Kierkegaard & the Crisis of Religion - Walter Kaufmann on Existentialism

the Tauri existentialism was coined about 30 years ago in Italy mainly to refer to a couple of German philosophers about whom I shall talk hardly at all in the series of three lectures namely Karl Jasper's and Martin Heidegger it was however only after World War two that through the writings of the French philosopher jean-paul Sartre existentialism became very well known and very much talked about all over the world and quite especially in the United States too although there is a good deal of interest in it and it's very much discussed there is no complete disagree there is no complete agreement about just what existentialism means about just what it refers to might be foolish for me to say here is what exactly it means but it is surely essential for me if I want to give three lectures about her to tell you how I am going to use the term I'm going to use it as a label to refer to a number of people who are usually meant by the term and these would be quite particularly Zirin Kierkegaard and Heidegger and Jasper's and jean-paul Sartre I'll say something about me in a few minutes seeing that the second lecture will be largely devoted to neutral now they use the term existentialism as such a label instead of using the word rather giving a clear-cut definition of it this one existentialist to try to give the definition of it Sark said that existentialism was the doctrine their teachers that existence precedes essence the number of things that are bad about this definition the first one is and this in itself isn't true for that it's terribly unclear there it's even harder to understand what it means that existence precedes essence in us to understand quite apart from that what existentialism might be the second reason for not accepting this definition which after all perhaps could be explained is that no sooner had sat said that in a lecture existentialism as a humanist then Heidegger published a letter on humanism in which he said if that's existentialism I am NOT an existentialist and Along Came Josephus and said count me out too and if we look back for example to Calcutta for example to Nietzsche or if we take a sidelong glance at Camus it seems clear that these other men would not accept this particular definition either no one might see is there some other definite meaning that we can impose on the lot of them and it doesn't seem to me to be a particularly fruitful and they're taking we might perhaps later in this course of lectures look back afterwards and see whether some one definition comes to mind meanwhile I don't have a bad conscience at all about just using it as such a label there any number of other labels that we use in a similar way for example when we speak of American pragmatism what are we doing but simply using some sort of portend device to refer all at once to curse and James and do it perhaps also to me perhaps also to one or another person who comes to mind but we don't work with any very clear-cut definition and if we happen to be close students of any two of these men say of James and Dewey or of James and Perce then the more we read the more the more we become aware of the fact that they really don't agree with each other at all that they are very important point which they disagree with each other and still it's useful sometimes to discuss them together because there are some family resemblances between them there are certain ways in which they belong recognizably together rather than belong with other groups similarly when we speak of continental rationalists as we sometimes do in philosophy courses then we mean they covet and Spinoza and light nerds and as we studied them we find that they're violent he disagreed with each other on points that mattered deeply to them I just have one more such examples example namely British empiricism another such label it refers to Locke Berkeley and Hume and if we examine them closely we find for example that Locke was a deist that Barclay was a bishop and that Ewell was to be polite about it an agnostic so there was certainly very many things about which these three disagreed with each other and they criticized each other and still there are some things that Locke Berkeley and Hume sort of seem to have in common even if it's a little difficult to say what precisely it is in the distinguish them from the rationalist or from the pragmatists so there's nothing unusual about using the term existentialism as a label for a group of people and then sort of as an afterthought asking ourselves now what are the traits that they have in common now the traits that they have in common are first of all that the men that we usually call existentialists are all of them very radical individualist and this is what makes it so hard to pin them all down to a common platform they're all men who have very much a mind of their own and to make a point of going it alone in fact part of who's comin out rock is that there is something wrong with schools of philosophy that there is something wrong with drafting some kind of a platform to pair something wrong with philosophic systems they are people who in a phrase that meets Chebanse used and Sarah Costra like only what a man has written with his blood in other words stuff that doesn't come from the brain alone but rather stuff in which a man is engaged as an entire personality with all his experience this is the sort of thing they're like and if a man tries to transpose into prose all of his experience then seeing that his experience and his character is bound to be different from somebody else's there will be a distinctive individual quality to his writing which distinguishes him from the other man and so as we take up in these three lectures three different men we will find that everyone has very much a style of his own and a character of his own and a mode of thinking of his own positively we can say that one further thing that they have in common is a concern with extreme situations extreme experiences the most intense experiences the most extraordinary experiences and in the narrower sense we might say the less happy experiences within a narrower sense this leaves out to some extent mixture who is certainly a borderline figure a very doubtful candidate for existentialism but he has in common but the other existentialist is that he too is particularly interested in ultimate experiences but unlike most of the other existentialists he does not emphasize so exclusively to cite the titles of some of kirkegaard books fear and trembling and the sickness unto death which is despair and the concept of dread and going beyond kirkegaard now the experience of the anticipation in thought of one's own death on the whole the existentialists are particularly preoccupied with the lumière experiences but at any rate for the most dramatic with the most tragic experiences this of course in large measure accounts for the intelligent person's interest in existentialism and accounts for the fact that even people who find most current philosophy not particularly interesting feel that when it comes to existentialism there is something here that's of concern to them because existentialists do talk about experiences about which it is difficult to be indifferent experiences that matter to all of us and that engage our interest if they are written about with any sensitivity and intelligence at all what is implicit and what I have said so far is that if the question is raised for example was Pascal an existentialist all wars are there Camus and existentialist there is no right or wrong answer here all we can say is well there are certain things that these men have in common with people usually called existentialists and then we can see are there also some things that is twing the distinguish them from the other existentialist in what respects are they like other members of the family in what respects are they different certainly we must not make up our minds on the basis of whether they like each other it so happens that most of the living existentialist dislike each other quite intensely but that happens in some families too and that's no proof that somebody doesn't belong to the family on the contrary precisely people who have much in common with each other and who have inherited some of the same traits sometimes find each other particularly trying and that applies to existentialist to a further implication of what I said is that it would not be proper to say that existentialism is a synonym for modern philosophy there are some modern philosophers especially French and German ones though not only French and German ones who are existentialists but there are also many other modern philosophers including most modern english-speaking philosophers who are not existentialists the existentialists are those who fear these traits that I have talked about are so individualistic who are impatient for things that are removed from life who deal with dramatic experiences now how can we relate existentialism to what I have called the modern crisis but they are all sorts of crises in our time is fully not controversial unquestionably our time is a time of crisis but I do not mean to imply right from the start without having exam the matter at all that our time is uniquely a time of crisis about this about like temporarily to suspend judgment so if one or the other of you feel that perhaps every time as a time of crisis or at least that there have been many other times that have been just as critical as our time we needn't argue about this at all we needn't have any difference about this at all all that I want to say is that there are some crises in our time and what I want to do is to relate existentialism to three such crises in our time the one in religion today the one in philosophy next week the one in morality two weeks from today and then we can see each time to what extent each of these three crises is uniquely modern or to what extent it is perhaps a virtual crisis now why do I pick out the three men that I have picked out circa gar for today Nietzsche for next week and served for two weeks from tonight first of all there are strong reasons for beginning with Kierkegaard because he is the first unquestionable existentialist he is the one who started the whole modern movement of existentialism even though now in retrospect we can look for the back and find existentialist features in the thought of Pascal or even Santo Gospel or as some people would like to do all the way back in the book of Job still as a philosophic and literally movement existentialism starts with Kierkegaard moreover kirkegaard is undoubtedly one of the most commanding and impressive figures of existentialism and I think of the religious existentialists probably the most remarkable so he is to my mind a particularly good and I would say obvious choice for discussing religious existentialism the international renown of existentialism is largely due to jean-paul Sartre and I would say that if we look at literary representatives of existentialism South is probably the outstanding one the one who in brilliant novels short stories plays and essays as well as philosophic treatises has brought existentialism to our attention and here too in the case of Sartre just as in the case of kirkegaard I am influenced by my considerable respect for the man Nietzsche was not as I have already remarked strictly speaking in the narrow sense of the word an existentialist but I think a good case can be made out for saying that he towers very far indeed above such philosophers as Jasper's and Heidegger perhaps even to the extent of being the last world historical philosopher by which I mean that since Nietzsche's time philosophers have not had a really international impact a man like south a man like you Spurs a man like Heidegger has had very little impact on English speaking philosophy on the other hand the Giants of English speaking philosophy people like Russell and Muar and John Dewey and William James have had hardly any impact in the non-english speaking world on continental European thought Mitch says I think the last great philosopher in whom we find impulses and tendencies that have been influential and truthfully important for philosophy almost everywhere so I pick him too because he seems to me to be of unusual stature to wind up then these introductory remarks I would say that I happen to be as some of you know critical of existentialism but the point of this series of three lectures will not be to tear down existentialism it will not be to try to show how foolish it all is and that is why I have picked three men to whom in various ways although I am critical of them here or there I do look up and what I want to do is to try to increase your understanding as best I can not only of these three men but also of existentialism and beyond that of some aspects of the modern world of three crises in particular of issues that concern all of us and perhaps here there maybe able to make some constructive suggestions now let us begin with Kierkegaard I proposed to approach him somewhat differently from the way he is usually approached I think he himself would have said that the usual approach to his thought is in his own peculiar use of that word aesthetic when Kierkegaard speaks of an aesthetic approach an aesthetic orientation what he means is that one is a spectator that one looks at something that is outside oneself that one observes without becoming involved in it an extreme form of an aesthetic attitude would be if you collapse in front of your TV set and just try to be entertained but that would not be the only example of an esthetic attitude the attitude would remain aesthetic the way Kierkegaard uses the term as long as you make no commitment as long as you yourself do not become deeply involved and I dare say that most current interpretations offered most current interest in kirkuk are is of this as static nature that he is a terribly interesting person being interesting would be in Kierkegaard peculiar use of the term an aesthetic category it's interesting it's fascinating just look at it secondly people usually look at kirkegaard the way of pointing out that he was very critical of the German philosopher Hegel and since there's hardly anybody who is not very critical of Hegel if he talks about a girl at all this too is not very distinctive to say he is interesting to say he hates a girl's gut this really doesn't set him apart almost everybody does thirdly people you bleep Kierkegaard as if he had been something of an apologist either an apologist for Christianity or preferably a sort of non-denominational apologist for religion somebody who's our fits into the current seen as one of the many people who are of course as who is not in favor of religion in all three respects my approach to Kierkegaard's first of all it's not aesthetic but existential instead of just saying now isn't he a beautiful writer doesn't he put things quaintly isn't this a nice book I will say isn't this a maddening book isn't this something that is meant to upset us Kierkegaard uses deliberately the word that is found in the epistles of Paul scandal on a scandal a stumbling block an outrage something that is upsetting Kierkegaard wants to upset us and I will try to emphasise elements in his thought that are upsetting this takes me to the second point instead of claiming that he criticized Vega which he certainly did I won't say that he criticized Hegel and Hegelian is because philosophers in his time for the most part where he gilligan's but that he really criticized philosophy quite generally and that if he had lived in our time instead of picking on poor old Hagar and so he would have picked on pragmatism or he would have picked on logical positivism or analytic philosophy any kind of philosophy indeed beyond philosophy he would have criticized our trust in reason our trust in science this is something that is to the modern mind somewhat outrageous but this is something that has to be brought out and finally very far from being an apologist for Christianity or for religion somebody who tries to make it palatable kirkegaard wore himself out and trying to the No people who sought to make religion and Christianity in particular palatable and insisted that it is not palatable but that it has absolutely observed that it's outrageous to the human reason that it might even outrage our moral sense and that nevertheless it should be accepted in other words his conception of religion once it is understood I think is seen not to fit at all into the current revival of religion but on the contrary Kierkegaard people living today I'm sure would be a particularly outspoken and radical critic of the kind of religion that is flourishing today and this wants to be brought out if one wants to do justice to the man who said of himself and what is perhaps one of the nicest passages of his writings that when he was about thirty one day he sat in the park and he said to himself here I'm thirty years old and what have I done very very little he has so many great men in our time and they all have done so much and I have done so little many thought about it and he decided that what all these men were doing to the best of their ability was to make life easier and that he himself had no talent for making life easier and so he resolved to make things more difficult I think it's a lovely passage in the concluding unscientific PostScript how Kierkegaard olives to make things more difficult and one doesn't do justice to him and his heritage if one talks about him for an hour and a lecture if one doesn't bring out this crucial element that he has somebody who related himself to Socrates because he too wanted to be a gadfly he too wanted to make things difficult now let me very quickly fill in some data about his life he was born in 1813 and he died in eighteen hundred and fifty-five and he lived almost all his life in Denmark specifically in Copenhagen though he briefly studied also at the University of Berlin his father was a very strict and rigid authoritarian a very pious man who was bothered by the fact that once when he had been very poor as a young boy he had out on the Heather cursed God and this bothered not only the father but it also bothered the son very deeply Kousaka also remembers how his father wouldn't allow him much to go outdoors but said there's no need to go outdoors nepeta said something to do with the fact that the boy during Kierkegaard was somewhat crippled somewhat misshapen the proposed by the father didn't want him to go out too much the father said we can take a walk in this room we can just walk up and down together and as they walked up and down together for perhaps half an hour at a time the father described what they saw castles in Spain and he described them in such great detail everything that they saw and with such painstaking and vivid imagination that after about half an hour the boy was all worn out from so much experience and as exhausted as if he had been playing ball for hours this greatly stimulated his imagination but also made him something very peculiar somewhat solipsistic somebody who could sort of a strobe I'll just stay by himself and imagine all sorts of things without ever actually coming into contact with other people then one day it seemed to the young boy that there was strong evidence that his father had seduced his mother before were married when the father's first wife had died and when the second wife-to-be was still a maid in his house and that he's ER and kirkegaard was probably begotten before his father and mother were married and when he found this out he was so shocked because his father had seen such a pious and such a moral man that it would seem that just once he debauched himself he went to a brothel something of that sort and then afterwards kept thinking about the relation between the sins of the fathers and the sins of the children somehow the father sin was connected as it obviously was psychologically in his case where the sin of the son who when he finds out about the father sin does something himself it is sinful and they set him to brooding about original sin not that he wouldn't have thought about that anyway but there was this vivid personal connection in this in his mind and then he became engaged to a young girl a very young girl Regina and finally decided that he couldn't go through with a marriage and he felt that he couldn't say to her I have some kind of a call I think marriage might interfere with the sort of things that I have to do or he couldn't say to her be a somewhat trippled I feel that I just can't consummate our marriage I don't really want to get married he felt that he couldn't be frank with her because she was so young he felt that he couldn't share these awful memories of what his father had done what he had done with her and so he felt that perhaps the only way of bringing this unhappy relationship to an end was to lead her to want to break off the engagement by seeming be a terribly frivolous person blackening his own character so that he would want to break off the relationship until I have given you the major events of his life these relatively few experiences not in themselves perhaps really so terribly unusual were for him fateful experiences that with an unusually sensitive soul he brooded over all his short life long and kept alluding to in one way or another in his many many books they are I think only two further episodes in his life to be added to round out the picture one which I find particularly moving is that there was a paper in Copenhagen that praised him highly that took a fancy to him he was a brilliant writer and write over the fine sense of humor and a good stylist and the paper praised him in kirkegaard despised this paper and so he wrote the paper and said that he counted at a dishonor to be praised in its pages and that in view of his opinion of this paper he would much rather be pilloried by it and the editor perhaps understandably took offense at this and Brannan almost every issue horribly merciless cartoons of the mistreatment crippled kirkegaard making fun of him all the time until the children ran after him in the streets and threw rocks at him and laughed at him but here you have a contempt for popularity and a contempt for the things that most people appreciate that I think requires a very profound respect the other thing about his life that I still want to mention is that in the very end he came to the conclusion that the search of his country happened to be Lutheran was so antithetical to what he took to be true Christianity and the heritage of Christ that he felt that one must openly protest against it and so he privately printed pamphlets against the church peddled them on the streets collapsed in the street in the process of peddling them was carried into a hospital where he lingered between life and death for a fourth while refused to take the sacraments from an ordained minister of his church said he would be willing to take them from a layman that no layman was allowed to give him the sacraments and so although devoutly intensely passionately Christian died without having taking the sacraments because he would not compromise with a church that he considered a betrayal of true religion his books are exceedingly plentiful and there's a point to be made about them in the year 1843 for example he published either/or in two volumes then in the same year 18 edifying discourses then in the same year a book called repetition and then still in the same year fear and trembling to my faith that having published more than five volumes in one year that he might have rested up during the following year but in 1844 the public display Safa chol fragments his concept of dread and another book and in 1845 an enormous book stages on life's way in 80 in 1846 as perhaps most ambitious were concluding unscientific PostScript in 1847 more edifying discourses and his great works of love in 1848 he wrote a book that he didn't public and 18-49 he published the sickness unto death as well as three other books and also completed two more books that he didn't publish that year and that were published posthumously and so it went here was a man in other words who wore himself out writing what he had to say who did not divide his energies among any other thing though he had taken a theological degree he did not become a minister he did not want to have any official connection with the church and just wrote wrote wrote at a feverish pace under the circumstances it is perhaps not a car paying criticism if I say that sometimes his writing is leaves something to be desired from a philosophic point of view but sometimes it is not as careful as it might be that sometimes there are perhaps turns of phrase that invite objections that sometimes perhaps he contradicts himself that sometimes one can find fault after all upon rites at such a pace so many books not just in one year but year of the year of the year it is obvious that not everything is polished and as well considered as it might be it has often been said rightly that kirkuk are engaged in what is called indirect communication and what is usually meant by that is that most of the books that I have just mentioned were not published over the name of Zirin Kierkegaard but over the name of rather odd goofily latin pseudonyms they were published by people with outrageous names it was always obvious because these names were Latin that they couldn't be the real people but all Copenhagen in those days was discussing where all these pseudonyms one and the same man of were there all sorts of different people in kirkuk are added to the mystification by having some pseudonyms attack others and their trust references in these books and distilled his sense of humor he thought this was funny it is mildly funny and this is called indirect communication I don't think that that is really the heart of kirkegaard in direct communication this is something that one might explain to some extent psychologically one might say isn't this continuous with what I told you about these walks that he took with his father that here he all alone and one ruin people the world the way richard ii does in prison all the world's staged for him and here are all these characters all his inventions and they engage in fights and on some points they agree and and some they disagree you might almost say but are being disrespectful this perhaps as part of his pathology this is something that psychologically odd and interesting but this I think is not the truthful part of his indirect communication the crucial part of the indirect communication is that kirkegaard mode of expressing is artistic that instead of always writing edifying discourses as he sometimes did instead of always coming right out and preaching he often does the sort of thing that a novelist or a playwright does that a man like surrett will do to namely to avail himself of the mode of literature of the mode of art to get across his ideas a little less directly than one would if one came right out and told the reader there are other features of a style that I think there's no need to go into in any detail here it is I think an exasperated style and outrageous style and offensive style and means to be so to retell the story that in genesis takes less than one full page about how Ebrahim went out to sacrifice Isaac but then didn't kill cougar takes the whole little book going over and over and over it again with variations and he means to exasperate he means to annoy he means to upset he does not mean just to entertain in fact that whole little book Thea and Tremblay is directed against people who read Genesis and find it oh so interesting and oh so admirable and don't ask themselves what would I say if a man came along in my time who said God has told me to sacrifice somebody else and I'm about to do it this is the problem that kirkegaard says we must ask ourselves about we mustn't say isn't it a beautiful story and how well written and how concise and style and look how the emotions of father and son are caught so beautifully that is an aesthetic approach what Kierkegaard wants is the existential approach that asks what would I do if I burn Abraham's shoes what would I do of my next-door neighbor said that he was in Abraham's shoes and went out to kill somebody else because he thought that God had told him to now what about the crisis in religion to which our bond to relate Kierkegaard the crisis in religion in our time is so many forward that one could easily obviously give more than free lectures without even mentioning Kierkegaard just to analyze the crisis and religion I will single out instead three aspects of the crisis in religion with one because I think they are important and two because I think that Kierkegaard is interesting in relation to them the crisis in religion in our time I think I think perhaps the single most important point is one that may strike you at first as being such old hat that it's hardly worth talking about and that is the way in which science has undermined what we might call naive religious beliefs now you for the most part may consider this terribly old head because you may feel that the beliefs that have been undermined by science are so naive that you obviously don't have these beliefs anymore but for a moment you just recapitulate in your own mind the familiar enough story of how beginnings say with Copernicus and going on to Galileo and to Darwin and to Freud again and again science has come into conflict with religion and has forced religious people to reinterpret their beliefs to revise their beliefs the crisis is that after this reinterpretation has been going on for a few hundred years suddenly the question emerges what now do these beliefs mean if they don't contradict science it is no longer obvious what they mean to say that God created the world is very understandable as long as it contradicts some scientific theory or other but if you say it doesn't contradict any scientific theory there's nothing that possibly find out that could conflict with the belief that God created the world then it becomes questionable what it means to say that God created the world and so with other religious beliefs the big problem as opposed for religious belief and time is no longer quite so much what's the evidence for them of what's the evidence against them because most people probably have redefined in such a way that evidence is no longer very clearly relevant and in-depth but now do these beliefs mean instead of dwelling further on this point I will proceed to what I take to be the second and the third aspect of the crisis then say what I think Kierkegaard had to say on each of these points and then leave it to you and our question and answer period after the lecture to probe any particular aspect that especially interests you the second great crisis in religion is of a moral nature if somebody says and seriously means that that whatever is in the Bible whether that be defined as the Hebrew Bible only or as the Old and New Testament both that whatever is in the Bible is the Word of God and that all the moral Commandments to be found in the Bible are imposed on us by God then we have what seems morally a clear position but that is not what the modern religious believer says but the people in the past have said quite that I needn't go into right now here certainly we have an aspect of the religious crisis today that has his root its roots through the centuries that's not completely new today I do think it's more acute today than it has been in the past people select much more consciously and much more individually now than the have ever done in the past what Commandments they recognize and what Commandments they don't recognize if you confront people with some commandment in the Bible that is contrary to their conscience very few people I think are greatly disturbed by that anymore they will just say well obviously that belongs to some very ancient strata of the Bible that's an oil daddy as a primitive idea that doesn't go for us anymore well where's the crisis all this seems very fine the crisis is that if you are the one who does the choosing and picking as to which Commandments are still binding on you then what is the relevance of God to morality what is the relevance of religion to morality and in that case religious believers and agnostics and atheists all in the same boat in that case they all find out what their morality is going to be what the ethical code is going to be by beginning with what they've been taught in the nursery then revising that in the light of their own conscience of their own experience of their own reason asking themselves more or less deliberately what stands up and what doesn't stand up under scrutiny and then very much as an afterthought there's suddenly a difference between the religious person and the irreligious person namely the religious person then suddenly says and this of course I believe because the Bible says so but to that extent isn't the religious person deceiving himself is he really believing these things because the Bible says so apparently not because there are other things in the Bible that he does not accept doesn't God then become redundant doing Gordon religion really in that case become a to life and aren't they brought in in a way that is not entirely honest anymore this is the moral dimension of the religious crisis and the third aspect is even more obviously age a world and I think not particularly modern but it has its application in the 20th century and particularly since world war ii you might say that there is in organized religion an inverse proportion of quantity and quality the more people crowded the temples and the churches the fellow where does religion become this is not anything new but it is something that's vividly illustrated in our time since world war ii but it is an old story it's something that you find in the Hebrew Bible again and again and again that the prophets are not greatly feared by the fact that temple attendance is up higher than ever that people are trampling the courts on the country this they find rather disgusting they don't say well this is wonderful there are more sacrifices now than they used to be now all we need is that we put in god we trust' on our coins or something of that sort but if we had postage stamps that we cancelled them pray for peace but what the prophets are concerned about is the terrible loss of quality of religion and the prophets have a turn for this the remnant shall return the idea that deep religion genuine religion is perhaps possible only for small groups but isn't old idea the idea if you want to put it somewhat aggressively which is appropriate if we want to connect this in a moment with Kierkegaard that perhaps organized religion is something of a cancer something that proliferate without aim and threatens to kill genuine religiousness this may not be this need not be all there is to organized religion but this is the awful danger of it this is a perpetual crisis and if we think about our time rather than thinking about biblical times perhaps the last two very great religious figures who protested against the churches and against organized religion in the name of a religious vision of their own were Leo Tolstoy who was excommunicated by the Greek Orthodox Church and during Kierkegaard who in a kind of a way broke with his own church now if we then relate Kierkegaard to the crisis in religion he is easiest to relate to this last point he denounces organized religion not necessarily in principle he doesn't say there wouldn't be churches but he thinks that the churches that exist in his own time in Denmark in the 1840s and 50s somehow don't come up to scratch at all and if we look at what he criticizes the churches in his own country in the nineteenth century for it is quite clear that his criticisms also apply at least as much if not more to the churches in our time it is interesting in that connection that what he would like the churches to do is to be much more authoritarian he texts them because they don't lay down the law to people because they are too liberal but surely the same would apply to our churches today which more or less take the attitude that as long as you go to any church or temple or something of the sort it's all right that any religious faith will do no matter what it is that one ought to have some faith in some organized religion or other and let me be blunt not take it too if you think that and myself not entirely serious about this let me give him illustrate hmm that even if you could find it mildly ridiculous we'll bring out her dead see I guess I am about it I don't think that the people of the United States today would stand for a presidential candidate who would not be affiliated with some organized religion they do want their candidates to have some ties to some organized religion but if mr. Kennedy said I take my Roman Catholicism seriously he'd be through and if mr. Nixon were really a Quaker instead of saying I am in favor of tithing then he would be through but the point is a Quaker who is no quake and a Roman Catholic who a Roman Catholic it's in this sense that our revival of really is an organized religion is in a way a very shallow and misleading thing that has very little to do with deep religious nos the person who is deeply religious would get into trouble in the United States today and sir couldn't be elected to high office any more than the person who is openly atheistic it's more complicated if we try to relate Kierkegaard to the other says but still something can be said about these two what about his attitude toward the meaning of religious beliefs when they no longer come into conflict with science Protagoras answer here is clear he thinks that religious beliefs do conflict with science that they must not be reinterpreted in such a way that there won't conflict with science he thinks that religious beliefs and the particular religious beliefs and what he is interested those of Christianity as he understands that are to use the word that he uses again and again observed its current agar who introduced this word observed into the vocabulary of existentialism though it may be possibly more familiar to many of you from the writings of a bell Camus no religious belief see things are Christian beliefs are to reason absurd and / must accept them nevertheless one must humbly accept what one cannot comprehend and one must oppose critical thinking and one must be unscientific and one must denounce science one could go into great detail here unquote any number of texts in Kierkegaard if there could be nad and for that in the discussion period I'm willing to do so but I would also suggest if you are willing some of you to do some reading on Kierkegaard that you will find a good deal of material if you will read let us say at least two things Kierkegaard's own both fear and trembling and perhaps for way of rounding out my lecture to find information that I did not put into this lecture because it's available in print chapter 10 the chapter on Kierkegaard in my book from Shakespeare to existentialism a book incidentally that on the little folder that you got is credited to miss hazel Barnes but I and the bargain was credited with a much bigger book namely for the literature of possibility which is published for the University of Nebraska that is one mistake in this little bibliography the last item there is miss Barnes and the one directly above that is mine both those books fear and trembling and my from Shakespeare to existentialism are available in paperback and by reading fear and trembling and my chapter on Kierkegaard you will get a much fuller picture of Kierkegaard than you will just from this lecture alone what about the moral selection here it is kirkegaard point that you have no right whatsoever to make any moral selection you could not do that that if God foretells you to sacrifice your own son to commit murder you have no right to say this cannot be God because this is contrary to conscience because if you do that then God is reduced to a mere redundancy then you don't need God at all then you take the name of the Lord in vain but just introducing and afterwards to sink in what you believe anyway no you must countenance the possibility if your religion is at all dear you must countenance the possibility that read that religion may not only outraged your reason but your conscience to a very profound point I think for every religious person to ponder whether if he does not countenance the possibility that God might go against conscience God is not truly irrelevant to morality altogether if conscience is supreme then why do you need God in morality if on the other hand you take God seriously in ethics then there's the possibility that he might possibly go against conscience non conclusion they're confronted with the oddity that if we consider what Kierkegaard has to say on these three aspects of the crisis you will find him for a probably unacceptable on at least two of the three points perhaps on all three probably some of you will sympathize with his attitude toward organized religion though some others of you will feel that it's too extreme probably very few of you will agree with him that religion or to overrule reason and that one ought to believe things that are absurd and perhaps I don't know none of you are hardly any of you will agree that religion could or should go against conscience is Kierkegaard and really just an outrageous fellow who has very strange and bizarre ideas which after all are just interesting but who doesn't really have much to say to us that is not my view I think that on all three of these points he deserves terribly serious consideration when can on all three points obviously accept pretty much what he says if one then draws the conclusion that religion is to be rejected for that very he is much more of a thorn in the flesh and meant to be for the religious believer but let me conclude this lecture by bringing out three points on which he seems to me to be particularly worthwhile number one we find in Kierkegaard and particularly in that very difficult and abstruse book the sickness unto death which comes together with fear and trembling in the same paperback volume complete and unabridged we find him saying in that that almost all men are in despair whether they know it or not the one exception being the true Christian if there could be any true Christian today does that first plan seems meaningless does it make any sense to say that somebody is in despair but he doesn't know it the seems very strange it seems as if he didn't know how to use language here you can try to defend them in two ways the first way of defending him would be if I may say so the theological way namely you redefine the terms and this kirkegaard does sort of in passing but if this were all there were to him I personally wouldn't take him terribly seriously he does say that despair can be defined as the wrong relationship to God well of course if you say that then you can say that almost all men are in the wrong relationship to God although they don't know it there's no paradox about that but then why call that despair that's arbitrary to say the paradox by redefining the terms but kirkegaard also says something much more interesting to my mind in the same book normally the despair means being in a wrong relation to oneself and might it not be the case that almost all men and the wrong relationship to themselves although they don't know it that makes a lot of sense and we can specify what this wrong relationship to themselves is they are running away from themselves they are trying to escape from themselves and this surely is a profound analysis of modern man and we can leave open the possibility that perhaps it's a profound analysis not only of modern man possibly of men at all times encoded I would say further that philosophy in science and society all helped men to escape from themselves all help men to run away from themselves men are afraid of being alone with themselves because they might encounter themselves they are afraid of solitude as kirkegaard once put that they can't think of any better use for solitude than as a horrible punishment so they seek to get on us they seek community activities and the churches help them the churches become great centres for community activities the churches help men to escape from themselves here I think we have point number one that's eminently worthwhile what number two is that he is against Haggard's dictum that our society is the freest that ever existed and that what we could do is absorb its fellow Jews and conform and believe in progress and be proud of our achievements but surely that wasn't just the view of Hegel that's the view of almost all our secondary school teachers in the United States today and Kierkegaard says that this is a terrible view that we should realize that this optimism is unfounded that that the true individual the person who takes problem seriously as in despair his problems are not solved by science and society and what you for do is not conformed and not absorb the values of your society but stand alone that's point number two in third and last kill Cougars criticism of liberal Christianity and perhaps of liberal religion quite generally they are thinking about and his interpretation of Christianity as deeply authoritarian or the perhaps not very appealing to the 20th century mind might well be historically more correct than the more appealing interpretations to which we are accustomed today when kirkegaard says that Christianity is a threat to a gene I think he is right but he is also right when he says that Christianity teaches us to leave father and mother and to stand alone that the original teaching of Jesus is not that the family that prays together stays together but quite to the country that you should not pray together but that you should shut the door and pray by yourself he as Kierkegaard speaks as a true heir and not just of Jesus but perhaps of the prophets - let me end with a final dig against a very popular contrast today with which probably most of you are familiar that between the good guys and the bad guys the authoritarians and the humanists we classify people and the authoritarians are the bad guys and kirkegaard clearly was authoritarian you can quote him along that line again and again and the humanists they have the good believes one thing that I will try to get across in all of these lectures and quite emphatically today in the first one is that one can learn a great deal from people who were of Retired you know that Kierkegaard was one of them we must not say people are black and white let's first see Bella there on the right side and if they're Bobby we'll learn from them but we may find that people who are trager's and to embarrass us and to annoy us and with whom we differ may be among the people from whom we have the most to learn and that's one reason when devoting these three lectures to three very outrageous people now let's have questions please speak loudly enough that not only I can hear you but other people too [Music] if I understand the question right you found somewhere that existentialism was defined as the belief that one just goes from crisis to crisis I don't think that would be a very good definition of existentialism this is not a point on which the people who are chiefly called existentialists have taken any particular stand but you might say and this is what I did try to say that existentialists instead of emphasizing what is ordinary and usual in life emphasize the crises and so give the impression that life consists very largely of crises between what oh I must confess that I have not read miss Ren's novels but I understand that she is a great admirer of natures and so if so there probably is some connection though obviously one should not read all of her ideas back into nature and either give him credit for them or blame him for them he very clearly did attack liberal and reformed religions now what has attitude toward various forms of Orthodoxy would be is a little bit difficult to say one extraordinary thing I think about Kirk agar is that he did not address himself to religions other than his own that for example he never even writes about Calvinism he treats Calvinism as non-existent he does not discuss the Roman Catholic Church much less does he discussed Orthodox Judaism that by temperament he would have some feeling for orthodoxy that he wouldn't have for liberalism is clear I think but whether he would particularly applaud any such positions I am Not sure because one thing that's very clear in kirkegaard is that he does not share the admiration for organized religion as such or for a deep religious faith whatever that may be that's so fashionable today that he wants a particular interpretation of Christianity and anything that doesn't agree with that he rejects I think the answer is no that the answers also that it would if it is not a terribly relevant objection perhaps one doesn't have to worry about that to not [Applause] [Music] [Music] yes but I think we have you come to set jack we've talked about Kierkegaard today and I think it would be fair to say that Kierkegaard is not too terribly worried any more than I should think Jesus was and Kierkegaard a Christian he is not too terribly worried about whether mankind will survive or whether it will not survive but he is worried about is the other world is going to heaven and what he concerns himself with in line with a tradition that is strong in Christianity and by no means totally absent from Judaism either but he concerns himself with is what you might call the remnant the exceptional individuals now I'm not trying to say that you would accept this there something has ever tried to bring out deeply undemocratic about his whole attitude he is not concerned about the greatest possible happiness of the greatest possible number not at all but he is concerned with is how a man might become a good Christian if you want to put differently what the individual might have to do in order to be saved when he dies this is something that's puzzling in many a reformer that he revolts against the church but then may add and this is Kierkegaard line clearly that he revolts against it in part because it isn't authoritarian enough so it's easy to sympathize with him because of his individualism but you might say if ever you got your way if ever you got your world what would happen to people like you it's a similar feeling just first of all by way of bringing out that this problem isn't confined to Kierkegaard that one might have for example about a man like Plato who criticizes the society that he lives in Athenian democracy because it isn't authoritarian enough and he is a great ruble and the great individualist and a great iconic class and a great critic but what he would like to have is the kind of society in which people like he would have no place at all now we have something similar to that very clearly in Kierkegaard and I think what he would say is that certain kinds of belief would be insisted on by the court and that there would not be any leeway when it comes to whether you do or don't accept central dogma is about Christ but that of course the individual might have some leeway in have a some deep experience but he objects to is a religion in which deep experience is something that would be an embarrassment in which deep experience would almost disqualify anybody from membership because it just wouldn't be learning because it would be so extraordinary and exceptional the deep experience is compatible I should think with a more authoritarian setup perhaps I can draw an analogy here but will be familiar to some of you and that would be that perhaps in Orthodox Judaism in religious services you would be much more likely to see me people seized by start religious experience thank you board in more liberal services in perhaps you would find the same sort of thing also between fundamentalist Protestant services and liberal services the deepness and the intensity of the experience is compatible with a good deal of traditionalism and orthodoxy I think that this is particularly frightful rather than be a something that in any way can reconcile one to Kierkegaard I think that with a strangely and disturbingly prophetic soul he rightly sees that his night of faith is not a phonetic with fire and sword but the man who is willing to commit atrocities with a firm faith that everything will come out all right and who to be drastic about it comes back safe from his having liquidated a few million people to his family and is a very nice father and a very nice husband and as kirkegaard puts ER to quote him an ordinary life you can tell him from a tax collector I think he is dead right about this and I find it deeply disturbing that most people are too romantic and too dramatic about it they think that people who commit deeds like that must be obviously monsters as if they sort of must have horns and tail but kirkegaard sees quite rightly that if a man has the firm faith that what he is doing is all right and that in the end that will all be for the best even though if you argue with him he'll have to admit that it's absorbed how could it come out for the best so he believes somehow it will then he can afterwards go back to his family and be quite undisturbed exactly that's what I'm saying but a man like Kierkegaard wistfully deplores his only a finality his own integrity his own conscience saying if I did a thing like that I would not be able to go back and instead of saying that's because I am too decent a man he says that's because I don't have the kind of faith that one ought to have at this point obviously I don't agree with him at all and I don't suppose any of you had the idea in the first place during my lecture that I am in any sense a follower of kirkegaard in though I tried to give a sympathetic interpretation because it's much more fascinating to deal with somebody who deals with interesting problems that have some relation to one's own life than to read about things that strike one is wholly academic and irrelevant to one's own life I think that's the main reason a secondary reason is that you wrote well and the tertiary reason is that there are some psychological insights that sort of spice the reading there was a lady a little to the left there Kierkegaard thought and at this point I find him impossible to follow he thought that the only way to transcend this despair was by being a good Christian at this point I simply cannot follow this doesn't make any sense to me at all first of all you might say well let's be a little bit more broad-minded what about being a Jew of what about being a Buddhist couldn't conference ended in that way - all one might ask what about being the kind of man that say that we will come across as we consider Nietzsche and salad or familiar to some of you from canoes novels might it not be possible without any religious faith I think here Kierkegaard doesn't argue but is just dogmatic and to me at this point he isn't plausible at all I can take just one more short question I don't see why the Orthodox Church by a church that would measure up to Kierkegaard's expectations would have to condemn Abraham but kirkegaard is saying in effect is the parson as a hypocrite if he praises Abraham Sunday morning but Sunday afternoon if a member of his congregation would go out to do likewise but try to stop him but now why couldn't somebody first preach faith and then if people also have gotta hear them for it and be happy about it I would say that the dreadful thing at this point is that the church so often has done again just what Kierkegaard wanted her to do that people have preached to other people to go out and burn other people at the stake and kill other people and then have not stopped them either but quite consistently allowed them to go ahead with it you're entirely right that according to Kierkegaard Ramin communicate it but the parson might do but kirkegaard says he would do just reverently stand back and say here is a great man here is the kind of man who resembles Abraham let's canonize him and that note let's close for today

Channel: Philosophy Overdose

Views: 21,201

Rating: 4.9259257 out of 5

Keywords: Philosophy, Existentialism, History of Philosophy, Kierkegaard, Continental Philosophy, Christianity, Fear and Trembling, Sickness Unto Death, Christian Existentialism, Ethics, Walter Kaufmann, Existentialist, Meaning in Life, Aesthetic, Existential, Psychology, Fideism, Religious

Id: RZCHOmfchv8

Length: 81min 12sec (4872 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 18 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Liquid_Rubber]

I did not see this posted here, so I thought I would share this. It is a very good lecture which touches on Kierkegaard's main themes.