Fear and Trembling Some more notes from Kierkegaard.
posted by Peter J. Leithart
1. In the Problemata sections of Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard, posing as Johannes de Silentio, poses a series of questions that arise from his reading of the story of Abraham and Isaac, within the Hegelian framework. The questions concern the "teleological suspension of the ethical," the question of absolute duty to God, and the problem of Abraham's secrecy.
2. In the first, he is defining the "ethical" in terms of universal rules, and the "ethical" as the telos of everything that is outside the ethical. But within this framework, Abraham can only be judged as a murderer, or at least guilty of attempted murder. But Abraham acted in faith, and his story thus reveals "this paradox that the single individual is higher than the universal." If he didn't act in faith, then Abraham is lost and faith is impossible, for in that case, the ethical – as social morality – is the highest possible aspiration and "no categories are needed other than what Greek philosophy had or what can be deduced from them by consistent thought." Faith is beyond thought here, because it is beyond the mediation of the universal.
3. One can make room for the slaughter of a child within the ethical, within the confines of Greek thought. Kierkegaard cites Agamemnon and Iphigeneia, Jephthah and his daughter, and Junius Brutus and his sons as examples. In each case, though, these sacrifices were performed within the confines of the ethical, that is, for the good of the society involved. They are tragic heroes, and still within the ethical. But Abraham bursts these confines; his plan to sacrifice Isaac is something between him and God, something that brings no benefit to society. Abraham's temptation is precisely to confine his actions to the ethical, to refuse to kill Isaac out of ethical scruples. But that is a temptation. The only way to describe this is to say that there is a category beyond ethical, the religious. In the religious, the individual is in an absolute – not a mediated – relation with the absolute. His act is justifiable not by any universal ethical rules, but purely as an individual. By this reflection, Johannes has pushed Hegelianism to the limit; either Abraham is a murderer, or Hegelian universalism doesn't tell the whole story. Something escapes the system: Namely, faith.
4. The teleological aspect of this is important. For Hegel, the telos of all ethical action is the good of all; the highest ethical act is to sacrifice oneself, to annul one's individuality, for the universal. Tragic heroism is the greatest of heroism. But Johannes is asking whether there is some higher end that beyond the ethical, where the demands of universal ethics are suspended. The higher end is the end of faith, the end of individual responsibility before God, which cannot be encompassed in universal categories.
5. The question, Is there an absolute duty to God? also provides an angle for challenging Hegelian assumptions. Here, though, the Kantian categorical imperative is also in Johannes's sites. The issue this gets at is the priority of the outer to the inner. For Hegel, the outer is higher than the inner, since the outer is universal and the inner particular. There is no private relation to God, since God is Absolute Mind and since we are ethically bound to forgo privacy to come into contact with God. This is consistent with the primacy of the ethical; the external/universal/ethical provides the mediation through which our obedience to God is mediated. Again, Abraham breaks through these categories. His experience shows that the inner is higher than the outer, and the individual is, again, higher than the universal. This is the absolute duty of the individual to God, captured in Jesus' chilling instructions to hate father and mother (Luke 14:26). There must be this absolute duty, or faith doesn't exist, and, once again, Abraham is lost, a murderer.
6. Contrary to accepted opinion, Johannes does not believe that being an individual is easy, while submitting to the universal difficult. He says instead that living as the individual means living in "fear and trembling." The knight of faith has to recognize the validity and claims of the universal, but he also needs to know that he may be called to transcend the universal and act as an individual in a way that will make him an outcast.
7. Interestingly, Johannes anticipates Buber and twentieth-century personalism is saying that the knight of faith enters into a second-person relation with God, while the tragic hero remains in a third-person relation. Hegel had implied that we have only a third-person relation with God.
8. The third problema deals with the question of secrecy, using Abraham's secrecy as the hinge of his exploration: "Was it ethically defensible for Abraham to conceal his understanding from Sarah, from Eliezer, and from Isaac?" This is in p1. In the Problemata sections of Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard, posing as Johannes de Silentio, poses a series of questions that arise from his reading of the story of Abraham and Isaac, within the Hegelian framework. The questions concern the "teleological suspension of the ethical," the question of absolute duty to God, and the problem of Abraham's secrecy. connection with language, which is always public and disclosed and universal.
9. Johannes tells a series of stories to make his point. The first involves lovers who keep their love secret because the woman is promised to another man. This is an offense against ethics, which demands disclosure of their love, but it is not a religious secrecy, but only an aesthetic one. The aesthetic rewards their secrecy, however, since everything works out in the end. Ethical action cannot, however, rely on coincidence. The secrecy was unethical. Agamemnon's silence in sacrificing Iphigeneia is also discussed under the heading of aesthetics; he must remain silent, or else he would be robbed of his tragic dignity; yet Iphigeneia must be told, so that her horror can provide a test of Agamemnon's resolve. This is aesthetically resolved when someone else tells Iphigeneia of the plan. Agamemnon thus remains a tragic hero, within the confines of the ethical, since everything is made public. Part of Johannes's point is to emphasize that the ethical disturbs the realm of the ethical. The aesthetic hero isolates himself as an individual in a realm of secrecy, for the protection of one he loves, but his decision to remain hidden is a matter of choice not necessity (unlike the secret hero of faith). He is therefore constantly presented with the possibility of disclosure, constantly pressured to bring his secret out into the hope to be judged by universal standards.
10. Abraham, however, is not an aesthetic hero. Silence in the cases Kierkegaard describes initially is always for the sake of preserving someone. But Abraham's silence doesn't preserve Isaac, but the opposite. Abraham is also unlike the aesthetic hero because, even if he brought his plans into the public sphere of universal ethics by disclosing them, he couldn't be understood. He can't explain himself. Nor can he explain faith, which is inexpressible and which would cease to be faith if it were made sensible to the demands of universal ethics. But Abraham does speak – "The Lord will provide the sacrifice." This is not disclosure of his plans, nor is it deceit that hides the truth from Isaac. Instead, he employs irony, which enables him both to disclose and not disclose. Irony is the language of faith. posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 04:13 PM [Philosophy Link Print] « Back Home Next »
2. In the first, he is defining the "ethical" in terms of universal rules, and the "ethical" as the telos of everything that is outside the ethical. But within this framework, Abraham can only be judged as a murderer, or at least guilty of attempted murder. But Abraham acted in faith, and his story thus reveals "this paradox that the single individual is higher than the universal." If he didn't act in faith, then Abraham is lost and faith is impossible, for in that case, the ethical – as social morality – is the highest possible aspiration and "no categories are needed other than what Greek philosophy had or what can be deduced from them by consistent thought." Faith is beyond thought here, because it is beyond the mediation of the universal.
3. One can make room for the slaughter of a child within the ethical, within the confines of Greek thought. Kierkegaard cites Agamemnon and Iphigeneia, Jephthah and his daughter, and Junius Brutus and his sons as examples. In each case, though, these sacrifices were performed within the confines of the ethical, that is, for the good of the society involved. They are tragic heroes, and still within the ethical. But Abraham bursts these confines; his plan to sacrifice Isaac is something between him and God, something that brings no benefit to society. Abraham's temptation is precisely to confine his actions to the ethical, to refuse to kill Isaac out of ethical scruples. But that is a temptation. The only way to describe this is to say that there is a category beyond ethical, the religious. In the religious, the individual is in an absolute – not a mediated – relation with the absolute. His act is justifiable not by any universal ethical rules, but purely as an individual. By this reflection, Johannes has pushed Hegelianism to the limit; either Abraham is a murderer, or Hegelian universalism doesn't tell the whole story. Something escapes the system: Namely, faith.
4. The teleological aspect of this is important. For Hegel, the telos of all ethical action is the good of all; the highest ethical act is to sacrifice oneself, to annul one's individuality, for the universal. Tragic heroism is the greatest of heroism. But Johannes is asking whether there is some higher end that beyond the ethical, where the demands of universal ethics are suspended. The higher end is the end of faith, the end of individual responsibility before God, which cannot be encompassed in universal categories.
5. The question, Is there an absolute duty to God? also provides an angle for challenging Hegelian assumptions. Here, though, the Kantian categorical imperative is also in Johannes's sites. The issue this gets at is the priority of the outer to the inner. For Hegel, the outer is higher than the inner, since the outer is universal and the inner particular. There is no private relation to God, since God is Absolute Mind and since we are ethically bound to forgo privacy to come into contact with God. This is consistent with the primacy of the ethical; the external/universal/ethical provides the mediation through which our obedience to God is mediated. Again, Abraham breaks through these categories. His experience shows that the inner is higher than the outer, and the individual is, again, higher than the universal. This is the absolute duty of the individual to God, captured in Jesus' chilling instructions to hate father and mother (Luke 14:26). There must be this absolute duty, or faith doesn't exist, and, once again, Abraham is lost, a murderer.
6. Contrary to accepted opinion, Johannes does not believe that being an individual is easy, while submitting to the universal difficult. He says instead that living as the individual means living in "fear and trembling." The knight of faith has to recognize the validity and claims of the universal, but he also needs to know that he may be called to transcend the universal and act as an individual in a way that will make him an outcast.
7. Interestingly, Johannes anticipates Buber and twentieth-century personalism is saying that the knight of faith enters into a second-person relation with God, while the tragic hero remains in a third-person relation. Hegel had implied that we have only a third-person relation with God.
8. The third problema deals with the question of secrecy, using Abraham's secrecy as the hinge of his exploration: "Was it ethically defensible for Abraham to conceal his understanding from Sarah, from Eliezer, and from Isaac?" This is in p1. In the Problemata sections of Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard, posing as Johannes de Silentio, poses a series of questions that arise from his reading of the story of Abraham and Isaac, within the Hegelian framework. The questions concern the "teleological suspension of the ethical," the question of absolute duty to God, and the problem of Abraham's secrecy. connection with language, which is always public and disclosed and universal.
9. Johannes tells a series of stories to make his point. The first involves lovers who keep their love secret because the woman is promised to another man. This is an offense against ethics, which demands disclosure of their love, but it is not a religious secrecy, but only an aesthetic one. The aesthetic rewards their secrecy, however, since everything works out in the end. Ethical action cannot, however, rely on coincidence. The secrecy was unethical. Agamemnon's silence in sacrificing Iphigeneia is also discussed under the heading of aesthetics; he must remain silent, or else he would be robbed of his tragic dignity; yet Iphigeneia must be told, so that her horror can provide a test of Agamemnon's resolve. This is aesthetically resolved when someone else tells Iphigeneia of the plan. Agamemnon thus remains a tragic hero, within the confines of the ethical, since everything is made public. Part of Johannes's point is to emphasize that the ethical disturbs the realm of the ethical. The aesthetic hero isolates himself as an individual in a realm of secrecy, for the protection of one he loves, but his decision to remain hidden is a matter of choice not necessity (unlike the secret hero of faith). He is therefore constantly presented with the possibility of disclosure, constantly pressured to bring his secret out into the hope to be judged by universal standards.
10. Abraham, however, is not an aesthetic hero. Silence in the cases Kierkegaard describes initially is always for the sake of preserving someone. But Abraham's silence doesn't preserve Isaac, but the opposite. Abraham is also unlike the aesthetic hero because, even if he brought his plans into the public sphere of universal ethics by disclosing them, he couldn't be understood. He can't explain himself. Nor can he explain faith, which is inexpressible and which would cease to be faith if it were made sensible to the demands of universal ethics. But Abraham does speak – "The Lord will provide the sacrifice." This is not disclosure of his plans, nor is it deceit that hides the truth from Isaac. Instead, he employs irony, which enables him both to disclose and not disclose. Irony is the language of faith. posted by Peter J. Leithart on Saturday, September 22, 2007 at 04:13 PM [Philosophy Link Print] « Back Home Next »
Black Adder summed this stuff up with his immortal comment: Utter Crapp.
ReplyDeleteOur only responsibility is to Be Happy in every relationship. It dosent take any convoluted metaphysical or theological explanations of justifications.
1. www.dabase.org/happytxt.htm
2. www.dabase.org/dualsens.htm
3. www.dabase.org/restsacr.htm