Philosophy Discussion Forums

anonymous66
He says that before one writes about a topic- one ought to read what others have written on the subject. If he does find someone who has written "exhaustively and satisfactorily" on the subject, then he ought to rejoice (perhaps alluding to the parable of the ten virgins in Matthew 25- a parable about the importance of being prepared). K suggests that he did a lot of preparation- and wrote in joyful solitude and quietness- and he hopes others will also derive joy by reading it. He suggests that he published the book in a carefree & humble spirit- as if he had written the book in a way that would allow all future generations to be blessed by his book (perhaps alluding to Genesis 12:3-
I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;
and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.” )
He notes that "each generation has its own task and need not trouble itself unduly by being everything to previous and succeeding generations. Each day's trouble is enough for that day (alluding to Matthew 6:34)- and each individual ought to concentrate on taking care of himself- he need not worry about the whole contemporary age, like a worrying father- he need not assume or worry that his book will be start of a new era. Not everyone who attempts an endeavor is up to the task- not everyone who shouts "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven (Matthew 7:21). Because K realizes this, as an author he approaches his work with "fear and trembling" (I Corinthians 2:3)- like Paul did when he visited the Corinthian church, K approaches us as an author with no claims.

I don't get why he says he will gladly assume the name "Christen Madsen". And I don't quite get what K means when he says "nothing could please me more than to be regarded as a layman who indeed speculates but is still far removed from speculation" or "I am a fetish worshipper and will worship anyone with equal piety..." That second to last paragraph is puzzling. The gist of it seems to be that K is downplaying his own authority. Is it just the case that K is saying "this is the way things look to me- but these are, after all is said and done, merely my own observations?"

Such a preface hardly has anything to do with what follows. It is more an introduction to himself to how reader, and, of course, this is a pseudonym. He did this a lot, and Vigilius Hofniensus is just one of many. Keep in mind his Socratic Irony: I am no one, I don't know anything; let's proceed.

Yes, no claims. I assume Christen Madsen was a common name in Denmark back then. A layman, not a scholar or an aristocrat, both baggaged with presuppositions, assumptions. A truly novel approach has to be free of these. A speculating layman is a common thing, but K is not going to merely speculate, is he? He is going to put his reader through a body of thoughts that rivals Hegel, at times. He simply wants to have his cake and eat it too: both the pedestrian, outside dogmatic authority, yet speaking in earnest about matters of depth.

Right, he downplays his authority, for who is authoritative when dogma and orthodoxy are abandoned: The individual. This is the Socratic irony celebrated in his Concept of Irony in which irony is seen as a challenge, opposition, dialectic, a feature built into knowledge claims. Best I can do. There is a lot written as to why K wrote under pseudonyms, much available online.

As you can see, K has a lot of personality and he's not afraid to use it. Good luck with the introduction. If it's any consolation, in these upcoming pages there are the seeds from which grow Sartre's Being and Nothingness, Heidegger's Being and Time, and others (less clearly so), and to read these ideas at their inception is fascinating.

But he does get thick, quick. Good to keep in mind: He doesn't have very positive things to say about science and reason, not that he doesn't believe in these, but because of the presumption that reason can speak the truth about actuality in the world. One really must drop altogether in this phenomenology all science has to say as to what foundational truths might be. For K, the only foundation is the self, which is ground zero for any philosophical thinking about existence, value, truth, meaning, and so on. Also know that Adam and his "sin" is used mostly as illustrative of OUR sin, and our sin is not the Lutherian kind of unimaginably horrendous transgression against god (he alludes to this latter on), but is found in the analysis of the self and its alienation, another abiding theme in existentialism later on.

After writing my post- I did a google search and stumbled on this passage from a book about Kierkegaard's Pseudonyms (Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Reception and Resources Volume 17: Kierkegaard's Pseudonyms).

His antipathy to claiming any cultural authority is so pronounced that he invites the
reader to call him by the more pedestrian name “Christen madsen,” if the Latin
“vigilius Haufniensis” sounds too imposing. Christen madsen (1776–1829) was an
ordinary farmer/carpenter who became a noted figure in one of Denmark’s populist
revival movements and fell afoul of the church establishment. Presumably vigilius
was suggesting that he had no more cultural caché than a humble and persecuted
lay preacher. Throughout the text Vigilius boldly and overtly flaunts the fact that he
writes without authority.

Okay- on to the Introduction-

The view that every scientific issue within the larger compass of science has its definite place, its measure and its limit, and thereby precisely its harmonious blending in the whole as well as its legitimate participation in what is expressed by the whole, is not merely a pium desiderium [pious wish] that ennobles the man of science by its enthusiastic and melancholy infatuation.

I hear him criticizing science as an infatuation- but I guess I'm confused by the fact that he says X is not merely a pious wish.... Where X is the view that every scientific issue within the larger compass of science, its measure and its limit, and precisely its harmonious blending in the whole as well as its legitimate participation in what is expressed by the whole...

Maybe he's saying that it may be true that X is correct... but science itself is still an infatuation?

This view is not merely a sacred duty that commits him to the service of the totality and bids him renounce lawlessness and the adventurous desire to lose sight of the mainland; it also serves the interest of every more specialized deliberation, for when the deliberation forgets where it properly belongs, as language often expresses with striking ambiguity, it forgets itself and becomes something else, and thereby acquires the dubious perfectibility of being able to become anything and everything.

It sounds like he is saying that a commitment to science is to leave creativity behind... and he suggests that science becomes so specialized that its language becomes ambiguous.

Okay- on to the Introduction-
The view that every scientific issue within the larger compass of science has its definite place, its measure and its limit, and thereby precisely its harmonious blending in the whole as well as its legitimate participation in what is expressed by the whole, is not merely a pium desiderium [pious wish] that ennobles the man of science by its enthusiastic and melancholy infatuation.
I hear him criticizing science as an infatuation- but I guess I'm confused by the fact that he says X is not merely a pious wish.... Where X is the view that every scientific issue within the larger compass of science, its measure and its limit, and precisely its harmonious blending in the whole as well as its legitimate participation in what is expressed by the whole...

Maybe he's saying that it may be true that X is correct... but science itself is still an infatuation?
This view is not merely a sacred duty that commits him to the service of the totality and bids him renounce lawlessness and the adventurous desire to lose sight of the mainland; it also serves the interest of every more specialized deliberation, for when the deliberation forgets where it properly belongs, as language often expresses with striking ambiguity, it forgets itself and becomes something else, and thereby acquires the dubious perfectibility of being able to become anything and everything.
It sounds like he is saying that a commitment to science is to leave creativity behind... and he suggests that science becomes so specialized that its language becomes ambiguous.

But then there is the punch line at the end: sciences move into "more specialized deliberation" and as with language in general, it intrudes where it does not belong; it "forgets itself". It acquires a "suspect perfectibility in being able to become whatever it likes."
In all this, he is being playful and sarcastic. Science, a pious wish, a sacred duty AND a presumptuous intrusion into anything whatever. You get his drift: science is looked to for all the answers, it is respected, admired, and it has no business dominating in the affairs of philosophy, as it had been doing with Hegel in the early 19th century.

Kierkegaard is setting us up for a brief critique of logic, reason, science, and religious dogma, all which he rejects for giving an account of the true nature of Hereditary (original) sin. Only psychology reveals the "agitated repose" that accompanies "Freedom" which is where this thesis is headed: it is an attempt describe what the determining elements are that are the root of human alienation, and in Kierkegaard's thinking, from God and the soul. Later, this will be a theme played out differently by other philosophers. What K has in mind is that nameless anxiety that pervades human affairs given the absence of foundational meaning. K wants to know "how sin came to be" through an examination of the the spirit, and psychology has been called the study of spirit. He wants to describe or find " the abiding state out of which sin constantly comes into being" and this state is the "agitated repose" of freedom.
K' s freedom is the template for future existentialist's thinking, and it provides an entirely novel take on the nature if freedom, choice, the self; and even though K is so intentionally obscure, often (he can't help himself) his arguments are compelling. One should put aside the religious content. It's not important.....or is it? I must admit, K is not altogether unsuccessful in his anatomical description of the self.
Any more questions about the intro. I don't follow all he says, and I dare say, few do. It is not important and one make the effort and move on and he often makes clear later on what he says earlier. An intro takes what is to come and says it concisely, so it can be often puzzling, especially in philosophy.

Sculptor1 wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2020, 8:49 pm He never even got TO existentialism since he was clouded by his own racism.
Until you can unpack that you can never have an authentic existence.

Hereandnow wrote: ↑March 2nd, 2020, 9:09 pm Very good. Now, about his racism, what do you have in mind?

I am interested in this as well.

K goes on to write about Hegel's logic (or at least he alludes to Hegel's writings)- from what I can make of K's writing and the footnote, Hegel divided his logic into Being, Essence, and Notion. Hegel puts actuality in his doctrine of Essence. K argues that actuality should not be part of logic. Actuality for K is accidental (contingent)- for Hegel, it is necessary. The footnote states that if actuality is contingent (as K argues), then there is freedom (free will?) It appears that K contrasts "actuality" with abstract thought- so perhaps actuality is our internal lived experiences... So- K is arguing against explaining everything in abstract conceptions and theores and instead advocates concentrating on our lived experience.

Or is it rather the case that K has nothing against abstractions- and he is merely pointing out that the actuality (our personal subjective lived experiences) cannot be talked about in abstract terms.

anonymous66
K goes on to write about Hegel's logic (or at least he alludes to Hegel's writings)- from what I can make of K's writing and the footnote, Hegel divided his logic into Being, Essence, and Notion. Hegel puts actuality in his doctrine of Essence. K argues that actuality should not be part of logic. Actuality for K is accidental (contingent)- for Hegel, it is necessary. The footnote states that if actuality is contingent (as K argues), then there is freedom (free will?) It appears that K contrasts "actuality" with abstract thought- so perhaps actuality is our internal lived experiences... So- K is arguing against explaining everything in abstract conceptions and theores and instead advocates concentrating on our lived experience.

There is a lot in that. Kierkegaard's argument with Hegel extends throughout his writings, and really, what makes him a father of existentialism is his denial that reason and its categories can encompass our world. First, one has to know that we are thinking in a very different world from natural science, Kant's Copernican Revolution toward German idealism is firmly in place, and the center of all things, to speak loosely, is the self, not the natural scientist's descriptions via its various disciplines. These are derivative of the structures of thought conceives them. This is Kant, rationalism and the idea the world IS rational issued first from Plato then on the Kant who put the whole thing in a system of very disciplined thinking. Read his Critique of Pure Reason, take a month or two, or longer; and put aside a good portion of your life to do so. It is unfortunate, but to understand Kierkegaard's thoughts against this, one has to read it (which is why so few understand philosophy--these guys are without mercy).

What you have is the refutation of Hegel's rationalism. It is not against reason, and K knows he is, in all hes argues, using reason and the very dialectical processes Hegel argued for. His Anxiety has a great deal of dialectical thinking, the playing of ideas against each other to reach a conclusion, but Being a Christian, as he puts it, is a far greater thing, and his arguments are not simply the announcing the grandeur of Christian metaphysics, but an attempt to make such metaphysics materially defensible, that is, in terms of what we can witness in actuality, and in this he founded an entire school thought. One simply has to put the Christian part aside (if one so chooses. I find K to be so remote from the metaphysical orthodoxy of Christianity, and so grounded in analysis, his religious claims actually hold favor; but then, there is a reason seminaries refuse to teach K: K's faith is existential faith, not dogmatic faith, which he argues against).

anyway, regarding "actuality and abstract thought." he presents his qualitative and quantitative distinction. One will observe that in a concept's (or, proposition's) claim to knowledge, as with my knowing my cup is on the table, their are "parts", one part being the concept, the other being sensible intuitions. Hegel ( and I don't know him nearly as well as I would like. I plan to read his Phenomenology of Spirit soon, but I will have to stop posting and take a month or so to do it) argued in the extreme, that to be is to be rational. K saw this as patently absurd, for to have an experience is not reducible to reasoning, and the actuality, to be dramatic, of having one's hand caught in meat grinder has nothing whatever to do with the concept of a meat grinder, hand and so on. Actuality, even in the not so dramatic sense, has nothing to do with reason, or, it is qualitatively different form concepts. K doesn't talk about such dramatic things, but he should have, for they make the case so poignantly. What makes us human is our irrational dimension of being here, the falling in love, our indulgences, our entanglements, our ethical dilemmas, the existential struggles in the world; I mean if you're going to philosophize about what is means to be thrown into this world, reason hardly can say.

Actuality as a part of logic: Hegel said to be, is to be rational, and it is this historical process of dialectically opposed movements that will one day resolve into God's self realization. Essences: this has a long post K history in existentialism. Essences are ideas, the "essential" idea that makes a thing what it is, but the way essences, being and notion actually play out in Hegel, I don't know. K doesn't talk about this technical point, either. what else? Actuality is contingent, meaning what it does is not apriori determined, but could be anything. See Sartre's novel Nausea where he makes this point in a very creepy way: Roquentin's tongue turns into a live centipede, his hands into worms (I recall); the idea being that logic and language are an outside imposition on things, and things do not have to conform, not as it is with, say, modus ponens or tautologies and contradictions. The world is not logically constrained at all. We are spirit, and what this is about he goes into in chapter one.

Something slightly off topic but at least on a topic that I think Hereandnow would be able to get his head around.

I'm currently going through, quite slowly, Forrest Landry's Immanent Metaphysics. It's the first time I've really approached a system that tries to explain itself in its own parlance (as mentioned earlier Sartre, Heidegger, etc. do this and it's somewhat the difference between material you can breeze through on a slow afternoon rather than going a page or two per day).

So far it's quite interesting and I'm trying to get my head around it on its own terms to see what sticks. Some of the relationships aren't immediately obvious but then again I think it takes a few reads (thankfully only 130 pages) to really get the lexicon right.

Also I wonder what people's thoughts are on deep philosophic systems of the past few decades and whether inspecting relatively new (as in still living and younger than 60) thinkers and how many people would say are worth reading or really exercise deep competency in what came before them and moved the ball forward recently.

Papus79 wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 1:51 pm Something slightly off topic but at least on a topic that I think Hereandnow would be able to get his head around.

I'm currently going through, quite slowly, Forrest Landry's Immanent Metaphysics. It's the first time I've really approached a system that tries to explain itself in its own parlance (as mentioned earlier Sartre, Heidegger, etc. do this and it's somewhat the difference between material you can breeze through on a slow afternoon rather than going a page or two per day).

So far it's quite interesting and I'm trying to get my head around it on its own terms to see what sticks. Some of the relationships aren't immediately obvious but then again I think it takes a few reads (thankfully only 130 pages) to really get the lexicon right.

Also I wonder what people's thoughts are on deep philosophic systems of the past few decades and whether inspecting relatively new (as in still living and younger than 60) thinkers and how many people would say are worth reading or really exercise deep competency in what came before them and moved the ball forward recently.

I wasn't familiar with that book (or with the guy who wrote it), but when it starts off with "Metaphysics is an inquiry into the nature of the relation between self and reality," it's not looking good in my opinion.

And then he says that the following is a "basic question of metaphysics": "What is the nature of the known, the knower, and of knowing,or between the known, the unknown, and the unknowable?" No, that would be epistemology.

It's clear that Landry is self-taught on this stuff . . . which is fine, but a problem with this is that diving into a book like this will simply serve to further confuse folks who are also trying to tackle more mainstream academic philosophy.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 4:26 pm It's clear that Landry is self-taught on this stuff . . . which is fine, but a problem with this is that diving into a book like this will simply serve to further confuse folks who are also trying to tackle more mainstream academic philosophy.

I think this is where I have a lot in common, at least in terms of how I'm inwardly put together, with the GameB and IDW folks. I'm interested in finding out where there's new signal, even with unpolished appearances, and then figuring out what it looks like to polish that signal and rebroadcast it. It's something Jordan Hall talks about when he speaks of the 'Red Religion' which is the new sense-making apparatus after the top-down and centralized post WW2 'Blue Church' crumbles over it's inability to tackle complex issues and changes in the environment.

Papus79 wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 5:13 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 27th, 2021, 4:26 pm It's clear that Landry is self-taught on this stuff . . . which is fine, but a problem with this is that diving into a book like this will simply serve to further confuse folks who are also trying to tackle more mainstream academic philosophy.

I think this is where I have a lot in common, at least in terms of how I'm inwardly put together, with the GameB and IDW folks. I'm interested in finding out where there's new signal, even with unpolished appearances, and then figuring out what it looks like to polish that signal and rebroadcast it. It's something Jordan Hall talks about when he speaks of the 'Red Religion' which is the new sense-making apparatus after the top-down and centralized post WW2 'Blue Church' crumbles over it's inability to tackle complex issues and changes in the environment.

The problem is that the lack of relevant education results in trying to recreate the wheel, which involves making a lot of blunders that have already been sorted out. To someone who has the background, it's easy to spot the same old problems that have already been solved popping up.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 28th, 2021, 4:45 pm The problem is that the lack of relevant education results in trying to recreate the wheel, which involves making a lot of blunders that have already been sorted out. To someone who has the background, it's easy to spot the same old problems that have already been solved popping up.

Right, so in other words you at least want a well curated stack or at least a well-curated short list of people to look at where you have good reason to believe that there's something there. I didn't land on this at anything close to random chance.

Papus79 wrote: ↑February 28th, 2021, 5:24 pm

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑February 28th, 2021, 4:45 pm The problem is that the lack of relevant education results in trying to recreate the wheel, which involves making a lot of blunders that have already been sorted out. To someone who has the background, it's easy to spot the same old problems that have already been solved popping up.

Right, so in other words you at least want a well curated stack or at least a well-curated short list of people to look at where you have good reason to believe that there's something there. I didn't land on this at anything close to random chance.

It's just a matter of wanting to avoid trudging through people recreating the wheel where they're (re)creating problems that have already been sorted out.

Terrapin Station wrote: ↑March 1st, 2021, 1:11 pm It's just a matter of wanting to avoid trudging through people recreating the wheel where they're (re)creating problems that have already been sorted out.

Do this maybe. I'll clear what's on my plate over the next few months and if you have any direct recommendations, for me and the group in general, I can throw those on my list as well.