Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

The author of this textbook has given a general description of this thinker in his book, Sören Kierkegaard als Philos in Frommens Klassiker.

Kierkegaard is a subjective thinker in the sense in which he used that word in the book, Unwissenschaftliche Nachschrift, Unscientific Postscript, 1846, Kierkegaard's chief philosophical work.

the ideas of the subjective thinker are determined by the interplay of all the elements of psychic life by emotion and reflection by hope and fear by tragic and comic moods and this thinking takes place in the midst of the stream of life whose boundaries we cannot see and whose direction we can never know at least not in the fantastical and impersonal world of abstraction kirkegaard is the danish pascal

and his position in relation to the philosophy of his age possesses a certain analogy to pascal's relation to cartesianism this predominantly personal character of his thought however does not preclude the possibility of his making valuable contributions to epistemology and ethics or better to a comparative philosophy of life as he has actually done Syburn had already observed that the fruitful ideas of Kant had not received their just dues at the hands of his successors.

EDITOR A. M. STRUDEVANT.

FEBRUARY 1920.

CHAPTER 6, PAGES 16-21. chapter six kirkegaard was unique in the degree to which his enormous energy of reflection was directed back upon himself subsequent criticism has uncovered very few points of view for his interpretation not already suggested either in the literature itself or in the wealth of comment which the journals afford in the unscientific postscript his pseudonym johannes klimakis reviews the ascetic literature and assigns to each work its place in relation to his own central thesis some years later after the bulk of the religious literature had appeared kierkegaard wrote a literary autobiography to serve for an interpretation of the whole the latter work however was not published during his lifetime only a brief abstract of it appears in pamphlet form it was kierkegaard's purpose so he tells us in the course of his self-criticism to formulate a definition of what it means to live and to make this formulation fruitful and suggestive for life stirring the reader to a degree of self-activity that might help him to find himself he believed that the age suffered from an overabundance of knowledge life was being made increasingly unreal since living was being confused with knowledge about life in this situation it would be superfluous and even harmful merely to increase the store of knowledge already existing even if it were possible to attain a considerable improvement upon current conceptions this would only tend to promote the disease it was intended to cure kierkegaard therefore resolved systematically to eschew the abstract objective didactic systematic scientific form and to choose instead the subjective and incidental form characteristic of a knowledge completely assimilated to the personality in other words he presents knowledge in use as distinct from knowledge in the form of potentiality for use to delineate different standpoints and ideals of life in this way is to present personalities existing in their thoughts and thus revealing through self-expression the personal significance of the standpoints they occupy as a consequence the ascetic literature is pseudonymous and polyonymous the different authors are kierkegaard's creations but their words their views and even their prefaces are their own productions their standpoints nowhere precisely coincide with kirkegaard's own being ideal personalities only they can express themselves with a disregard for consequences in good and evil, limited only by the requirements of an ideal consistency, a freedom that no actual author speaking in his own name could appropriately claim." The work with which the literature was launched is Either Or, A Life Fragmented, by Victor Aramita, 1843.

An ethical view of life is here contrasted with a purely ascetic attitude.

and assumed an attitude of decided opposition to abstract speculation frederick christian siberne seventeen eighty five to eighteen seventy two who labored at copenhagen in the capacity of professor of philosophy for more than fifty years in opposition to hegel and bostrom placed great stress on a real evolution in time experience reveals that evolution has a number of starting points and the contact of the various evolutional series with each other gives rise to strife a stupendous debate of everything with everything which in turn accounts for progress this idea of sporadic evolution has likewise an important bearing on the theory of knowledge each cognizing being has the viewpoint of one of these beginnings and hence cannot survey the entire process syburn devoted himself more particularly to psychology for which he was specially adapted by his gift of observation and his enthusiastic interest in human life we shall consider seren kirkegaard eighteen thirteen to eighteen fifty five only as a philosopher leaving out of account his ascetic and religious activities which have taken such deep hold on the life of the north The author of this text-book has given a general description of this thinker in his book, Ceren Kierkegaard als Philos in Frommens Klassiker.

Kierkegaard is a subjective thinker in the sense in which he used that word in the book, Unwissenschaftliche Nachschrift, Unscientific Postscript, 1846, Kierkegaard's chief philosophical work.

the ideas of the subjective thinker are determined by the interplay of all the elements of psychic life by emotion and reflection by hope and fear by tragic and comic moods and this thinking takes place in the midst of the stream of life whose boundaries we cannot see and whose direction we can never know at least not in the fantastical and impersonal world of abstraction kirkegaard is the danish pascal and his position in relation to the philosophy of his age possesses a certain analogy to pascal's relation to cartesianism this predominantly personal character of his thought however does not preclude the possibility of his making valuable contributions to epistemology and ethics or better to a comparative philosophy of life as he has actually done Syburn had already observed that the fruitful ideas of Kant had not received their just dues at the hands of his successors.

kierkegaard renews the problem of knowledge with still greater definiteness and declares that hegel had not solved the kantian problem we can arrange our thoughts in logical order and elaborate a consistent system it is possible to elaborate a logical system but a finite thinker will never be able to realize a complete system of reality We deduce the fundamental ideas from experience, and experience remains forever imperfect.

EDITOR A. M. STRUDEVANT.

FEBRUARY 1920.

CHAPTER 6, PAGES 16-21. chapter six kirkegaard was unique in the degree to which his enormous energy of reflection was directed back upon himself subsequent criticism has uncovered very few points of view for his interpretation not already suggested either in the literature itself or in the wealth of comment which the journals afford in the unscientific postscript his pseudonym johannes klimakis reviews the ascetic literature and assigns to each work its place in relation to his own central thesis some years later after the bulk of the religious literature had appeared kierkegaard wrote a literary autobiography to serve for an interpretation of the whole the latter work however was not published during his lifetime only a brief abstract of it appears in pamphlet form it was kierkegaard's purpose so he tells us in the course of his self-criticism to formulate a definition of what it means to live and to make this formulation fruitful and suggestive for life stirring the reader to a degree of self-activity that might help him to find himself he believed that the age suffered from an overabundance of knowledge life was being made increasingly unreal since living was being confused with knowledge about life in this situation it would be superfluous and even harmful merely to increase the store of knowledge already existing even if it were possible to attain a considerable improvement upon current conceptions this would only tend to promote the disease it was intended to cure kierkegaard therefore resolved systematically to eschew the abstract objective didactic systematic scientific form and to choose instead the subjective and incidental form characteristic of a knowledge completely assimilated to the personality in other words he presents knowledge in use as distinct from knowledge in the form of potentiality for use to delineate different standpoints and ideals of life in this way is to present personalities existing in their thoughts and thus revealing through self-expression the personal significance of the standpoints they occupy as a consequence the ascetic literature is pseudonymous and polyonymous the different authors are kierkegaard's creations but their words their views and even their prefaces are their own productions their standpoints nowhere precisely coincide with kirkegaard's own being ideal personalities only they can express themselves with a disregard for consequences in good and evil, limited only by the requirements of an ideal consistency, a freedom that no actual author speaking in his own name could appropriately claim.

The work with which the literature was launched is Either Or, A Life Fragmented, by Victor Aramita, 1843.

Whoever wills to repeat proves that his earnestness is full-grown and mature.

End of Quotation in the two volumes above described faith is delineated in some of its more abstract and formal characteristics it is described as it appears in exceptional situations and with a psychological motivation that falls short of the concrete and decisive background which according to the christian teaching it has for every man in the experience of sin the advance to a more concrete treatment is made in the last of the above-mentioned volumes anxiety and the philosophical chips occupies itself with the logic of the same situation that anxiety psychologically describes In the interval between the philosophical chips and its continuation, the unscientific postscript, Kierkegaard produced a new poetico-psychological treatment of the problems already dealt with.

this rsum which seems to have all the lyrical vitality and freshness of his first handling of the subject is called stages on the way of life studies by various authors collected and published by hilarious bookbinder eighteen forty five the volume is divided into three parts corresponding to the three spheres of life which kierkegaard regarded as fundamental the ascetic the ethical and the religious the first part is a reminiscent reproduction of a banquet scene in vino veritas in wine there is the truth five ascetics discourse on the subject of woman their speeches invite comparison with the similar discourses of plato's symposium and neither in beauty of form nor in pregnancy of thought do they suffer by the comparison the second part of the book deals with marriage and its problems from the standpoint of b the ethicist of either or to the ascetic proposition put forward in the first part that the significance of woman culminates in the moment the ethicist opposes the view that her beauty grows with the years the ideal resolution with which marriage begins and by which it is sustained is eulogized as constituting the true ideality of human life and the validity of marriage is defended against attacks from both the ascetic and the religious side the third part comprising the bulk of the book is a psychological experiment by frater taciturnus guilty or not guilty this is again the story of an unhappy love affair and a broken engagement presented in the form of a diary the subject of the experiment is equipped at the outset with a high-minded ethical ascetic view of life which his experience shatters in his despair he is made to approach as nearly as possible to the problem of the forgiveness of sin but without finding rest in a christian interpretation of himself and his situation frater cassiturnus dissects him psychologically and indicates his idiosyncrasies expounds the tragedy and the comedy of his situation and points to a view of life religious in character and in advance of his own standpoint as a humorist as being deducible from it all the sympathetic collision described is brought home to the reader with tremendous force in a beautiful lyrical prose in kierkegaard's own view this book is emotionally the richest of all his writings but too ideal to become widely popular Then came the continuation of the Philosophical Chips, with its strange title, Final Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Chips, a Mimic Pathetic Dialectic Composition, an Existential Presentment, by Johannes Klimakis, 1846.

It discusses briefly the objective approaches to Christianity through biblical criticism, the authority of the Church, philosophical speculation, the evidences of Christianity's historical achievements.

It dismisses all these modes of approach as incommensurable with the problems of Christianity and as tending to subvert its significance.

the author of this text-book has

given a general description of this thinker in his book seren kerkegort als philas in fromens Kierkegaard is a subjective thinker in the sense in which he used that word in the book Unwissenschaftliche Nachschrift, Unscientific Postscript, 1846, Kierkegaard's chief philosophical work.

The ideas of the subjective thinker are determined by the interplay of all the elements of psychic life, by emotion and reflection, by hope and fear, by tragic and comic moods.

and this thinking takes place in the midst of the stream of life

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Either or.

chapter six kirkegaard was unique in the degree to which his enormous energy of reflection was directed back upon himself subsequent criticism has uncovered very few points of view for his interpretation not already suggested either in the literature itself or in the wealth of comment which the journals afford in the unscientific postscript his pseudonym johannes klimakis reviews the ascetic literature and assigns to each work its place in relation to his own central thesis some years later after the bulk of the religious literature had appeared kierkegaard wrote a literary autobiography to serve for an interpretation of the whole the latter work however was not published during his lifetime only a brief abstract of it appears in pamphlet form it was kierkegaard's purpose so he tells us in the course of his self-criticism to formulate a definition of what it means to live and to make this formulation fruitful and suggestive for life stirring the reader to a degree of self-activity that might help him to find himself he believed that the age suffered from an overabundance of knowledge life was being made increasingly unreal since living was being confused with knowledge about life in this situation it would be superfluous and even harmful merely to increase the store of knowledge already existing even if it were possible to attain a considerable improvement upon current conceptions this would only tend to promote the disease it was intended to cure kierkegaard therefore resolved systematically to eschew the abstract objective didactic systematic scientific form and to choose instead the subjective and incidental form characteristic of a knowledge completely assimilated to the personality in other words he presents knowledge in use as distinct from knowledge in the form of potentiality for use to delineate different standpoints and ideals of life in this way is to present personalities existing in their thoughts and thus revealing through self-expression the personal significance of the standpoints they occupy as a consequence the ascetic literature is pseudonymous and polyonymous the different authors are kierkegaard's creations but their words their views and even their prefaces are their own productions their standpoints nowhere precisely coincide with kirkegaard's own being ideal personalities only they can express themselves with a disregard for consequences in good and evil limited only by the requirements of an ideal consistency a freedom that no actual author speaking in his own name could appropriately claim the work with which the literature was launched is either or a life fragmented by victor era eighteen forty three an ethical view of life is here contrasted with a purely ascetic attitude there are two authors an asceticist and an ethicist Victor Aramita is merely the editor and publisher of the material, which has fallen into his hands by accident.

The asceticist is the author of the papers that constitute the first volume, and is designated as A.

The author of this textbook has given a general description of this thinker in his book, Søren Kierkegaard als Philosoph in Frommann's Klassiker.

Kierkegaard is a subjective thinker in the sense in which he used that word in the book Unwissenschaftliche Nachschrift, Unscientific Postscript, eighteen forty-six, Kierkegaard's chief philosophical work.

The ideas of the subjective thinker are determined by the interplay of all the elements of psychic life, by emotion and reflection, by hope and fear, by tragic and comic moods.

And this thinking takes place in the midst of the stream of life, whose boundaries we cannot see and whose direction we can never know, at least not in the fantastical and impersonal world of abstraction.

The sympathetic collision described is brought home to the reader with tremendous force in a beautiful lyrical prose.

In Kierkegaard's own view, this book is emotionally the richest of all his writings, but too ideal to become widely popular.

Then came the continuation of the philosophical chips with its strange title, Final Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Chips, A Mimic-Pathetic-Dialectic Composition, An Existential Presentment by Johannes Climacus, 1846.

It discusses briefly the objective approaches to Christianity through biblical criticism, the authority of the church, philosophical speculation, the evidences of Christianity's historical achievements.

The author of this textbook has given a general description of this thinker in his book Søren Kierkegaard als Philosoph in Frommann's Klassiker.

Kierkegaard is a subjective thinker in the sense in which he used that word in the book Unwissenschaftlich Nachschrift, Unscientific Postscript, 1846, Kierkegaard's chief philosophical work.

The ideas of the subjective thinker are determined by the interplay of all the elements of psychic life, by emotion and reflection, by hope and fear, by tragic and comic moods.

And this thinking takes place in the midst of the stream of life, whose boundaries we cannot see and whose direction we can never know, at least not in the fantastical and impersonal world of abstraction.

Kierkegaard was unique in the degree to which his enormous energy of reflection was directed back upon himself.

Subsequent criticism has uncovered very few points of view for his interpretation, not already suggested either in the literature itself or in the wealth of comment which the journals afford.

In the unscientific postscript, his pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, reviews the ascetic literature and assigns to each work its place in relation to his own central thesis.

Some years later, after the bulk of the religious literature had appeared, Kierkegaard wrote a literary autobiography to serve for an interpretation of the whole.