Towards a Kierkegaardian Retreating of the Political (original) (raw)
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Kierkegaard from the point of view of the political
History of European ideas, 2005
This article considers Kierkegaard's contribution to our understanding of the political. Building on previous scholarship exploring the social dimensions of Kierkegaard's thought, I argue that for Kierkegaard the modern understanding and practice of politics should be understood as 'despair'. Thus, whilst Kierkegaard's criticisms of politics might have been produced in an ad hoc fashion, this article argues that there is an underlying principle which guides these criticisms: that politics is subordinate to, and must be grounded in, spiritual or religious selfhood. In this way the modern phenomena of democracy, liberalism, the press, and the crowd can all be seen as representative of a form of community which falls far short of the potential that human beings can and should achieve. Such a community would see individuals recognising themselves and each other as spiritual beings, and taking responsibility for themselves and others. That modern politics fails to understand the human being as an essentially spiritual entity related to others through God can only lead us to conclude that, from Kierkegaard's point of view, modern politics suffers from the sickness of despair. Whilst Kierkegaard might be criticised for failing to provide us with a more detailed picture of a polity shaped by the religious contours he promotes, he clearly offers an intriguing and suggestive contribution to our understanding not only of the limitations of politics, but also the relationship between a normative human and political ontology, with the former providing the basis for the latter.
Volume 14: Kierkegaard's Influence on Social-Political Thought
2016
While scholars have long recognized Kierkegaard's important contributions to fields such as ethics, aesthetics, philosophy of religion, philosophical psychology, and hermeneutics, it was usually thought that he had nothing meaningful to say about society or politics. Kierkegaard has been traditionally characterized as a Christian writer who placed supreme importance on the inward religious life of each individual believer. His radical view seemed to many to undermine any meaningful conception of the community, society or the state. In recent years, however, scholars have begun to correct this image of Kierkegaard as an apolitical thinker. The present volume attempts to document the use of Kierkegaard by later thinkers in the context of social-political thought. It shows how his ideas have been employed by very different kinds of writers and activists with very different political goals and agendas. Many of the articles show that, although Kierkegaard has been criticized for his reactionary views on some social and political questions, he has been appropriated as a source of insight and inspiration by a number of later thinkers with very progressive, indeed, visionary political views.
Do I ever have a place in the sun? A critical perspective on Kierkegaard's Works of Love
International Journal of Philosophy and Theology, 2014
Soren Kierkegaard advocates, in his Works of Love, a rigorous ideal of neighbor love. When one is confronted with this ideal of self-sacrifice and love for the enemy, one inevitably wonders whether such a life of neighbor love is livable. In this article, I ask (1) whether Kierkegaard indeed allows for limits on neighbor love, and (2) if neighbor love is limitless, whether there are, on his account, good reasons to live such a life. In elaborating these issues, I aim to show that Kierkegaard is unable to show that his conception of neighbor love is recognizably good, which implies, as I will make clear, that his ethic of neighbor love runs the risk of undermining itself.
Be(com)ing a Christian Is Not a Social Identity: Kierkegaard and the Refusal of Social Roles
2021
This paper examines aspects of Kierkegaard’s authorship in relation to contemporary identity politics. Specifically, it argues that several pseudonymous voices in Kierkegaard’s works and identity politics share the contention that ethics presupposes concrete practical identities in order to function. Given this, one conception of liberalism, predicated on procedural equality, is not viable. However, it also argues that other voices in Kierkegaard’s oeuvres press beyond identities and proffer a radically new way to make sense of differences and equality, one predicated on infinity.
Love, suffering and the human nature in Kierkegaard’s late works
Protrepsis, 2013
This paper aims to explore Kierkegaard's account of human nature through the study of the intricate relationship between love and suffering in Kierkegaard's Upbuilding discourses of 1847. More specifically, focusing mainly on the Works of Love and on The Gospel of Sufferings, I intend to discern the way in which Kierkegaard delineates the path leading from suffering and despair to redemption and reconciliation, both between God and the human being and between humans. In Kierkegaard's thought love is pivotal in forcefully destroying pseudo-conceptions (idols) of the self, of God and of the human being, whilst setting free a form of inner existence that allows for the living God and the actual other-neighbor to burst on the scene. Faith, suffering, self-denial and sacrifice are therefore all important presuppositions of this miraculous and silent transformation of the self-Kierkegaard describes love as "infinite debt", a definition that might strike the reader as paradoxical. He provides us with an account of love as a debt that nurtures all that is dearest and highest in life, a debt which the person who has experienced true love would never wish to abolish. Love presents itself as a duty that liberates humanity from all deliberation, calculation and retribution, in short from the main features of its hitherto historical existence. Love is the unending 'moment' that leads us in the realm of true religiosity, where human and divine kenosis meet up so as to secretly and silently fulfill ever anew the messianic promise.
TWO FORMS OF LOVE: The Problem of Preferential Love in Kierkegaard's Works of Love
Journal of Religious Ethics, 2008
The duty to love one's neighbor as oneself is at the core of Kierkegaard's Works of Love. In this book, Kierkegaard unfolds the meaning of neighborly love and claims that it is the only valid form of true love. He contrasts between neighborly love and preferential love (which includes romantic love and friendship) and criticizes the latter for being nothing but a form of selfishness. However, in some contexts, Kierkegaard seems to acknowledge the significance of preferential love relationships, and does not disallow them. Therefore, his understanding of preferential love appears to be confused and inconsistent. My essay discusses the tension in Kierkegaard's position regarding preferential love, and by presenting recent readings of Works of Love, it asks whether this tension is resolvable and offers a suggestion for a possible solution.
Kierkegaard and the problem of special relationships: Ferreira, Krishek and the "God filter"
"Kierkegaard’s Works of Love has often been accused of being unable to deal adequately with ‘special relationships’. This debate has re-emerged in a fresh form in a recent disagreement in the secondary literature between M. Jamie Ferreira and Sharon Krishek. Krishek charges Ferreira with failing to acknowledge some important conflicts in Kierkegaard’s account of preferential love. In this article, I argue that some key passages are indeed insufficiently addressed in Ferreira’s account. Yet ultimately, I argue, Krishek ends up condemning the Kierkegaard of Works of Love unfairly. As a solution to Krishek’s concerns, I present a defence of Kierkegaard’s position centred round the image of God as a ‘filter’ through which our loves must pass. Also, while acknowledging that Krishek raises some important questions for Ferreira’s account, I outline a possible response, based in part on Kierkegaard’s idea that neighbour love is only a ‘sketch’ until brought to fruition in any given manifestation of concrete love. Ultimately, I claim, Kierkegaard’s position in Works of Love can indeed be defended from Krishek’s critique. Keywords: God, Kierkegaard, neighbour-love, preferential love, self-love."
Journal for Cultural and Religious Theory , 2020
One does not typically associate Kierkegaard with social theory. Instead, he is remembered as one of the foremost among a sizable constellation of nineteenth century thinkers who were shifting intellectual focus to philosophies of the individual. However, Kierkegaard does propose a normative social theory modeled on a form of personal interaction that aims to alleviate group conflict and large-scale social disintegration. Particularly in Works of Love-published one year before The Communist Manifesto-Kierkegaard elaborates an existential-religious form of revolution that he presents as a rival initiative that is superior to any revolutionism rooted in political economy. In what follows, I have stitched together Kierkegaard's critique of modernity, particularly as it pertains to his aversive concept of the public. Rather than prescribing an ascetic retreat from society, the consummate philosopher of "that single individual" agitates for a revolution predicated on an agapeic gift economy that he claims will repair pervasive social fragmentation and antagonism, thereby creating a more integrated and peaceful society.
On Søren Kierkegaard: dialogue, polemics, lost intimacy, and time
Ars Disputandi, 2008
As the readers get to know in the Preface, the chapters assembled in this book are a record of wrestling with Kierkegaard's central themes: passion, irony, subjectivity, ethics, prayer, repetition, Augenblick (Øieblikket), poetry, self-articulation, words, responsibility, the restless heart, requited and unrequited time, love. Mooney's investigation reviews a panorama of themes and a plurality of approaches to Kierkegaard's vast work. As he rightly remarks, there are many Kierkegaards (or many of his inventions) one might meet here, where theology and philosophy, literature and ethics can mingle in mutual attractions and interanimations. The book is divided into three Parts, containing thirteen Chapters altogether. Part One (Chapters 1-4) is entitled 'Kierkegaard: A Socrates in Christendom.' It focuses on the central role that Socrates and his thought have played for Kierkegaard's own way of thinking. In Part Two (Chapters 5-9) on 'Love, Ethics, and Tremors in Time' Mooney unfolds his hermeneutics of charity by analyzing two recent Kierkegaard biographies and the early pseudonymous writings from 1843-44. Part Three (Chapters 10-13) is dedicated to 'Plenitude, Prayer, and an Ethical Sublime'-with special consideration of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses. The initial chapters circle around Socrates, who is presented as Kierkegaard's exemplar first to last, a figure who embodies and testifies to a way of becoming at once poetic, ethical, and religious. The vista of Mooney's attention in Part One is the 'broad setting or ambiance of Kierkegaard's conspectus' (8). Chapter 1 introduces Kierkegaard as a new Socratic midwife, mentoring us in the interest of setting free. His literary experiments and sketches of contrasting ways of life provoke and puzzle us. 'As we allow Kierkegaard to engage us existentially, scholarly Kierkegaard-interpretation becomes interlaced with the intimacies of self-examination.' (6) He is guiding us through the trajectories of our own becoming, through the pain and joy and danger of transformation, in search for the self or soul, the vital core and confluence of the virtues, moods and passions that give life. We are underway, a labyrinth in flux, as Mooney puts it poetically: 'Like an ever-changing riverbed, the self's terrain is constantly under reconstruction' (9). 'Knowing' myself seems as impossible as catching myself in motion, as stepping
Self-Love and Neighbor-Love in Kierkegaard's Ethics
2013
Kierkegaard faces an apparent dilemma. On the one hand, he concurs with the biblical injunction: we are to love our neighbors as ourselves. He takes this to imply that self-love and neighbor-love should be roughly symmetrical, similar in kind as well as degree. On the other hand, he recommends relating to others and to ourselves in disparate ways. We should be lenient, charitable, and forgiving when interacting with neighbors; the opposite when dealing with ourselves. The goal of my paper is to solve this puzzle. I first consider addressing it by appealing to Gene Outka’s idea that equal love does not entail identical treatment. After rejecting this solution, I offer my own: Asymmetry between the two loves is not a moral ideal for Kierkegaard but a rehabilitative strategy. He recommends being more latitudinarian with others than with ourselves to correct against a common tendency toward the opposite extreme.