m assuming correctly, I hope?

We seek to perfect ourselves to personally or socially derived ideals because we are aware that our time here is limited, yes? And because we differ from our ideals, we end up resenting our actual being, and thus, psychologically torture our past-selves, through, more or less, a Freudian dynamic? I wonder about the ever fascinating religious concept of forgiveness, particularly, self-forgiveness. It seems to be, as I think you point out N. would agree with, the psychologically healthiest action, however, at the same time, probably socially catastrophic. Do we want Hitler to live in peace? It seems, from an evolutionary-social paradigm, mixed in with a little Freudian theory, psychological self-torture, insanity, is quite healthy for the species as a whole. Individually we may admire Raskolnikov, but collectively, we ought to be quite glad that he is no Superman. And take note, he “cleanses” his “soul” at the end through Jesus, but only after he turns himself over for punishment. Seems like, if we go by Dostoevskian psychology, it’s a win-win for the individual and society. Thoughts?

Respectfully,
Andre

heritage? nope…

“if you choose not to decide, you still have made a choice…”

-Imp

I think the stark terror we sometimes feel at the thought of our impending nonexistance is the cause of a great portion of human misery. When we die we may indeed become what we were before we were born, but all we know is this life; it’s the only thing we “know” we have. To be denied existance after a lifetime of existing is a disconcerting idea.

Kierkegaard, for me at least, offers no solutions to our moral quandries. Esthetics vs ethics is a false dichotomy. Either/Or contentions unduly limit the scope of choice. All objective observations are not tautologies. K. seems unable to come to grips with process or flux and resorts to subjective absolutes, which are not, and never can be universal truths.

the point is that the subjective is all that there is.

there is no absolute universal anything.

you live your life.

period.

you have your subjective experience.

period.

make your subjective absolutes and live with your choice. that’s it.

what matters the rest?

-Imp

Exactly. Your conclusion my friend, is why this discussion is so “Ex-Asperating”. Why did it even begin?

Imp,
That “subjective is all there is” denies most Western science and philosophy since Kant. It espescially denies such thoughtful considerations of complementation (mind/body) as argued by Spinoza or any of the pragmatists. It denies cognative psychology and neurophilosophy. (Churchland). It is nowhere these days accepted by post-Cartesian thinkers.

DEB,
Aren’t we all in search of self-affirming absolutes? All I’m trying to say in this thread is that Kierkegaard, IMHO, does not present them. At one time in my life he seemed to fill the bill. K. was concerned about reactions to the void–your thread!

theundergroundman,
Several posts here did not print. One of those was my response to your post. I love Dostoyevsky and really appreciate your thoughts. Do you think the main character in “The Possessed” (Prince Myshkin [ sp.?} It’s been so long since I read D., that I don’t remember what novel this character appears in) displays the absurdity of religious convictions Kierkegaard writes about?

just because it isn’t “accepted” by the talking heads does not mean the existence of an universal, objective anything has been proven.

until then, I’ll remain skeptical.

-Imp

Imp:

What do you think of Karl Popper? Just curious :smiley:.

popper is flawed.

suppositions as knowledge don’t cut it…

-Imp

He was right, but that probably all stopped when he moved on and taught you “Christian Science”…

I don’t have a problem with existentialism (in fact, if I had to put myself in one of the philosophical camps, that’d be the one). My view is that Christianity is the remora fish of credibility, flexible enough to attach itself to anything that’s popular and feed off it.

There’s more to existentialism that Sartre’s narrow “you must be an atheist and a communist” view, but I personally don’t buy into Kierkegaard’s take on it.

One of the tenets of existentialism is the “absurdity” or anti-foundationalist view that Camus advances. And maybe in this light, it’s possible that Kierkegaard is a deist (one who believes the world was created by a supernatural intelligence, but the relationship stops there) rather than a theist (the type of christian who believes that the creator takes an active interest in - possibly even micromanages - day to day human affairs)?

That possibility is the only way I can reconcile the obvious paradox.

TheUndergroundMan,
My bad!!! Myshkin is in “The Idiot”, not in “The Possessed”.
IMP.
There are neither objective nor subjective absolutes. It’s a false dichotomy. There is no either/or.
APR,
Thanks so much for your contribution to the discussion. I recently read a criticism of Kierkegaard’s concept of paradox that claimed K. didn’t know the difference between paradox and inconsistency. Spinoza used the word “God” in order to discuss his concept of a whole in which parts complement rather than contradict. Some critics accuse S. of atheism. In any event, the name “God” is no big deal unless it is seen as loaded with inhuman, inhumane prejudices. One could substitute the word “substance”.

for kierkegaard there were…

his point is for you to decide which is the way…

but it seems you have made up your mind already…

-Imp

IMP,
No such luck. I simply refuse to choose when the choices are irrelevant. K. could never have understood this since his bias was religion, as yours seems to be. Geeze, Popper thought scientific absolutism is flawed. Why shoot the messenger when you disagree with the message?

choosing not to choose is a choice.

you asked what k would do, I answered

do I agree with k’s bias towards religion? no, and he wouldn’t either… religiousity (order) or aesthetics (chaos) is not a false/irrelevant choice…

scientific absolutism is flawed yes… making suppositions and proclaiming them absolutely true until proven otherwise is dangerous…

shoot the messenger? that depends on the message…

-Imp