Kierkegaard by Patrick Gardiner - Nov 1988

Oxford Paperbacks, Nov 1988. 9th Impression. Paperback. Soren Kierkegaard's philosophy was largely neglected during his lifetime (1813 -1855) partly because he wrote in Danish and partly because his ideas, which were spread across a variety of disciplines, did not find a philosophical home until the theory of existentialism became fashionable in the 1920's and 1930's. \r\n\r\nConvinced his thinking would be universally accepted in the long term, Kierkegaard was highly critical of the society in which he lived, in particular of the role of the Lutheran Church and attempted to revitalise the Christian faith as he understood it. Later commentators have interpreted him, with varying degrees of accuracy and success, as individualist, post modernist and neo-othodoxist.\r\n\r\nHis "strange and complex disposition" was influenced by his father's dominant personality which demanded of his children "absolute obedience" in an atmosphere of "gloom and religious guilt", arising from his father's morbid belief the family would suffer divine retribution for past sins. Physically weak, Kierkegaard use the strength of his superior intelligence coupled with a "sharp and wounding tongue" to defeat his enemies. He likened himself to Janus, the two faced god, laughing with one and weeping with the other. In between he felt "profoundly dissatisfied with the emptiness of his existence".\r\n\r\nUnlike his predecessors, Hume and Kant, Kierkegaard, was not concerned with speculation. Both had argued that reason alone could not be used to prove Christianity as such proof depended on the miraculous. Hegel had sought to reconcile religion and reason with his all-encompassing systematic approach to thought which Young Hegelians, such as David Strauss and Ludwig Feurbach, later radicalised to portray the God of religion as the internalisation of man's own nature in "imaginary and idealised form". Hegel's abstract allusions to the workings of absolute spirit personified in the State were transformed into practical humanistic atheism dedicated to overthrowing it.\r\n \r\nKierkegaard understood the implications of this train of thought. While he agreed that religious convictions were a matter of faith rather than knowledge, he argued that his contemporaries had forgotten how to exist as human beings rather than as objects within some philosophical or religious system. He wanted to show people how to become Christians in Christendom, to discover their own individual identities instead of being stereotyped members of "the crowd". To do this he attacked conventional values to force people to think for themselves. \r\n\r\nHe saw the Lutheran Church in Denmark, particularly the clergy, as profiteers from Christianity rather than professors of Christianity. His writings were designed to emphasise the reliance of each individual on God's grace for personal salvation. That meant the individual had a duty to God which is higher than his duty to society. Ethical behaviour was not a matter of abiding by social rules but by an individual's duty to God. In the case of Abraham and Isaac, for example, Abraham was prepared to follow a sense of duty to God at the expense of accepted modes of behaviour. Abraham had shown a "leap to faith" rather than fear of society.\r\n\r\nUltimately Kierkegaard regarded commitment to a Christian way of life as a matter for individual rather than group decision. Something "each person must freely undertake for himself without the possibility of objective justification". The first part encapsulates the evangelical tradition, the latter implies its rejection. For this reason some Christians see Kierkegaard as a bulwark against rationalism, others as placing Christianity as just one faith amongst many of equal validity.\r\n\r\nKierkegaard published different books under different names to provoke discussion as well as convey his ideas. It can argued that Kierkegaard's breadth of writing, which stretched across literature, religion and psychology, taken together with his idiosyncratic style of writing, has been a major factor in a misunderstanding of his ideas. Unfortunately, at times, his mode of thinking is obscure and, although Gardiner does a splendid job in expounding the essence of what Kierkegaard was about, it is clear why Kierkegaard found more favour in Continental philosophy than the Anglo-American tradition, notwithstanding the parallels of obscurity and absurdity he shares with Wittgenstein.\r\n\r\nGardiner has written extensively on Kierkegaard and his familiarity with his subject leads to assumptions about the likely reader which diminishes from the explanatory nature of the book. It needs be to read several times to be fully appreciated and still leaves an unfulfilled sense of knowledge without providing any overwhelming sense of desire to find it. More Danish Patsy than Danish Pastry.