
Kierkegaard’s Leap - CrocodileStreet
https://hudsonreview.com/2019/10/kierkegaards-leap/#.Xbd-55NKjR0
======
dwd
For anyone contemplating reading Kierkegaard for the first time I would highly
recommend starting with his journals.

Reading his daily thoughts, his love of walks, his relationship with Regine
and his multitude of feuds with the newspapers and the state church gives a
great perspective on his published work. It's also where you will find most of
his quotable statements.

"Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards."

~~~
Merrill
I read some of Kierkegaard's works some decades ago. It seemed to me that by
his time philosophers had generally concluded that Christian theology, and
theology generally, was not worth serious study. And Kierkegaard couldn't
accept that he no longer believed it either - Sort of the first of the school
of those who argue that God must exist because the alternative is too horrible
to contemplate.

~~~
dwd
Yes, he tried and push theology to a perfect interpretation, but never took
the next step of abandoning it in the way Nietzsche did. "God is dead...and we
killed him" to paraphrase the madman.

While Nietzsche lived later and embraced the nihilism that Kierkegaard
couldn't bring himself to acknowledge, he rejected any notion of Darwinian
influence in his writing.

~~~
yesenadam
I wouldn't say Nietzsche "embraced the nihilism". Embraced atheism, sure. Even
_The Anti-Christ_ I think says not a word against Jesus, who he seems to
admire, but is aimed against the corruption of Jesus' teachings by priests and
the Church. His teacher Schopenhauer–the first atheist modern western
philosopher?–has much more of that nihilistic vibe - _it would be better not
to live, happiness is negative, lasting happiness impossible, the world is
essentially annoying and horrible_ etc. Schopenhauer's also very
Buddhisty–even had a bust of Buddha in his house–although I think arrived at
his conclusions independently. Nietzsche at least tried to say _Yes_. Music
was very important to both of them–S played flute, Nietzsche piano–and music
was even more important in S's philosophy than Nietzsche's. _Only through art,
especially music, can we escape the miserable pressure of the Will_ , i.e.
unconscious/life force/animal nature. Reading Schopenhauer's main book seems
like Freud + Darwin. One of the essays in N's first book is the fascinating
_Schopenhauer as Educator_. The chapters on S and N in Santayana's very
readable and funny _Egotism in German Philosophy_ are maybe the best, most
insightful thing written about them.

I read a lot of Kierkegaard years ago - for a while he and Nietzsche were my
two best friends! I avoided K's christian stuff - way too angsty for me, and
over issues that mean nothing to me. (Well, I did have a religious phase where
I could agree with him that christians are nowhere near christian enough!) But
I love a lot of his other stuff. Maybe my favourite is _Either /Or_ \- some
parts of it - the aphorisms, Crop Rotation etc. It's very funny stuff. He's
either very compressed or _extremely_ long-winded. And the endless whining
about Regine gets very tedious..

~~~
dwd
I agree that he didn't reject life and living, just that he was of the mind
that there is no overriding meaning to it. I tend to think of a nihilist as
someone like Dawkins. It's not just that there is no god, but that there's no
point to life except what you make of it.

I also read Kierkegaard and Nietzsche in my youth and went through a stage of
intensely studying Christianity, falling out with the local churches as
basically missing the point, (the time when I most felt a kinship with
Kierkegaard) before ultimately rejecting religion entirely.

~~~
yesenadam
Dawkins?! Then you must think of every atheist as a nihilist, and the term
doesn't mean much then. I don't think that's what's meant by the word, at all.

Anyway, _meaning_ is not something things have in isolation–it is always
meaning _to someone_. Like what's the meaning of a painting? (apart from in
peoples' minds) A written word is a squiggle, but means something to someone
that speaks the language. I think the nihilist/existentialist angst is from
people in the generation or two after christianity, not having that cosy pre-
defined meaning to their lives, of everything being god's plan. Like a child,
used to the parents deciding what to do, what are the rules, punishments,
structures, moving out of home and feeling...abandoned, empty. I (like almost
everyone I know here in Australia) was brought up without being taught a
religion, never had that loss of faith or feeling of lack or meaninglessness.
Hmm well, not true, aged about 20 I had a mild 'existential crisis', wondering
about the meaning of life, and learnt that it's silly (and dangerous)
expecting there to be _the_ meaning of life out there like a rock. Nihilists
stop there, thinking that in "there's no meaning in X" they've captured the
essential truth about things, and torture themselves with the abyss. A bit
like the contemporary _goth_ thing, thinking that seeing the meaningless,
desolation, emptiness of things is wisdom. I started reading E.M. Cioran
essays a year or two ago, but couldn't stand him; it was full of this vibe;
going on about what a superior wisdom his ultra-bleak, desolate view of things
has, as if he's better than any happy person because so miserable.
Occasionally I hear some intelligent person talking as if an intelligent
person must be unhappy, as if it's a given. Maybe it's from the existentialist
message filtering down and being taken for wisdom. Maybe Sartre is to blame
for that.

------
Errancer
I really recommend reading Kierkegaard along with Nietzsche, they miraculously
contradict and agree in pretty much everything.

------
nickysielicki
Missing from this post is The Sickness Unto Death, which I think is the most
important of anything he wrote. The book is about what a Christian ought to
think of what it means to live and what it means to die.

> What if grace doesn’t come as a gift bestowed from beyond, but in moments of
> self-forgetfulness, moments in which, by whatever means and processes, the
> Ego simply disappears? Questions about the afterlife are not answered in
> this kind of thinking, but so what? If one isn’t afraid to live, why should
> one be afraid to die? And even if one is afraid, again, so what? Our courage
> and our fear will not change the fact of our dying.

[https://www.naturalthinker.net/trl/texts/Kierkegaard,Soren/T...](https://www.naturalthinker.net/trl/texts/Kierkegaard,Soren/TheSicknessUntoDeath.pdf)

> Oh, but even if Christ had not awakened Lazarus from the dead, is it not
> true that this sickness, that death itself, was not a sickness unto death?
> When Christ comes to the grave and cries with a loud voice, "Lazarus, come
> forth" (11:43), it is evident enough that "this" sickness is not unto death.
> But even if Christ had not said these words -- merely the fact that He, who
> is "the resurrection and the life" (11:25), comes to the grave, is not this
> a sufficient sign that this sickness is not unto death, does not the fact
> that Christ exists mean that this sickness is not unto death? And what help
> would it have been to Lazarus to be awakened from the dead, if the thing
> must end after all with his dying -- how would that have helped Lazarus, if
> He did not live who is the resurrection and the life for everyone who
> believes in Him? No, it is not because Lazarus was awakened from the dead,
> not for this can one say that this sickness is not unto death; but because
> He lives, therefore this sickness is not unto death. For, humanly speaking,
> death is the last thing of all; and, humanly speaking, there is hope only so
> long as there is life. But Christianly understood death is by no means the
> last thing of all, hence it is only a little event within that which is all,
> an eternal life; and Christianly understood there is in death infinitely
> much more hope than merely humanly speaking there is when there not only is
> life but this life exhibits the fullest health and vigor.

edit: Not removing the original wording, but it's an overstatement to say that
Sickness Unto Death could be regarded as Kierkegaard's most important work.
It's definitely not. It's just his writing that is most relevant to what the
author of this post is talking about.

~~~
jfengel
I don't get the obsession with the fear of death. I'm just not afraid of it.
That's not bravado. It just doesn't occur to me to be afraid of it.

I'm afraid of _dying_ , because that's probably going to hurt. I'm afraid of
other people dying, because it sucks to live without them. But the idea of my
own not-existing-any-more just doesn't fill me with the dread or terror that
the quotes you cite seem to take as axiomatic.

It feels like I'm being offered a cure for a disease that they're creating.
While "fear of death" is certainly cross-cultural, it doesn't feel to me like
it's an inherent part of the human condition. It feels as if Kirkegaard is
offering a Christian solution to a Christian problem, and it offers nothing to
somebody who hasn't already accepted the basic premises.

~~~
nickysielicki
He addresses this sort of question in the intro:

> So it is that Christianity has taught the Christian to think dauntlessly of
> everything earthly and worldly, including death. It is almost as though the
> Christian must be puffed up because of this proud elevation above everything
> men commonly call misfortune, above that which men commonly call the
> greatest evil. But then in turn Christianity has discovered an evil which
> man as such does not know of; this misery is the sickness unto death. What
> the natural man considers horrible -- when he has in this wise enumerated
> everything and knows nothing more he can mention, this for the Christian is
> like a jest. Such is the relation between the natural man and the Christian;
> it is like the relation between a child and a man: what the child shudders
> at, the man regards as nothing. The child does not know what the dreadful
> is; this the man knows, and he shudders at it. The child’s imperfection
> consists, first of all, in not knowing what the dreadful is; and then again,
> as an implication of this, in shuddering at that which is not dreadful. And
> so it is also with the natural man, he is ignorant of what the dreadful
> truly is, yet he is not thereby exempted from shuddering; no, he shudders at
> that which is not the dreadful: he does not know the true God, but this is
> not the whole of it, he worships an idol as God.

> Only the Christian knows what is meant by the sickness unto death. He
> acquires as a Christian a courage which the natural man does not know --
> this courage he acquires by learning fear for the still more dreadful. Such
> is the way a man always acquires courage; when one fears a greater danger,
> it is as though the other did not exist. But the dreadful thing the
> Christian learned to know is "the sickness unto death."

It's not just about _not_ fearing death, it's about _not_ fearing death
because you fear something much worse.

~~~
jfengel
... and in turn about not fearing a lot of the other things that ordinary
people are afraid of. That makes a lot of sense, thanks.

As a sibling comment suggests, it offers a vaguely similar deal to Buddhism in
being able to dispatch worldly fears. I don't really buy it myself, but I can
see why people might.

------
hacknat
Kierkegaard and Nietzsche are the two philosophers who, when I read them, make
me realize what a hypocrite I am. My favorite Kierkegaard quote in this vain:

"One must do everything for oneself and for God."

We are all often "performing" in one way or another for others. What would
your life look like if you were only performing for yourself and for "God". I
don't think it's possible actually, it's more of a goal to strive for.

Nietzsche's:

"I live in my own house

I've never copied nobody even half

And at any master that lacks the grace

to laugh at himself - I laugh."

------
baking
I have long argued that the leap is not "over the chasm of uncertainty" but a
"leap into the abyss." I don't have a reference handy to make my point, but it
was the conclusion I drew from reading Fear and Trembling many years ago.

EDIT: “Yet Abraham believed, and believed for this life. Yea, if his faith had
been only for a future life, he surely would have cast everything away in
order to hasten out of this world to which he did not belong. But Abraham's
faith was not of this sort, if there be such a faith; for really this is not
faith but the furthest possibility of faith which has a presentiment of its
object at the extremest limit of the horizon, yet is separated from it by a
yawning abyss within which despair carries on its game. But Abraham believed
precisely for this life, that he was to grow old in the land, honored by the
people, blessed in his generation, remembered forever in Isaac, his dearest
thing in life, whom he embraced with a love for which it would be a poor
expression to say that he loyally fulfilled the father's duty of loving the
son, as indeed is evinced in the words of the summons, "the son whom thou
lovest.”

------
galaxyLogic
"Kierkegaard’s most famous book, Fear and Trembling (1843)"

Makes we wonder did that inspire Hunter S Thompson to name his book "Fear and
Loathing in Las Vegas"?

~~~
cristoperb
I don't know, but that particular phrase is old, from Psalm 55: "Fear and
trembling come upon me, and horror overwhelms me"

[https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+55&versio...](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+55&version=NRSV)

~~~
galaxyLogic
Interesting to know. So I assume Thompson was in Vegas, and fear and loathing
came upon him :-)

------
coldtea
Wow, didn't expect to see David Mason on Hacker News. A great poet and
essayist (and all around nice guy). Have collaborated on something a while
ago!

