Episode 28 - Soren Kierkegaard

In Episode 21 I talked about existentialism and mentioned that while Jean Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir and other existentialist thinkers were agnostics or atheists, there were a number of influential Christian philosophers who developed forms of existential thinking. The earliest of these was the Danish theologian, Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), who lived in Copenhagen for most of his life. In this episode I share a few thoughts about Kierkegaard's ideas and life. Please keep in mind that what follows is my personal view of just a few strands of Kierkegaard’s many-stranded thought. I hope you will find it to be interesting and useful - if it is, I encourage you to read some of Kierkegaard's many writings. 

Transcript

If we had walked the streets of Copenhagen back in the 1830s and 40s, we may well have encountered an eccentric-looking fellow, often wearing a big hat, on his regular walks through the city. Alexander Dru, in the introduction to his edition of Kierkegaard’s journals, describes him in this way: ‘In appearance he was certainly odd. He was slight, spindly and with so pronounced a stoop that he was regarded as a hunch-back [he leant back as he walked with a] crab-like gait… The eyes behind his glasses were pale blue, his nose straight and strong, his mouth large, his teeth protruding, his chin receding.’ (Dru 1958: 8) The drawing done in 1854 by H.P. Hansen, that is on the front of my copy of Kierkegaard’s journals, echoes this description. Despite this unprepossessing appearance, Dru notes that once he started talking, Kierkegaard was transformed: ‘To his contemporaries he was a man of infinite wit whose flashing intelligence dazzled and disturbed [yet] he remained an enigma […] Far from appearing serious, he gave the impression of taking frivolous delight in making mockery of everything they took to heart.’ (ibid: 9)

Kierkegaard once described himself as a two-faced Janus: ‘with the one face I laugh, with the other I weep.’ (Gardiner 2002:6) This enigmatic, vibrant, many-sidedness comes across in his writing. For many of his books he adopted a range of pseudonyms, taking on an array of disguises and voices, such that it is often difficult to know what the ‘real’ Kierkegaard thinks. There is an odd mixture of high seriousness and playfulness in his ideas. He makes use of irony, paradox and sarcasm to stimulate and disturb his readers – constantly questioning and often deliberately contradicting himself. This is indicative of an important aspect of his thinking about human beings – that we are far from being consistent, rational and cohesive – instead we are full of contradictions, divergences, changes of mind and direction, and this accords with the uncertainty and unpredictability of human existence. For Kierkegaard, these varied and everchanging characteristics are integral to the human condition and unique to each individual. Any philosophy that tries to systematise or to reduce and confine these divergent traits within one overarching theory is guaranteed to fail and to be of little value as an aid to living. And this is what Kierkegaard considered philosophy to be – an exploration of lived experience and a practical guidebook as to how we might live well.

Kierkegaard argues that anyone who claims absolute certainty about anything, is deluded. H. J. Blackham puts it like this: ‘in objective certainty and established knowledge [Kierkegaard] sees the grave of truth.’ (Blackham 1952: 154) In other words, to propose an ultimate truth, or absolute knowledge, is to go against the contingency and unpredictability of life as it unfolds. There can be no end to the process of enquiry and uncertainty, as there is no end to the process of experiencing and being aware – always moving into the unknown. In this sense we are always revising our knowledge - remaking who we are and what we know hour-by-hour, day-by-day, year-by-year. To submit to a set of dogmatic ‘truths’ – religious, philosophical or political – is to give up our creative life as an evolving, wide awake, individual.

Kierkegaard thought highly of Socrates as a potential model for how the philosopher’s role is to examine what people say, especially other philosophers, and to point out the inconsistencies and ambiguities in what they say – not in order to establish a more consistent way of thinking, let alone a single ‘right’ way of living, but to celebrate the variety of human opinions and to develop a critical intelligence that helps us to identify fraudulent untruths and to take responsibility for our own limited views and opinions. Only in recognising and valuing diversity and variety can we learn to live well together in some kind of vibrant harmony.

Kierkegaard recounts how, as a student, he rejected Christianity to become a follower of the German philosopher, Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831), only to find him lacking. Hegel was one of the most influential of German philosophers. His dense and difficult philosophy proposed that the only reality was the reality of the whole. Separateness was an illusion. Parts only made sense insofar as they were considered aspects of the whole. Only the whole truth was the truth! Hegel called the whole the Absolute. Followers of Hegel's way of thinking came to believe in the supremacy of the state over the individual - in that the state more closely resembles the Absolute. In a similar way, a catholic might consider the church, as an institution, to be more important than any individual catholic person. (see Russell 2004)

Kierkegaard, on the other hand, could never place the Church or the State above the individual. Hence his importance to the later development of existentialist thought. Despite its early attraction for him, Kierkegaard rejected Hegel's thought and the tradition of speculative philosophy in general. He was to move in his own life from a philosophy of pure thought and systematic knowledge to a philosophy of BEING. He searched for truths that could form a foundation for living. In his journal he writes about system-building philosophers in this way: ‘most systematisers are like a man who builds an enormous castle and lives in a shack close by; they do not live in their own enormous systematic buildings.’ For Kierkegaard ‘a man’s thought must be the building in which he lives.’ (Dru 1958: 98)

Kierkegaard had another bone to pick with Hegel, this concerned Hegel’s belief that, as he put it, ‘the Real is rational, and the rational is real.’ (Barrett 1990: 159) As William Barrett points out, Hegel was only extending the long shadow of this belief – a belief that goes back to early Greek philosophers such as Parmenides, who argued that what cannot be thought, cannot be real. Kierkegaard argued that existence could not be thought, it could only be lived – yet, to us, it is what is most real. Hegel tended to sideline the day-to-day actuality of our finite lives in favour of a view of the world as being logical and intrinsically reasonable – that is understandable and definable through reason and logic. Kierkegaard reckoned that every person experiences their own existence as being ‘beyond the mirror of thought. (ibid: 163) In Barrett’s words, a person ‘encounters the Self that [he or she] is, not in the detachment of thought, but in the involvement and pathos of choice.’ (ibid) For Kierkegaard an authentic life was a life of endless choice – being aware and taking responsibility for all our daily thoughts, words and actions as we navigate the endless unknowns, surprises and shocks that our existence generates.

Kierkegaard’s emphasis on individual awareness and choice needs to be considered in the light of his belief that the society of his time, and we might argue, our own society, was drifting towards a numbing sense of collective identity and uniformity, involving mass habits of uncritical thought and communication. People seem to be acting more and more as if they are cogs in a remorseless social machine – losing identity and agency in the face of mass media and other forces. To regain what he considered to be a more authentic identity involved regaining individual awareness and choice – and the responsibility that comes with choice. This is an aspect of Kierkegaard’s thinking that was to be developed further within the philosophy of Jean-Paul Sartre and other existentialist philosophers – as I mentioned in Episode 21 of this podcast.

Kierkegaard was part of a long counter-tradition to the system-building philosophers like Descartes, Kant and Hegel. His approach was one of endless questioning, examining what is said and done with a critical eye – a tradition leading back, via Hume, Montaigne and others, to Socrates. For him, like for Socrates, philosophy only made sense if it enabled an individual to live a better life, to take responsibility for their values, thoughts and actions, and to be more fully human.

Kierkegaard's life and philosophy are inseparable. Though he was considered one of the great intellects of his day, he used his intelligence to explore the reality of his own existence. His life became a life of doubt - at times despairing, for moments ecstatic, but consistently vibrant, engaged and alive. Day by day he seems to have sought his own path, his own identity, his own authentic existence. In doing so he questioned and, in a way, revitalised the fundamental meanings and beliefs of the Christian church. At the end of sermons given by priests and bishops, he is reputed to have stood up and argued with them – pulling apart their statements and mounting a critique of the supposed rationalistic basis of their religious views. This wasn’t a habit that endeared him to the church authorities. In fact, he was a very sharp thorn in their very thick skin

For a Christian existentialist like Kierkegaard, at the heart of being a Christian lies the completely absurd act of believing in an event which is not open to scientific enquiry or proof – that is, the life of Jesus and his existence as the Son of God. All our normal powers of reasoning, observation and discrimination fall by the wayside when confronted with such a perplexing mystery. Every Christian has to take what Kierkegaard describes as ‘a leap into faith.’ Kierkegaard in the 1840's advocates an existential act of choosing as the cornerstone of Christian practice. In contrast to this focus on individual choice, the church as an organisation, working with the state, seemed to Kierkegaard, only to be interested in preserving and enriching itself. The institutionalised church was a hindrance to individual spiritual growth – it supplanted personal experience and responsibility with a host of platitudes and collective habits that were the antithesis of Kierkegaard’s view of what an individual’s religious life should be. In his actions and in his writings, he often gives voice to his beliefs in controversial and subversive ways. (see Barrett 1990: 173)

There are times, quite often in fact, when Kierkegaard recognises the burden that taking responsibility can bring. He was prone from an early age to bouts of melancholy, even despair. In 1847 he writes in his journal: ‘Deep within every [person] there lies the dread of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the tremendous household of millions upon millions.’ He goes on to say that this feeling of isolation and abandonment can be assuaged by ‘looking upon all those who are bound to one as friends or family.’ (Kierkegaard 1958: 129) For Kierkegaard, it was vital to realise that however much we may feel alone, we must bring to mind that we are all in this together – that an awareness of our kinship with all beings, our interconnectedness, helps us cope with whatever isolation and despair we may sometimes experience. The tendency in existentialist writings to emphasise despair, dread and the burden of choice – and Kierkegaard has a similar tendency – is counterbalanced by his recognition that social relationships bring relief and joy.

Elsewhere in his journal, Kierkegaard writes: ‘I wish to make people aware, so that they do not squander and dissipate their lives.’ (Dru 1958: 118) Indeed, he says elsewhere: ‘My whole life is an epigram calculated to make people aware.’ (Blackham 1952: 6) It seems to me that this suggests an affinity not only with Montaigne and Socrates, but also with Gotama Buddha, who urges us to pay attention, to wake up to this life in all its variety and messiness – in order to live more fully and to recognise the uncertainties, difficulties and absurdities that life throws at each of us. We are all related in this way – walking alongside each other, helping each other, sharing experiences as we tread our winding, criss-crossing, dharma roads.

In being aware, in being mindful, it is important we develop clarity of mind, being able to view ourselves dispassionately and view others with compassion. Kierkegaard puts it like this: ‘The majority of [people] are subjective towards themselves and objective towards all others, terribly objective sometimes – but the real task is in fact to be objective towards oneself and subjective towards all others.’ (Dru 1958: 126) Wise words indeed.

In suggesting that we should be aware, to wake up to our life in all its complexity and messiness, Kierkegaard recognised that he was opening himself, and anyone who took his advice, to a challenging existence. William Barrett describes how Kierkegaard was one day sitting in the Fredriksberg Garden in Copenhagen, smoking a cigar, pondering on how many people of his generation were becoming successful by ‘making life easier for the rest of mankind, whether materially by constructing railroads, steamboats, or telegraph lines, or intellectually by publishing easy compendiums to universal knowledge.’ (Barrett 1990: 157) He could see that his peers wanted for themselves, and others, a life of comfort and ease - and he felt there was a certain smugness in the way his peers seemed to relish a life of material progress and the way they accepted so easily the habits of thought and belief that were prescribed by the clergy and thinkers of his day. By the time Kierkegaard had smoked a couple more cigars he realised that perhaps his vocation lay in another direction – by trying to make his fellow Danes think for themselves, rather than lazily accepting what others thought. Taking Socrates as his model, he set out to be a gadfly, buzzing and stinging everyone he met with his constant questioning and unorthodox thinking. He wanted to wake them from their slumbers and comfort, to prod them into a more authentic mindful existence. In a sense Kierkegaard wanted to make life more difficult rather than easier – more difficult yet richer, more vibrant and dynamic.

In the autumn of 1855, while on one of his walks around Copenhagen, Kierkegaard collapsed, paralysed, and was taken to hospital. He died a few weeks later – possibly from tuberculosis of the spine, though this diagnosis is uncertain. On 18th November 1855, Kierkegaard’s funeral took place at the Church of Our Lady, perhaps the most important church in Denmark. A huge crowd turned up to say goodbye to the gadfly of Copenhagen – including the writer, Hans Christian Anderson, with whom Kierkegaard had maintained a lifelong uneasy association. Anderson wrote later that the large church seemed too small for the hordes of people who wanted to be there, making the funeral somewhat chaotic. Kierkegaard was buried in the family plot in a nearby cemetery. The inscription on his gravestone, chosen by Kierkegaard, reads as follows: In a little while, I shall have won. The entire battle will at once be done. Then I may rest in halls of roses and unceasingly, and unceasingly, speak with my Jesus. This deeply religious man could be said to have lived a life of conversation, enquiry and debate – always questioning and open to fresh perspectives. In his short life, only 42 years, he crammed an enormous amount of thinking and writing – and living.

As we tread our own dharma road, Kierkegaard’s writings can be helpful as one guide among many – reminding us to pay attention and to question our habits of thought and feeling. Like Socrates and the historical Buddha, he prompts us to look carefully at our thoughts, beliefs and actions, to be clear about our intentions and to take responsibility for what we think, say and do. He urges us to pay attention to what we are doing and to be aware of the consequences of what we do. He also encourages us to embrace and celebrate the lively contradictions in our behaviour and the rich complexity of who we are. 

For Kierkegaard life itself is a miracle and given the privilege of existence it behoves us to be awake and to live well. Maybe he put too much emphasis on individuality and authentic identity, and on the burden of choice and responsibility. But his pursuit of what constitutes a good life is very worthy of our attention. It is only by being mindful of our habits of thought, feeling and action that we can really understand who we are and what we might be capable of – in this way Kierkegaard offers us some guidance as to how individuals and communities can flourish. Like Montaigne, Kierkegaard epitomises the way in which an examination of one person’s inner and outer life, can help us all better understand our own existence. 

In the spirit of Kierkegaard’s use of multiple voices and an almost collage-like approach to writing, I would like to end by reading a sequence of fragments taken from his journals and other texts. Think of them as a poetic homage to Kierkegaard himself. Here goes:

across the bare fields

birds sing their evening

prayer

how to find the idea

for which I can live and

die

how near man is to madness

in spite of all his knowledge

begin with ignorance

& keep silent for three

years

wild geese fly away

always contradicting

father died on Wednesday

my sorrow is my castle

to catch a breath of wind

my doubt is my castle

what have I lost?

black silk dress

bare neck

white gloves

a waltz over

and over

again

played

by a blind man

on a harp

wearing a velvet cap

a melancholy traveller

reads Martin Luther

shaken by lightning

the stormy-petrel

rubbish and gossip is what

people want

that sad discord

of doubt

of all suffering none is worse

than to be the object of 

compassion

it is then that sadness

becomes irony

years of penitence fast running out

I have nothing to complain of

I feel a longing to say nothing

except Amen 

everything depends upon

silence concealed by

conversation

I hope this talk has whetted your appetite and that you might read some of Kierkegaard’s writings and make up your own mind about what he has to say.

Thank you for listening and bye for now.

REFERENCES

Barrett, William. 1990. Irrational Man: A Study in Existential Philosophy. New York: Anchor Books.

Blackham, H. J. 1952. Six Existentialist Thinkers. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Dru, Alexander. 1958. The Journals of Kierkegaard 1834-1854. London: Fontana Books.

Gardiner, Patrick. 2002. Kierkegaard: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Russell, Bertrand. 2004. History of Western Philosophy. London: Routledge.