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First published in 1849 under the pseudonym “Anti-Climacus,� Soren Kierkegaard’s The Sickness unto Death endures as a seminal text in the history of theology and moral philosophy, and an essential companion to his earlier works. Beginning with the biblical story of Lazarus, whom Jesus miraculously raised from the dead, Kierkegaard here presents his explication of despair as the “sickness unto death,� that is, a sickness not of the body, but of the spirit, and thus, of the self. A dramatic “medical history� of the course of this sickness, The Sickness unto Death culminates, as all medical histories do, in a crisis, a turning point at which the self, the patient, either realizes or abandons itself. Masterfully translated by Bruce H. Kirmmse, with his “historian’s eye� and “craftsman’s feel for the challenges of Kierkegaard’s syntax� (Vanessa Parks Rumble), this trenchant, explosive inquiry into the human soul spares no one, not even its author.
206 pages, Paperback
First published July 30, 1849
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About the author
Søren Kierkegaard
1,078books6,028followersSøren Aabye Kierkegaard was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard strongly criticised both the Hegelianism of his time and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Church of Denmark. Much of his work deals with religious themes such as faith in God, the institution of the Christian Church, Christian ethics and theology, and the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices. His early work was written under various pseudonyms who present their own distinctive viewpoints in a complex dialogue.
Kierkegaard left the task of discovering the meaning of his works to the reader, because "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted". Scholars have interpreted Kierkegaard variously as an existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, and individualist.
Crossing the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, he is an influential figure in contemporary thought.
Kierkegaard left the task of discovering the meaning of his works to the reader, because "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted". Scholars have interpreted Kierkegaard variously as an existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, and individualist.
Crossing the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, he is an influential figure in contemporary thought.
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August 13, 2013
For Kierkegaard, “the self is not the relation (which relates to itself) but the relation’s relating to itself.� From the start, he shifts from a Cartesian or essentialist view of the self to an existentialist one. Whereas for Descartes “self� is a common noun, for Kierkegaard, it is a gerund. And the embedded verb, to relate, points to the dynamics of the self. In this case, relating to itself.
The first despair is that “which is ignorant of being in despair, or the despairing ignorance of having a self and an eternal self.� Similar to the “unexamined life� of Socrates, this is the unexamined self. And for Kierkegaard, this is the most common despair, though the individuals involved aren’t aware of it. In the Christian worldview, “a human being is a synthesis of the infinite and finite,� and therefore the tension between these poles becomes the source of next two types of despair: “wanting in despair to be oneself� and “not wanting in despair to be oneself.�
For Kierkegaard, despair is the sickness unto death, one different from an ordinary sickness that leads to physical death. Within the Christian framework, physical death may be a path toward eternal life and a dying person may hope for the life after. But despair, as the sickness unto death, is when one hopes for death as a resolution, but the person cannot die. Hence, the despair. Such despair presupposes life after death. For the atheistic existentialist, such as Sartre or Camus, death is the ultimate end and creates the despair by nullifying hope and achievement and life.
Faith, the interacting with the “power which established it,� is for Kierkegaard the only way the self can overcome despair.
Kierkegaard contributes to Christianity by reformulating faith as the dynamics between the believer and the “power that established it,� in overcoming the ignorance of a self, and in reintegrating the self with this power so as to resolve the tension between the two. Not longer is faith accepting a set of doctrines and carrying out the rites and rituals of the Church.
And he contributes to our understanding of human beings by modeling the self as the relating to itself and others, rather than as static stuffs: bodies, minds, souls and spirits, etc. So the focus shifts from being to becoming.
The first despair is that “which is ignorant of being in despair, or the despairing ignorance of having a self and an eternal self.� Similar to the “unexamined life� of Socrates, this is the unexamined self. And for Kierkegaard, this is the most common despair, though the individuals involved aren’t aware of it. In the Christian worldview, “a human being is a synthesis of the infinite and finite,� and therefore the tension between these poles becomes the source of next two types of despair: “wanting in despair to be oneself� and “not wanting in despair to be oneself.�
For Kierkegaard, despair is the sickness unto death, one different from an ordinary sickness that leads to physical death. Within the Christian framework, physical death may be a path toward eternal life and a dying person may hope for the life after. But despair, as the sickness unto death, is when one hopes for death as a resolution, but the person cannot die. Hence, the despair. Such despair presupposes life after death. For the atheistic existentialist, such as Sartre or Camus, death is the ultimate end and creates the despair by nullifying hope and achievement and life.
Faith, the interacting with the “power which established it,� is for Kierkegaard the only way the self can overcome despair.
Kierkegaard contributes to Christianity by reformulating faith as the dynamics between the believer and the “power that established it,� in overcoming the ignorance of a self, and in reintegrating the self with this power so as to resolve the tension between the two. Not longer is faith accepting a set of doctrines and carrying out the rites and rituals of the Church.
And he contributes to our understanding of human beings by modeling the self as the relating to itself and others, rather than as static stuffs: bodies, minds, souls and spirits, etc. So the focus shifts from being to becoming.
February 14, 2017
Identity in an industrialised world
14 October 2013
This book seems to simply ramble on with only a vague structure to it. The reason I say a vague structure is because the first part deals with despair and the second part deals with the nature of sin. However within both parts Kierkegaard doesn't seem to actually be moving in any specific direction, nor does he seem to come to any particular conclusion � if I were marking this as an essay, I would probably give it good marks in relation to content (which I why I gave it such a high rating, because in amongst all of the ramblings, he makes some very insightful statements) but give it an very low mark in regards to structure. However, as I have mentioned, I am more interested in the content than in the structure.
Kierkegaard (which, by the way, means graveyard in Danish) is considered to be the father of existentialism. It wasn't that one day he decided to sit down an write a new philosophy, but rather he was writing in response to the changes that he was seeing going on around him and building upon the philosophies of those that came before him. Kierkegaard was also a Christian, and had studied for the priesthood, however we wasn't connected with any specific church. This is not surprising because at the time Denmark had a state church, and with all state churches, if one does not tow the line, one does not get to speak.
The situation that Kierkegaard is writing about is the destruction of the self that was coming about with modernisation. As people began to move from the country to the cities, people's individuality, and identity, were beginning to disappear. This was also happening within industrialisation, as the skilled person was being replaced with a multitude of unskilled workers. Where previously a nail would be individually made by a blacksmith who was skilled in making all sorts of items, nails were now made by a team who were required to work on only one part of the nail. As such, the identity of the skilled blacksmith was being replaced by the workers, who in effect had no identity at all.
This, as Kierkegaard suggests, is the progenitor of despair. Further, this loss of identity also created a loss of purpose, and when one's purpose is removed, it goes on to add to the despair. Maybe this is why depression is so common in the developed world today because we have effectively lost our identity, and simply find ourselves as being one of the crowd. For instance, as in my case, I like to review and comment on books, but so do hundreds of other people, and as such I find myself competing with hundreds (or even thousands) of other people for readership of my commentaries, and if twenty of them have picked up a large following then I feel, in the end, that I have been left behind, and as such all of my work means nothing � I have lost my purpose, and in the end there is nothing left but despair.
So the question that arises is: what is existentialism? It is the idea that we define who we are rather than letting other people define ourselves. This is the essence of despair because if I base my ability to write a commentary by the number of likes that I get then I find that I am letting others define who I am. Instead, if I let define myself as someone who likes to read, and then write about what I have read, and the thoughts and ideas that I have while I have been reading, then it does not matter what other people think, because I have given myself my own definition. It is also the case outside of this particular sphere because if you let people define who you are 'David, I can see that you are this type of person' then we open ourselves up to despair because we give our identity to others to enchain us with their opinion. How would one respond to that? Me, I simply ignore that person, and go and find somebody else to spend time with, somebody who is not going to attempt to define me, but allow me to define myself.
I guess that is what Kierkegaard is trying to do (and I don't really think he does it well in my opinion, because this book is very dense, and also hard to follow his argument) and that is to empower us to escape from the cycle of despair and to make us realise that in God's eyes we are actually somebody, and while we may have a meaningless, dead-end job, we can escape that by giving ourselves our own identity and our own definition. Another example from my own life is that in my previous role I let it define me, and because I let it define me, it depressed me. This time I just acknowledge that I do work, and I work for an insurance company, but then try to move away from that to talk about other things so that my job does not define me, but rather I define myself. Look, it isn't easy, and people really don't like it when you empower yourself like that, but as said, that which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger (and he was also an existentialist philosopher).
14 October 2013
This book seems to simply ramble on with only a vague structure to it. The reason I say a vague structure is because the first part deals with despair and the second part deals with the nature of sin. However within both parts Kierkegaard doesn't seem to actually be moving in any specific direction, nor does he seem to come to any particular conclusion � if I were marking this as an essay, I would probably give it good marks in relation to content (which I why I gave it such a high rating, because in amongst all of the ramblings, he makes some very insightful statements) but give it an very low mark in regards to structure. However, as I have mentioned, I am more interested in the content than in the structure.
Kierkegaard (which, by the way, means graveyard in Danish) is considered to be the father of existentialism. It wasn't that one day he decided to sit down an write a new philosophy, but rather he was writing in response to the changes that he was seeing going on around him and building upon the philosophies of those that came before him. Kierkegaard was also a Christian, and had studied for the priesthood, however we wasn't connected with any specific church. This is not surprising because at the time Denmark had a state church, and with all state churches, if one does not tow the line, one does not get to speak.
The situation that Kierkegaard is writing about is the destruction of the self that was coming about with modernisation. As people began to move from the country to the cities, people's individuality, and identity, were beginning to disappear. This was also happening within industrialisation, as the skilled person was being replaced with a multitude of unskilled workers. Where previously a nail would be individually made by a blacksmith who was skilled in making all sorts of items, nails were now made by a team who were required to work on only one part of the nail. As such, the identity of the skilled blacksmith was being replaced by the workers, who in effect had no identity at all.
This, as Kierkegaard suggests, is the progenitor of despair. Further, this loss of identity also created a loss of purpose, and when one's purpose is removed, it goes on to add to the despair. Maybe this is why depression is so common in the developed world today because we have effectively lost our identity, and simply find ourselves as being one of the crowd. For instance, as in my case, I like to review and comment on books, but so do hundreds of other people, and as such I find myself competing with hundreds (or even thousands) of other people for readership of my commentaries, and if twenty of them have picked up a large following then I feel, in the end, that I have been left behind, and as such all of my work means nothing � I have lost my purpose, and in the end there is nothing left but despair.
So the question that arises is: what is existentialism? It is the idea that we define who we are rather than letting other people define ourselves. This is the essence of despair because if I base my ability to write a commentary by the number of likes that I get then I find that I am letting others define who I am. Instead, if I let define myself as someone who likes to read, and then write about what I have read, and the thoughts and ideas that I have while I have been reading, then it does not matter what other people think, because I have given myself my own definition. It is also the case outside of this particular sphere because if you let people define who you are 'David, I can see that you are this type of person' then we open ourselves up to despair because we give our identity to others to enchain us with their opinion. How would one respond to that? Me, I simply ignore that person, and go and find somebody else to spend time with, somebody who is not going to attempt to define me, but allow me to define myself.
I guess that is what Kierkegaard is trying to do (and I don't really think he does it well in my opinion, because this book is very dense, and also hard to follow his argument) and that is to empower us to escape from the cycle of despair and to make us realise that in God's eyes we are actually somebody, and while we may have a meaningless, dead-end job, we can escape that by giving ourselves our own identity and our own definition. Another example from my own life is that in my previous role I let it define me, and because I let it define me, it depressed me. This time I just acknowledge that I do work, and I work for an insurance company, but then try to move away from that to talk about other things so that my job does not define me, but rather I define myself. Look, it isn't easy, and people really don't like it when you empower yourself like that, but as said, that which doesn't kill you, only makes you stronger (and he was also an existentialist philosopher).
March 9, 2019
تحقیقی در ماهیت نفس و ماهیت اوامر صادره از نفس من جمله گناه و نا امیدی. ریشۀ بسیاری از نا امیدی ها در گناه و بالعکس، ریشۀ بسیاری از گناه ها نیز در نا امیدی است. کیرکگور آنچنان که خاصیت اوست، اغلب در مقام نوعی فیلسوف متاله به بیان آرای خود می پردازد. در این کتاب نیز، نوعی بیزاری از کلیسا و آرای آن مشهود است. اما در تحلیل، بسیار خود را وابسته به سنت و کتاب می گرداند. مهم ترین نوع نا امیدی که می تواند قابل بحث باشد نا امیدی از خود بودن و یا نا امیدی از بودن و هم چنین نا امیدی از بودن در ... است. نویسنده با بسط و توضیح سه مفهوم نا امیدی، نفس و مرگ گفتار خود را اسلوب می بخشد. بحث های نخستین در حکم مقدمه و پیشگفتاری است در این موضوع که اتفاقا جالب تر و گیراتر از بقیۀ کتاب است. در اواسط و اواخر کتاب، گفتارها لحنی نصیحت مانند به خود می گیرند که این عامل موجب سر رفتن حوصلۀ مخاطب می گردد.
May 27, 2023
“Ölümcül hastalık umutsuzluk� slogan olarak her zaman çok etkilemiştir beni, umut söz konusu edildiğinde hep bu söz gelir aklıma. Ama Kierkegaard gibi varoluşumuzu yansıtan umutsuzluk duygusunu ne ruha ne de tanrıya hele de Hristiyanlığa (yani dine) hiçbir şekilde bağlamam. Umutsuzluk ne günahtır ne ruh hastalığıdır, o insana aittir, bir insanlık halidir ve ölümcül olabilir bana göre.
Kitaptaki felsefi değerlendirmelere birşey söylemek haddime değil, ama Kierkegaard’ın Hristiyanlık için söylediklerine aklımın yatmadığını hatta onun felsefesini de sorgulattığını cesurca söylemeliyim. Kitaptan alacağımı aldım ben, en çok da insanın umutsuzluğu reddetmesinin, umutsuz olmadığını söylemesinin bile bir umutsuzluk olabileceğinin belirtildiği bölümlerden.
Kitaptaki felsefi değerlendirmelere birşey söylemek haddime değil, ama Kierkegaard’ın Hristiyanlık için söylediklerine aklımın yatmadığını hatta onun felsefesini de sorgulattığını cesurca söylemeliyim. Kitaptan alacağımı aldım ben, en çok da insanın umutsuzluğu reddetmesinin, umutsuz olmadığını söylemesinin bile bir umutsuzluk olabileceğinin belirtildiği bölümlerden.
February 10, 2019
اول اینو بگم که ترجمه قابل قبول نبود. اصرار زیاد به تحت اللفظی بودن، آدم رو به این شک می انداخت که مترجم حرفی که متن اصلی میخواد بزنه رو متوجه نشده، در نتیجه مجبور شده با دقت وسواس گونه و بیمارگونه ای لفظ به لفظ ترجمه کنه. (بعداً با ترجمه های دیگهٔ رؤیا منجم مواجه شدم، و فهمیدم همه به عنوان یه مترجم بد که به ترجمهٔ آثاری بزرگ تر از حد سوادش دست زده می شناسنش.)
حروف چینی و علامت گذاری و ویراستاری هم افتضاح بودن. جاهایی حتا کلمات رو اشتباه نوشته بودن، در نتیجه معنای جمله، کاملاً عکس اون چیزی می شد که نویسنده می خواست بگه و این رو متوجه نمی شدی، مگر بعد از دو صفحه با گیجی و سردرگمی پیش رفتن.
دوم این که کتاب، نوشته ی یک فیلسوف هگلیه. یعنی فلسفه ی دیالکتیک هگل، یکی از عناصر اساسی این کتابه و پیوسته به عنوان استدلال بر حرف هاش از دیالکتیک استفاده می کنه. از اون جایی که من فقط یه آشنایی بسیار بسیار ابتدایی با هگل دارم (در حد دنیای سوفی!!!) این قسمت ها رو سریع و بدون تلاش برای فهمیدن می خوندم و میگذشتم که البته باعث حسرت خوردن میشد.
سوم، این که این کتاب به قول خود نویسنده، "بیش از اندازه دقیق است که بخواهد پارسایانه باشد" یا "بیش از اندازه دقیق و فلسفی است که بخواهد عامه پسند باشد". به عبارت دیگر، کتاب بیشتر حالت فلسفی-روانشناسانه دارد و خشک است. از این جهت، خواندنش حوصله ی زیادی می خواهد مخصوصاً برای امثال من که دنبال متون ساده فهم هستند.
از این سه مورد که بگذریم، جاهایی که کتاب ساده بود و خشک نبود و مترجم و ویراستار هم زیاد روی اعصاب نبودند، کتاب به طرز دیوانه کننده ای زیبا می شد. از آن هایی که از ته دلم، از اعماق جانم به نویسنده اش فحش می دادم. (من معمولاً به داستایفسکی هم فحش می دم و داستایفسکی به نظرم رب النوع نویسنده هاست) از جمله جایی که راجع به نومیدی انسان های بی واسطه (انسان هایی که به قدری در غم و شادی دنیای اطراف غرقند که فراموش کرده اند "خود" و "نفسی" هم دارند) و نومیدی انسان های درونگرا (انسان هایی که نومیدیشان همراه با ضعف و انفعال و روکردن به دنیای درون است) و نومیدیِ پرخاشگرانه (انسان هایی که در نتیجه ی نومیدی، تندخو و عصبی می شوند، نمونه ی روشنش فکر کنم راسکولنیکوف و ایوان کارامازوف و شخصیت اصلی "پدران و پسران" باشد که اسمش یادم نیست)، جایی که راجع به این سه نوع نومیدی حرف می زد، اوج کتاب بود و واقعاً شیفته ی کتاب و نویسنده ش شدم. همین طور جایی که راجع به گناه بودن نومیدی حرف میزد.
خلاصه، در مجموع کتاب خوشایندی بود. باید بیشتر از کیرکگور بخونم.
حروف چینی و علامت گذاری و ویراستاری هم افتضاح بودن. جاهایی حتا کلمات رو اشتباه نوشته بودن، در نتیجه معنای جمله، کاملاً عکس اون چیزی می شد که نویسنده می خواست بگه و این رو متوجه نمی شدی، مگر بعد از دو صفحه با گیجی و سردرگمی پیش رفتن.
دوم این که کتاب، نوشته ی یک فیلسوف هگلیه. یعنی فلسفه ی دیالکتیک هگل، یکی از عناصر اساسی این کتابه و پیوسته به عنوان استدلال بر حرف هاش از دیالکتیک استفاده می کنه. از اون جایی که من فقط یه آشنایی بسیار بسیار ابتدایی با هگل دارم (در حد دنیای سوفی!!!) این قسمت ها رو سریع و بدون تلاش برای فهمیدن می خوندم و میگذشتم که البته باعث حسرت خوردن میشد.
سوم، این که این کتاب به قول خود نویسنده، "بیش از اندازه دقیق است که بخواهد پارسایانه باشد" یا "بیش از اندازه دقیق و فلسفی است که بخواهد عامه پسند باشد". به عبارت دیگر، کتاب بیشتر حالت فلسفی-روانشناسانه دارد و خشک است. از این جهت، خواندنش حوصله ی زیادی می خواهد مخصوصاً برای امثال من که دنبال متون ساده فهم هستند.
از این سه مورد که بگذریم، جاهایی که کتاب ساده بود و خشک نبود و مترجم و ویراستار هم زیاد روی اعصاب نبودند، کتاب به طرز دیوانه کننده ای زیبا می شد. از آن هایی که از ته دلم، از اعماق جانم به نویسنده اش فحش می دادم. (من معمولاً به داستایفسکی هم فحش می دم و داستایفسکی به نظرم رب النوع نویسنده هاست) از جمله جایی که راجع به نومیدی انسان های بی واسطه (انسان هایی که به قدری در غم و شادی دنیای اطراف غرقند که فراموش کرده اند "خود" و "نفسی" هم دارند) و نومیدی انسان های درونگرا (انسان هایی که نومیدیشان همراه با ضعف و انفعال و روکردن به دنیای درون است) و نومیدیِ پرخاشگرانه (انسان هایی که در نتیجه ی نومیدی، تندخو و عصبی می شوند، نمونه ی روشنش فکر کنم راسکولنیکوف و ایوان کارامازوف و شخصیت اصلی "پدران و پسران" باشد که اسمش یادم نیست)، جایی که راجع به این سه نوع نومیدی حرف می زد، اوج کتاب بود و واقعاً شیفته ی کتاب و نویسنده ش شدم. همین طور جایی که راجع به گناه بودن نومیدی حرف میزد.
خلاصه، در مجموع کتاب خوشایندی بود. باید بیشتر از کیرکگور بخونم.
January 21, 2016
در باب اثبات نامیرایی کی یرکه گورمی گوید سقراط نامیرایی جان را از روی این حقیقت ثابت کرد که بیماری جان(گناه) آن جان را به همان صورتی تحلیل نمی برد که بیماری تن،تن را تحلیل می برد.به همین ترتیب نیز می توان امر جاودان در انسان را از روی این حقیقت نشان داد که نومیدی نمی تواند خود را تحلیل برد،و همین دقیقا وجود تضاد در نومیدی است . اگر چیزی جاودان در انسان نبود،نمی توانست نومید شود،اما اگر نومیدی می توانست خود را تحلیل برد،باز هم امکان نومیدی وجود نداشت
وی سپس انواع بیماری نومیدی را شرح می دهد ودرباره آگاهی می گویدبا هر افزایشی در میزان آگاهی ، وبه تناسب این افزایش ،شدت نومیدی افزایش می یابد:هرچه آگاهی بیشتر باشد ،نومیدی شدیدتر است
نومیدی شیطان ،شدیدترین نومیدی است،زیرا شیطان روح محض است ،و بنابراین آگاهی و شفافیت مطلق ؛در شیطان هیچ ابهامی وجود ندارد که بتواند به منزله دستاویزی برای سبک کردن و تخفیف ، عمل کند سپس در قسمت بعد می آورد که نومیدی گناه است و آگاهی نفس را درجه بندی می کندو می گوید کودکی که برای سنجش خود، تااین لحظه فقط پدر و مادرخود را داشته است زمانی نفس می شود که شخص بزرگی شود. اما چه تاکید بیکرانی بر نفس نازل می شود که پروردگار را مقیاس قرار دهد
ودرباره گناه می گوید منظور از "اصرار در گناه" ،این نیست که درباره گناهان جدید خاص بیاندیشیم،بلکه بایدبه حالت بودن در گناه توجه کنیم که عبارت از پر توان شدن در گناه است،پایداری در حالت گناه با آگاهی ازآن توام است
در مقدمه مترجم انگلیسی کتاب آمده است به چاپ این اثر کی یر که گورمردد بود چون که فکر می کرد" آیا آدمی این حق را دارد که بگذارد مردم بدانند تا چه اندازه انسان خوبی است". وسرانجام این اثر زیبا و عمیق بعد مرگش منتشر شد
وی سپس انواع بیماری نومیدی را شرح می دهد ودرباره آگاهی می گویدبا هر افزایشی در میزان آگاهی ، وبه تناسب این افزایش ،شدت نومیدی افزایش می یابد:هرچه آگاهی بیشتر باشد ،نومیدی شدیدتر است
نومیدی شیطان ،شدیدترین نومیدی است،زیرا شیطان روح محض است ،و بنابراین آگاهی و شفافیت مطلق ؛در شیطان هیچ ابهامی وجود ندارد که بتواند به منزله دستاویزی برای سبک کردن و تخفیف ، عمل کند سپس در قسمت بعد می آورد که نومیدی گناه است و آگاهی نفس را درجه بندی می کندو می گوید کودکی که برای سنجش خود، تااین لحظه فقط پدر و مادرخود را داشته است زمانی نفس می شود که شخص بزرگی شود. اما چه تاکید بیکرانی بر نفس نازل می شود که پروردگار را مقیاس قرار دهد
ودرباره گناه می گوید منظور از "اصرار در گناه" ،این نیست که درباره گناهان جدید خاص بیاندیشیم،بلکه بایدبه حالت بودن در گناه توجه کنیم که عبارت از پر توان شدن در گناه است،پایداری در حالت گناه با آگاهی ازآن توام است
در مقدمه مترجم انگلیسی کتاب آمده است به چاپ این اثر کی یر که گورمردد بود چون که فکر می کرد" آیا آدمی این حق را دارد که بگذارد مردم بدانند تا چه اندازه انسان خوبی است". وسرانجام این اثر زیبا و عمیق بعد مرگش منتشر شد
November 12, 2013
"...What our age needs is education. And so this is what happened: God chose a man who also needed to be educated, and educated him privatissime, so that he might be able to teach others from his own experience." From Kierkegaard's [personal] Journals.
2013 is the bicentennial of Kierkegaard's birth. He probably would have not wanted you to know that, but he has plenty more things to let you know.
They call him the "Father of Existentialism". You know you're asking for trouble when trying to write about a man who holds that distinction, but I must make an effort, once again, to try in vain to talk about one of my heroes-period. Philosopher, theologian, man in love, man in despair, man in angst, man in thought, man in anxiety, the man who launched the great "Attack on Christendom" in order to save Christianity...I can obviously go on but he is almost beyond description in a way though I have just described him at considerable length.
To get to the book itself, it is a relatively short read in comparison to most of his work and is an implicit response to his earlier masterpiece written under the pseudonym "Johannes Climacus" while this book is written under the name "Anti-Climacus". I have read excerpts of "Postscripts but not the whole work in its entirety (it is long), but a lot of the main points are brought up and somewhat expounded on from a different angle here.
The title of this book is actually 2/3 of the main topic of the book which is that the sickness unto death is despair; that is THE word of this book and main idea.
In two parts, he is going to talk about the kinds of despair and than what despair actually is. Throughout that time we will get the standard anti-, mixed with the very in-depth psychological, existential (obviously, he even uses the word), and theological insight that has made his work as new today as it was 50, 100, and 164 years ago.
I am constantly amazed at how at his best, he could tell you anything and make it sound ultra-enlightening even if you feel you have heard it before. For such a small book I felt overwhelmed (in a good way) at all the information that I was getting in such little space. The only other book that really did that to me is , another existential classic.
This book also recalled to my mind. But where that book gives the existential definition of faith (the "teleological suspension of the ethical), this book gives the existential definition of sin.
One common complaint about this book is about some of the lag in part one which infuriated me when part two came around and he easily explains all the tortured points he was making in a page and a half. The good news is that he makes up for it big time in part two when he gets into the topic "Despair is Sin", from there he's on a rampage of everything you ever thought about sin and [Christian] faith...
One is amazed at how well executed his criticism of institutional Christianity (which he calls "Christendom") is without seeming in the least apostateical yet he pulls no punches, whether you're pious or a pagan he is going after you and trying his best to make you question what you thought you knew:
Oh and his feelings toward apologetics? "One can see now...how extraordinarily stupid it is to defend Christianity, how little knowledge of humanity it betrays, how it...[makes] Christianity out to be some miserable object that in the end must be rescued by a defence[sic]. It is therefore certain and true that the person who first thought of defending Christianity in Christendom is de facto a Judas No. 2; he too betrays with a kiss, except his treason is that of stupidity. To defend something is always to discredit it. Let a man have a warehouse full of gold, let him be willing to give away a ducat to every one of the poor - but let him also be stupid enough to begin this charitable undertaking of his with a defence in which he offers three good reasons in justification; and it will almost come to the point of people finding it doubtful whether indeed he is doing something good. But now for Christianity. Yes, the person who defends that has never believed in it. If he does believe, then the enthusiasm of faith is not a defence, no, it is the assault and the victory; a believer is a victor."
One has to have read or be familiar with "Concluding Unscientific Postscripts" to understand why he is so against Christian apologetics. In that work he comments on the absurdity of the idea that the eternal should come into time and die while taking on the form as the least and lowest of men. He argues here and there that the idea is from an intellectual bases absurd to all hell and back, thus making it indefensible but at the same time making it the supreme act of love and morality and is, at least for him, the solution to despair-but of course I'm simplifying this so my small mind can understand.
This is just a taste of the ideas going through this book and I would advise you to read it and experience it for yourself.
One more person who deserves some credit in this book is obvious (to those who knows the life of Kierkegaard) was the only love he ever had, his fiancée Regine Olsen. This book, like many of S.K.'s work, is autobiographical to an extent and his relationship to Olsen manages to show-up in quite a bit of his works in one form or another. They were not Dante and Beatrice but she had a devastatingly profound effect on him and she could be called, in a way, the mother of existentialism. This really impresses me and makes me feel that Kierkegaard was probably one of the best psychologist of his own mind outside of Jung.
"Let us speak of this in purely human terms. Oh! how pitiable a person who has never felt the loving urge to sacrifice everything for love, who has therefore been unable to do so!"
2013 is the bicentennial of Kierkegaard's birth. He probably would have not wanted you to know that, but he has plenty more things to let you know.
They call him the "Father of Existentialism". You know you're asking for trouble when trying to write about a man who holds that distinction, but I must make an effort, once again, to try in vain to talk about one of my heroes-period. Philosopher, theologian, man in love, man in despair, man in angst, man in thought, man in anxiety, the man who launched the great "Attack on Christendom" in order to save Christianity...I can obviously go on but he is almost beyond description in a way though I have just described him at considerable length.
To get to the book itself, it is a relatively short read in comparison to most of his work and is an implicit response to his earlier masterpiece written under the pseudonym "Johannes Climacus" while this book is written under the name "Anti-Climacus". I have read excerpts of "Postscripts but not the whole work in its entirety (it is long), but a lot of the main points are brought up and somewhat expounded on from a different angle here.
The title of this book is actually 2/3 of the main topic of the book which is that the sickness unto death is despair; that is THE word of this book and main idea.
In two parts, he is going to talk about the kinds of despair and than what despair actually is. Throughout that time we will get the standard anti-, mixed with the very in-depth psychological, existential (obviously, he even uses the word), and theological insight that has made his work as new today as it was 50, 100, and 164 years ago.
I am constantly amazed at how at his best, he could tell you anything and make it sound ultra-enlightening even if you feel you have heard it before. For such a small book I felt overwhelmed (in a good way) at all the information that I was getting in such little space. The only other book that really did that to me is , another existential classic.
This book also recalled to my mind. But where that book gives the existential definition of faith (the "teleological suspension of the ethical), this book gives the existential definition of sin.
One common complaint about this book is about some of the lag in part one which infuriated me when part two came around and he easily explains all the tortured points he was making in a page and a half. The good news is that he makes up for it big time in part two when he gets into the topic "Despair is Sin", from there he's on a rampage of everything you ever thought about sin and [Christian] faith...
One is amazed at how well executed his criticism of institutional Christianity (which he calls "Christendom") is without seeming in the least apostateical yet he pulls no punches, whether you're pious or a pagan he is going after you and trying his best to make you question what you thought you knew:
"But it has to be said, and as bluntly as possible, that so-called Christendom (in which all, in their millions, are Christians as a matter of course, so that there are as many, yes, just as many Christians as there are people) is not only a miserable edition of Christianity, full of misprints that distort the meaning and of thoughtless omissions and emendations, but an abuse of it in having taken Christianity's name in vain...
Alas! the fate of this word in Christendom is like an epigram on all that is Christian. The misfortune is not that no one speaks up for Christianity (nor, therefore, that there is not enough priests); but they speak up for for it in such a way that the majority of people end up attaching no meaning to it...Thus the highest and holiest leave no impression at all, but sound like something that has now-God knows why-become a matter of form and habits indefensible-they find it requisite to defend Christianity."
Oh and his feelings toward apologetics? "One can see now...how extraordinarily stupid it is to defend Christianity, how little knowledge of humanity it betrays, how it...[makes] Christianity out to be some miserable object that in the end must be rescued by a defence[sic]. It is therefore certain and true that the person who first thought of defending Christianity in Christendom is de facto a Judas No. 2; he too betrays with a kiss, except his treason is that of stupidity. To defend something is always to discredit it. Let a man have a warehouse full of gold, let him be willing to give away a ducat to every one of the poor - but let him also be stupid enough to begin this charitable undertaking of his with a defence in which he offers three good reasons in justification; and it will almost come to the point of people finding it doubtful whether indeed he is doing something good. But now for Christianity. Yes, the person who defends that has never believed in it. If he does believe, then the enthusiasm of faith is not a defence, no, it is the assault and the victory; a believer is a victor."
One has to have read or be familiar with "Concluding Unscientific Postscripts" to understand why he is so against Christian apologetics. In that work he comments on the absurdity of the idea that the eternal should come into time and die while taking on the form as the least and lowest of men. He argues here and there that the idea is from an intellectual bases absurd to all hell and back, thus making it indefensible but at the same time making it the supreme act of love and morality and is, at least for him, the solution to despair-but of course I'm simplifying this so my small mind can understand.
This is just a taste of the ideas going through this book and I would advise you to read it and experience it for yourself.
One more person who deserves some credit in this book is obvious (to those who knows the life of Kierkegaard) was the only love he ever had, his fiancée Regine Olsen. This book, like many of S.K.'s work, is autobiographical to an extent and his relationship to Olsen manages to show-up in quite a bit of his works in one form or another. They were not Dante and Beatrice but she had a devastatingly profound effect on him and she could be called, in a way, the mother of existentialism. This really impresses me and makes me feel that Kierkegaard was probably one of the best psychologist of his own mind outside of Jung.
"Let us speak of this in purely human terms. Oh! how pitiable a person who has never felt the loving urge to sacrifice everything for love, who has therefore been unable to do so!"
August 9, 2013
In which I am again reminded of a friend's experience with a professor in a class on Kierkegaard: the students spent the first five weeks trying to convince the professor that you can probably only understand a quarter of Kierkegaard unless you read him in the context of Hegel; the professor rejects this and stresses instead Kierkegaard's Socraticism; at the end of the fifth week (i.e., less than halfway through the course) the professor admits defeat. If that doesn't sound remarkable, you haven't taken many courses with philosophy professors, whom you cannot convince of anything unless they already secretly believe it. The moral of the story is: most of Kierkegaard's writing is incomprehensible unless you've read Hegel.
That doesn't mean, as the cliche has it, that he's writing *against* Hegel. This book is a kind of depressing mini-phenomenology of spirit, in which, instead of ascending towards absolute knowledge, human kind simultaneously ascends towards (what Kierkegaard takes to be) absolute knowledge (i.e., God), and descends further into despair for any number of reasons and in any number of ways. For Hegel, there's always one destination--you might stop on the way to the truth, but your journey is always in that direction. For Kierkegaard, as for Marx, there are two destinations--the good (God/communism) and the horrific (despair/barbarism)--which are both in the same direction. For Marx, 'science' (in the Hegelian sense) will get you to communism, while ideology/capitalism etc will get you to barbarism. For Kierkegaard, science will lead you closer to God, by deepening your despair, but it *won't* get you to the good. Kierkegaard has very good criticisms to make of Hegel, but not the way that, say, Russell has criticisms of him. Kierkegaard, like Marx, remains on Hegel's side of the fence.
Anyway, SuD is a critique of the various idiocies human kind will perform in order to stay in despair. Unlike 20th century existentialists, to whom he's often compared, Kierkegaard insists that the way we are (both 'eternal' and mortal) does not, in itself, lead to despair--despair is the result of an "imbalance" in ourselves, a stressing of one or the other of these elements at the expense of the other. The human condition is not *intrinsically* one of despair; despair is something we do to ourselves. SuD goes through the many different ways in which we can be unbalanced: pretending we're other than we are, despairing of the way we are, and so on. The 'cure' is to recognize and live with our synthesis, not wish to be entirely eternal (a fantasy) nor believe ourselves to be entirely mortal (which, as a kind of determinism, cuts us off from the possibilities of human existence).
The quasi-Hegelian 'portraits' of various people in despair still read like a rogue's gallery of contemporary intellectuals:
"Have hope in the possibility of help, especially on the strength of the absurd, that for God everything is possible? No, that he will not. And ask help of any other? No, that for all the world he will not do; if it came to that, he would rather be himself with all the torments of hell than ask for help." (102)
Here are your militant atheists, 'scientific' determinists*, literary existentialists, and solipsistic nihilists of all stripes, wallowing in self-satisfaction, "he prefers to rage against everything and be the one whom the whole world, all existence, has wronged, the one for whom it is especially important to ensure that he has his agony on hand, so that no one will take it from him--for then he would not be able to convince others and himself that he is right." (103).
The second part, on despair as sin, is a much easier read, and not quite as interesting, although it does include the wonderful thought that "a self is what it has as its standard of measurement," (147). Kierkegaard's attack on 'Christendom' comes up here, and is as right as ever, but you'd have to be pretty convinced of the perfection of institutional Christianity to find it all that affecting, and I, dear reader, am not.
In short, there's a great lesson in here for 21st century types who like to harp on about humanity's existential loneliness and how evolution means we're destined to rape and pillage because there's no meaning anymore: if you think only a God can give us meaning, then leap into faith, or come to the somewhat easier realization that actually, we can give ourselves meaning. It's childish to think otherwise.
*I've always found it odd that so many people who, quite rightly, hold firm to empiricism, take so seriously the idea of determinism (a reasonable assumption for experimental science, but not therefore a fact) despite the absence of evidence for it. Granted, there can be no evidence for it (despite those idiotic 'experiments' in which people's brains 'decide' something 'before' the people do). But determinism and God have that in common. That won't change anyone's mind on God or determinism, of course, because, as Kierkegaard puts it in a different context, "the despairer thinks that he himself is this evidence" (105).
That doesn't mean, as the cliche has it, that he's writing *against* Hegel. This book is a kind of depressing mini-phenomenology of spirit, in which, instead of ascending towards absolute knowledge, human kind simultaneously ascends towards (what Kierkegaard takes to be) absolute knowledge (i.e., God), and descends further into despair for any number of reasons and in any number of ways. For Hegel, there's always one destination--you might stop on the way to the truth, but your journey is always in that direction. For Kierkegaard, as for Marx, there are two destinations--the good (God/communism) and the horrific (despair/barbarism)--which are both in the same direction. For Marx, 'science' (in the Hegelian sense) will get you to communism, while ideology/capitalism etc will get you to barbarism. For Kierkegaard, science will lead you closer to God, by deepening your despair, but it *won't* get you to the good. Kierkegaard has very good criticisms to make of Hegel, but not the way that, say, Russell has criticisms of him. Kierkegaard, like Marx, remains on Hegel's side of the fence.
Anyway, SuD is a critique of the various idiocies human kind will perform in order to stay in despair. Unlike 20th century existentialists, to whom he's often compared, Kierkegaard insists that the way we are (both 'eternal' and mortal) does not, in itself, lead to despair--despair is the result of an "imbalance" in ourselves, a stressing of one or the other of these elements at the expense of the other. The human condition is not *intrinsically* one of despair; despair is something we do to ourselves. SuD goes through the many different ways in which we can be unbalanced: pretending we're other than we are, despairing of the way we are, and so on. The 'cure' is to recognize and live with our synthesis, not wish to be entirely eternal (a fantasy) nor believe ourselves to be entirely mortal (which, as a kind of determinism, cuts us off from the possibilities of human existence).
The quasi-Hegelian 'portraits' of various people in despair still read like a rogue's gallery of contemporary intellectuals:
"Have hope in the possibility of help, especially on the strength of the absurd, that for God everything is possible? No, that he will not. And ask help of any other? No, that for all the world he will not do; if it came to that, he would rather be himself with all the torments of hell than ask for help." (102)
Here are your militant atheists, 'scientific' determinists*, literary existentialists, and solipsistic nihilists of all stripes, wallowing in self-satisfaction, "he prefers to rage against everything and be the one whom the whole world, all existence, has wronged, the one for whom it is especially important to ensure that he has his agony on hand, so that no one will take it from him--for then he would not be able to convince others and himself that he is right." (103).
The second part, on despair as sin, is a much easier read, and not quite as interesting, although it does include the wonderful thought that "a self is what it has as its standard of measurement," (147). Kierkegaard's attack on 'Christendom' comes up here, and is as right as ever, but you'd have to be pretty convinced of the perfection of institutional Christianity to find it all that affecting, and I, dear reader, am not.
In short, there's a great lesson in here for 21st century types who like to harp on about humanity's existential loneliness and how evolution means we're destined to rape and pillage because there's no meaning anymore: if you think only a God can give us meaning, then leap into faith, or come to the somewhat easier realization that actually, we can give ourselves meaning. It's childish to think otherwise.
*I've always found it odd that so many people who, quite rightly, hold firm to empiricism, take so seriously the idea of determinism (a reasonable assumption for experimental science, but not therefore a fact) despite the absence of evidence for it. Granted, there can be no evidence for it (despite those idiotic 'experiments' in which people's brains 'decide' something 'before' the people do). But determinism and God have that in common. That won't change anyone's mind on God or determinism, of course, because, as Kierkegaard puts it in a different context, "the despairer thinks that he himself is this evidence" (105).
Read
March 27, 2021kierkegaard is an anxious danish twink with self-esteem issues and we love him for it
August 28, 2022
خداوندا به ما دیدگانی کم فروغ ده
در دیدار با آنچه بی قدر است
و دیدگانی روشن بین
در سراسر ساحت حقیقت.
از کی یر کگور. اسقف البرتینی
.
من خیلی این کتاب را درک نکردم. به شدت ترجمه� تحت الفظی و کلمه های ناواضح و بی مفهموی استفاده شده بود. کتاب به شدت با تعلیمات دین دارهای ما در یاران همخوانی دارد با توجه به اینکه خود کی یرکگور هم مسیحی بوده دو آتشیه.
مهمترین و زیباترین چیزهایی که من از کتاب دریافت کردم:
نومیدی نوعی بیماری روح، نوعی بیماری خود است. نومیدی، بیماری منتهی به مرگ است. (این تیکه ی بعدی رو خودم نوشتم) از هزارتوی انواع نومیدی من این موجودم: اینگه ادمی در نومیدی نخواهد خودش باشد و تا مدت ها وقتی حمام می رفتم برای اینکه خودم را در آینه ی قدی رو به روبه روی نبینم یک حوله ی بلند پهن می کردم حجابی بین من و آینه. فرار از خویشتن در ساده ترین و اولیه ترین سطحش.
نومیدی که نمی خواهد خودش باشد نسبتی غریبی با این خود پیدا می کند. همچون نسبتی که ادم می تواند با زادگاه� با خانه اش داشته باشد. او آنجا را ترک می کند ولی نقل مکان نمی کند. سکونتگاه جدیدی اختیار نمی کند. همچنان خانه ی قدیم را نشانی از خود می داند اما مشکل اینجاست که جرات نمی کند به "خودش" بیاید. نمی خواهد خودش باشد و نمی تواند به خانه بازگردد.
آدمی از آدمیان سخن گفتن می اموزد و از خدایان خاموشی.
صفحه 215
.
ایا چنان در نومیدی زیسته اید که متوجه نشده باشید نومید بوده اید. یا به گونه ای مخفیانه این بیماری را در درون خودتان همچون راز جانکاهتان، همچون ثمره ی عشقی گناه آلود در اعماق قلبتان حمل کرده اید یا به گونه ای رد نومیدی از کوره دررفته اید که مایه ی وحشت دیگران شده باشید.
هرچه درجه ی آگاهی بیشتر باشد شدت ناامیدی بیشتر است.
June 13, 2021
کتابی به شدت سخت و دقیق که اقسامِ نومیدی را به شیوها� همزمان دقیق، گیج کننده و دیالکتیکی بر می شمارد. قلمِ کی یرکگور گاهی همانند صاعقه بر سرِ خواننده فرود می آید و ناگاه پیچ و تاب می خورد و او را مات و مبهوت به حال خود رها می کند. امیدوارم دوباره به این کتاب بازگردم... دوباره خوانشی عمیق در وقتِ مناسب و با دانشی جاندارتر.
April 14, 2009
"The Sickness unto Death" is an insightful taxonomy of human self-deception, and a fascinating polemic supporting a Christianity of individuals, rather than groups. Its two parts, "The Sickness unto Death is Despair" and "Despair is Sin," reflect its dual psychological and theological significance.
It is, first, a precursor of modern psychoanalysis, exploring the idea of despair as a lack of self-understanding and self-acceptance. Anticipating Freud's 'unconscious mind,' Kierkegaard claims that virtually everyone is always in despair, whether they know it or not: "Not being conscious of being in despair, is itself a form of despair.... The physician knows that just as there can be merely imagined illness, so too is there merely imagined health." Much of the book consists of a general overview of the many different forms despair can take, from "the despairing ignorance of having a self and an eternal self" to the demonic "wanting in despair to be oneself -- defiance."
Although, as one of Kierkegaard's "algebraic" (i.e., philosophically schematic rather than literary) works, "Sickness" spends little time developing these forms of despair, more fleshed-out examples an be found in his other works, such as "Either/Or." The short allegories Kierkegaard does use to illustrate his ideas, however, are consistently clear and illuminating. For example:
"As a father disinherits a son, the self will not acknowledge itself after it has been so weak. Despairingly it is unable to forget that weakness; somehow it hates itself, it will not humble itself in faith under its weakness in order to win itself back. No, in despair it will not, as it were, hear a word about itself, will have nothing to do with itself.... As doubtless often with the father who disinherited the son: the external fact only helped a little; it did not rid him of the son, least of all in his thoughts. As so often it helps little when the lover curses the despised (that is, loved) one, but almost intricates him the more, so it is for the despairing self with itself."
Second, and more to Kierkegaard's purpose, "Sickness" is an unorthodoxly orthodox classic of Christian theology. A must-read for anyone interested in the concept of sin, "Sickness" disavows the notion that sin is simply unethical behavior; no, for Kierkegaard "the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith." Sin for Kierkegaard is "before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not wanting to be oneself, or wanting in despair to be oneself." Sin is a heightened form of despair in which God judges each one of us. Using this notion, Kierkegaard attacks established Christendom for being complacent and confident, due to its strength in numbers, of its sinlessness:
Christianity "says to each individual: 'Thou shalt believe'.... Not one word more; there is nothing more to add. 'Now I have spoken', says God in heaven, 'we shall talk it over again in eternity. In the meantime you can do what you want, but judgement is at hand.'
"A judgement! Indeed, we men have learned, by experience, that when there is a mutiny on a ship or in an army, then the guilty are so numerous that the punishment has to be dropped; and when it is the public, the highly esteemed and cultivated public, or the people, then there is not only no crime, but according to the newspaper, which is as dependable as the Gospels and the Revelation, it is God's will. Why is this so? The reason is that the concept 'judgement' corresponds to the individual: judgment cannot be passed en masse; people can be killed en masse, sprayed en masse, flattered en masse, in short can be treated in many ways just like cattle, but to judge people like cattle is not possible, for one cannot pass judgement on cattle. However many are judged, if there is to be any seriousness or truth in the judgement, then judgement is passed on each individual....
"If only there are enough of us in this, then there is no wrong in it... before this wisdom all people have to this day bowed down -- kings, emperors, and excellencies.... So, God is damned well going to learn to bow down too. It is simply a matter of there being many of us, a decent number, who stick together; if we do that we are made safe against the judgement of eternity. They are indeed safe, if it is only in eternity that they are to become individuals. But they were, and are, constantly individuals before God."
Thus, Kierkegaard's aim is to awaken the reader as "spirit" (i.e., as an individual self) before God, not to defend Christianity's doctrines. On the contrary, Kierkegaard's strongest words are directed against apologetics: "how extraordinarily stupid it is to defend Christianity, how little knowledge of humanity it betrays, how it connives if only unconsciously with offence by making Christianity out to be some miserable object that in the end must be rescued by a defence.... Yes, the person who defends that has never believed in it. If he does believe, then the enthusiasm of faith is not a defence, no, it is the assault and the victory; a believer is a victor."
To fully understand why Kierkegaard considers Christianity fundamentally (and necessarily) irrational, to the point of causing "offence," it will be helpful to read his other works, such as "Fear and Trembling" or "Concluding Unscientific Postscript," where faith is defined as "an objective uncertainty held fast in... the most passionate inwardness." And nothing, for Kierkegaard, could be less certainly true than Christianity's paradoxes, like the idea that "there is an infinite difference in kind between God and man," yet the two share a "kinship." To try and water down Christianity's offensive aspects, to make faith easier to just blindly slip into, is to destroy faith by removing the necessity for the individual to passionately CHOOSE, for himself, his own life-path, his own self.
Although this is one of Kierkegaard's more difficult works, once the basic project is grasped it is quite readable, and is more straightforward than "The Concept of Anxiety," a psychological work which explores very similar ideas to "Sickness." The first paragraph (with its "The self is a relation which relates to itself, or that in the relation which is its relating to itself," etc., etc.) is famously dense and opaque, but is not representative of the rest of the text, which becomes more and more clear and accessible as it delves deeper into the obscurity of sin and despair.
"The Sickness unto Death" is an invaluable resource for those interested in existential psychology or religious philosophy. However, it is perhaps not the best place to begin if you haven't read other Kierkegaard works; "Fear and Trembling" is an easier starting point. For both texts, I recommend the Hannay translation, rather than the Hong one.
It is, first, a precursor of modern psychoanalysis, exploring the idea of despair as a lack of self-understanding and self-acceptance. Anticipating Freud's 'unconscious mind,' Kierkegaard claims that virtually everyone is always in despair, whether they know it or not: "Not being conscious of being in despair, is itself a form of despair.... The physician knows that just as there can be merely imagined illness, so too is there merely imagined health." Much of the book consists of a general overview of the many different forms despair can take, from "the despairing ignorance of having a self and an eternal self" to the demonic "wanting in despair to be oneself -- defiance."
Although, as one of Kierkegaard's "algebraic" (i.e., philosophically schematic rather than literary) works, "Sickness" spends little time developing these forms of despair, more fleshed-out examples an be found in his other works, such as "Either/Or." The short allegories Kierkegaard does use to illustrate his ideas, however, are consistently clear and illuminating. For example:
"As a father disinherits a son, the self will not acknowledge itself after it has been so weak. Despairingly it is unable to forget that weakness; somehow it hates itself, it will not humble itself in faith under its weakness in order to win itself back. No, in despair it will not, as it were, hear a word about itself, will have nothing to do with itself.... As doubtless often with the father who disinherited the son: the external fact only helped a little; it did not rid him of the son, least of all in his thoughts. As so often it helps little when the lover curses the despised (that is, loved) one, but almost intricates him the more, so it is for the despairing self with itself."
Second, and more to Kierkegaard's purpose, "Sickness" is an unorthodoxly orthodox classic of Christian theology. A must-read for anyone interested in the concept of sin, "Sickness" disavows the notion that sin is simply unethical behavior; no, for Kierkegaard "the opposite of sin is not virtue but faith." Sin for Kierkegaard is "before God, or with the conception of God, in despair not wanting to be oneself, or wanting in despair to be oneself." Sin is a heightened form of despair in which God judges each one of us. Using this notion, Kierkegaard attacks established Christendom for being complacent and confident, due to its strength in numbers, of its sinlessness:
Christianity "says to each individual: 'Thou shalt believe'.... Not one word more; there is nothing more to add. 'Now I have spoken', says God in heaven, 'we shall talk it over again in eternity. In the meantime you can do what you want, but judgement is at hand.'
"A judgement! Indeed, we men have learned, by experience, that when there is a mutiny on a ship or in an army, then the guilty are so numerous that the punishment has to be dropped; and when it is the public, the highly esteemed and cultivated public, or the people, then there is not only no crime, but according to the newspaper, which is as dependable as the Gospels and the Revelation, it is God's will. Why is this so? The reason is that the concept 'judgement' corresponds to the individual: judgment cannot be passed en masse; people can be killed en masse, sprayed en masse, flattered en masse, in short can be treated in many ways just like cattle, but to judge people like cattle is not possible, for one cannot pass judgement on cattle. However many are judged, if there is to be any seriousness or truth in the judgement, then judgement is passed on each individual....
"If only there are enough of us in this, then there is no wrong in it... before this wisdom all people have to this day bowed down -- kings, emperors, and excellencies.... So, God is damned well going to learn to bow down too. It is simply a matter of there being many of us, a decent number, who stick together; if we do that we are made safe against the judgement of eternity. They are indeed safe, if it is only in eternity that they are to become individuals. But they were, and are, constantly individuals before God."
Thus, Kierkegaard's aim is to awaken the reader as "spirit" (i.e., as an individual self) before God, not to defend Christianity's doctrines. On the contrary, Kierkegaard's strongest words are directed against apologetics: "how extraordinarily stupid it is to defend Christianity, how little knowledge of humanity it betrays, how it connives if only unconsciously with offence by making Christianity out to be some miserable object that in the end must be rescued by a defence.... Yes, the person who defends that has never believed in it. If he does believe, then the enthusiasm of faith is not a defence, no, it is the assault and the victory; a believer is a victor."
To fully understand why Kierkegaard considers Christianity fundamentally (and necessarily) irrational, to the point of causing "offence," it will be helpful to read his other works, such as "Fear and Trembling" or "Concluding Unscientific Postscript," where faith is defined as "an objective uncertainty held fast in... the most passionate inwardness." And nothing, for Kierkegaard, could be less certainly true than Christianity's paradoxes, like the idea that "there is an infinite difference in kind between God and man," yet the two share a "kinship." To try and water down Christianity's offensive aspects, to make faith easier to just blindly slip into, is to destroy faith by removing the necessity for the individual to passionately CHOOSE, for himself, his own life-path, his own self.
Although this is one of Kierkegaard's more difficult works, once the basic project is grasped it is quite readable, and is more straightforward than "The Concept of Anxiety," a psychological work which explores very similar ideas to "Sickness." The first paragraph (with its "The self is a relation which relates to itself, or that in the relation which is its relating to itself," etc., etc.) is famously dense and opaque, but is not representative of the rest of the text, which becomes more and more clear and accessible as it delves deeper into the obscurity of sin and despair.
"The Sickness unto Death" is an invaluable resource for those interested in existential psychology or religious philosophy. However, it is perhaps not the best place to begin if you haven't read other Kierkegaard works; "Fear and Trembling" is an easier starting point. For both texts, I recommend the Hannay translation, rather than the Hong one.
March 14, 2015
Just read this for the second time. The first time was in college for a Kierkegaard class. I liked it then a lot, but one of the problems with college for me was that I often felt overloaded. There was so much to read that it was often difficult to get it all read, and so even the stuff I read was almost never at full attention.
I read "Fear and Trembling" before college (or at least my second and successful attempt at college). I really loved it. But on the other hand, I have a difficult relationship with Christianity. It's too close to me to abandon, but too uncomfortable to be satisfying.
Probably the most satisfying communal religious experiences I have had have been with the Quakers. Of course, as with any denomination, there are many kinds of Quakers. I mean the quiet ones. The ones who literally meet on Sunday (sometimes other times too) to sit for an hour in silence. Where there is no priest, and anyone can speak if they feel moved by God. Of course, just as there are different denominations there are different congregations and let's just say some of them are more quiet than others.
Sometimes I feel very strongly that any Christianity I could really accept would be found more in Christian writers like Kierkegaard than in many of the passages of the Bible. But then again, as K points out, Christ himself said something like blessed are those who are not offended by me. K takes this sense of offense very seriously.
Make no mistake, Kierkegaard is disgusted by the idea of "defending" Christianity, or of trying to convince someone of it's truth. Not because he takes it as too obvious for proof, but rather due to the very nature of Christianity itself and faith. If you are the happy pagan, likely you will simply reject the book out of hand as not corresponding to your understanding of reality.
I think there are two things in particular that are appealing about K. First, he has an incredibly noble view of human possibility. Secondly, he is a very clear thinker.
This read was interesting in many ways, but in one way in particular, because he puts the question directly to a waffler like me. I always want to have it both ways, along the lines of "oh both Christianity and not-Christianity are true." He argues that "no, either you really believe that those happy pagans are healthy, or you believe that they are in despair."
Of course you have to be clear about what he tells you he means by this word. He accepts that those happy pagans can be very much happy and healthy. His meaning of despair is not the idea that "oh they look happy but underneath they are really eating their hearts out". The idea is much closer to the idea that they are simply in error. Of course he does mean that despair is a kind of spiritual illness. Just not one that necessarily makes you feel bad. (though of course it can). It means that if you have those feelings of contentment and happiness in this life without agreeing about God and our relationship to him, then you have essentially traded this life for eternity. You are simply oblivious to the most profound dimension of human existence. Here's the idea, there's no argument about it. If you are the pagan you won't find anything here to convince you, except perhaps the attraction of the image he provides. But it is based in a very noble notion of the eternal and the vast depths of the possibility of the human spirit. Here is the idea that we are defined by what measures us, and what measures us is God.
Of course it can be confusing, because at times he does speak of despair as a feeling like we commonly understand it to be. Certainly he agrees that they can be related. This is of course another of the very cool things about K, that he can talk about pretty abstract things in terms of personal psycho-spiritual experience. Also, the reverse as well.
Certainly for me this read was more personal, more about my own place. And I think this is appropriate, for as Kierkegaard says at the beginning, he does mean this work to be edifying. I take him to mean there personally relevant, not simply meant as some abstract analysis. Certainly I found his views very compelling.
I read "Fear and Trembling" before college (or at least my second and successful attempt at college). I really loved it. But on the other hand, I have a difficult relationship with Christianity. It's too close to me to abandon, but too uncomfortable to be satisfying.
Probably the most satisfying communal religious experiences I have had have been with the Quakers. Of course, as with any denomination, there are many kinds of Quakers. I mean the quiet ones. The ones who literally meet on Sunday (sometimes other times too) to sit for an hour in silence. Where there is no priest, and anyone can speak if they feel moved by God. Of course, just as there are different denominations there are different congregations and let's just say some of them are more quiet than others.
Sometimes I feel very strongly that any Christianity I could really accept would be found more in Christian writers like Kierkegaard than in many of the passages of the Bible. But then again, as K points out, Christ himself said something like blessed are those who are not offended by me. K takes this sense of offense very seriously.
Make no mistake, Kierkegaard is disgusted by the idea of "defending" Christianity, or of trying to convince someone of it's truth. Not because he takes it as too obvious for proof, but rather due to the very nature of Christianity itself and faith. If you are the happy pagan, likely you will simply reject the book out of hand as not corresponding to your understanding of reality.
I think there are two things in particular that are appealing about K. First, he has an incredibly noble view of human possibility. Secondly, he is a very clear thinker.
This read was interesting in many ways, but in one way in particular, because he puts the question directly to a waffler like me. I always want to have it both ways, along the lines of "oh both Christianity and not-Christianity are true." He argues that "no, either you really believe that those happy pagans are healthy, or you believe that they are in despair."
Of course you have to be clear about what he tells you he means by this word. He accepts that those happy pagans can be very much happy and healthy. His meaning of despair is not the idea that "oh they look happy but underneath they are really eating their hearts out". The idea is much closer to the idea that they are simply in error. Of course he does mean that despair is a kind of spiritual illness. Just not one that necessarily makes you feel bad. (though of course it can). It means that if you have those feelings of contentment and happiness in this life without agreeing about God and our relationship to him, then you have essentially traded this life for eternity. You are simply oblivious to the most profound dimension of human existence. Here's the idea, there's no argument about it. If you are the pagan you won't find anything here to convince you, except perhaps the attraction of the image he provides. But it is based in a very noble notion of the eternal and the vast depths of the possibility of the human spirit. Here is the idea that we are defined by what measures us, and what measures us is God.
Of course it can be confusing, because at times he does speak of despair as a feeling like we commonly understand it to be. Certainly he agrees that they can be related. This is of course another of the very cool things about K, that he can talk about pretty abstract things in terms of personal psycho-spiritual experience. Also, the reverse as well.
Certainly for me this read was more personal, more about my own place. And I think this is appropriate, for as Kierkegaard says at the beginning, he does mean this work to be edifying. I take him to mean there personally relevant, not simply meant as some abstract analysis. Certainly I found his views very compelling.
July 19, 2014
This can be called a Phenomenology of Despair. Kierkegaard is frequently considered as anti-Hegel but this book can be considered as a kind of dialectic of the self. Kierkegaard looked at the self the same way as Hegel looked at the world, his universal spirit.
Here we see his iterative definition of the self,
The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self. It must in turn relate to the power which established the whole relation. The self is a dynamic process. It is simultaneously becoming and and unbecoming from what one is.
and the self as a synthesis,
A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis.
Despair results from lack of balance between these opposites and takes three forms,
Being unconscious in despair of having a self. This is the most common form of despair. Despair of an aesthete. Where someone is lost in something external that they are not aware of their eternal self or that they are in despair. A spiritless existence. From Kierkegaard's point of view, almost everyone is in despair, and most of them are not aware of it.
not wanting in despair to be oneself happens if one has finitude and necessity but without infinitude and possibility, i.e. no faith. For God is infinite, for God everything is possible. The opposite is where you have infinitude and possibility without being grounded in temporal and necessity, Where one is carried away by dreams and fantasies without being grounded in something temporal leading to despair and wanting in despair to be oneself.
One can contrast this with materialism, where alienation and despair are caused by material circumstances and they can be rid of by changing the society. Even though they never encountered each other’s works, Marx and Kierkegaard were contemporaries and both of their thoughts germinated in the rapidly industrialising society. But for Marx, a materialist, this alienation ultimately took the form of a worker being alienated from his labour and it can only be overcome by changing the society, and for Kierkegaard, the individual self is all that matters despair can only be overcome by the self through faith.
Among the western thinkers, existentialists have a lot in common with buddhist and hindu thinkers. The similar emphasis on the self, the importance of self-realisation and in this book there is also some similarity in the understanding of despair. Despair as a sickness of the spirit and the opposite of being in despair is to have faith. Standing openly in front of God.
Here we also see the Christian notion of despair as a blessing. Something which we see in Dostoevsky’s works as well. Despair transcends banal experience and it leads to salvation. So despair is also a blessing. To arrive at deliverance one must pass through despair.
The second part got too Christian and esoteric for me. It mainly deals with sin. This work is rooted in christianity but still has universal applicability. If you want to understand how your relation is relating itself to itself, you must read this book.
Here we see his iterative definition of the self,
The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but that the relation relates itself to its own self. It must in turn relate to the power which established the whole relation. The self is a dynamic process. It is simultaneously becoming and and unbecoming from what one is.
and the self as a synthesis,
A human being is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity, in short, a synthesis.
Despair results from lack of balance between these opposites and takes three forms,
Being unconscious in despair of having a self. This is the most common form of despair. Despair of an aesthete. Where someone is lost in something external that they are not aware of their eternal self or that they are in despair. A spiritless existence. From Kierkegaard's point of view, almost everyone is in despair, and most of them are not aware of it.
not wanting in despair to be oneself happens if one has finitude and necessity but without infinitude and possibility, i.e. no faith. For God is infinite, for God everything is possible. The opposite is where you have infinitude and possibility without being grounded in temporal and necessity, Where one is carried away by dreams and fantasies without being grounded in something temporal leading to despair and wanting in despair to be oneself.
One can contrast this with materialism, where alienation and despair are caused by material circumstances and they can be rid of by changing the society. Even though they never encountered each other’s works, Marx and Kierkegaard were contemporaries and both of their thoughts germinated in the rapidly industrialising society. But for Marx, a materialist, this alienation ultimately took the form of a worker being alienated from his labour and it can only be overcome by changing the society, and for Kierkegaard, the individual self is all that matters despair can only be overcome by the self through faith.
Among the western thinkers, existentialists have a lot in common with buddhist and hindu thinkers. The similar emphasis on the self, the importance of self-realisation and in this book there is also some similarity in the understanding of despair. Despair as a sickness of the spirit and the opposite of being in despair is to have faith. Standing openly in front of God.
Here we also see the Christian notion of despair as a blessing. Something which we see in Dostoevsky’s works as well. Despair transcends banal experience and it leads to salvation. So despair is also a blessing. To arrive at deliverance one must pass through despair.
The second part got too Christian and esoteric for me. It mainly deals with sin. This work is rooted in christianity but still has universal applicability. If you want to understand how your relation is relating itself to itself, you must read this book.
November 20, 2020
hated it, made me anxious. 5 stars
November 21, 2023
«عذاب نومیدی دقیقا در همین ناتوانی از مردن است.»
«وقتی مرگ بزرگتری� خطر است، به زندگی امید میبندیم� اما زمانی که میآموزی� خطری را که حتی بزرگت� از این است بشناسیم، امیدمان به مرگ است. وقتی خطر به حدی بزرگ است که به مرگ امید میبندیم� آنگا� نومیدی عبارت است از اینکه امیدی نداریم حتی به اینکه بتوانیم بمیریم.»
«وقتی مرگ بزرگتری� خطر است، به زندگی امید میبندیم� اما زمانی که میآموزی� خطری را که حتی بزرگت� از این است بشناسیم، امیدمان به مرگ است. وقتی خطر به حدی بزرگ است که به مرگ امید میبندیم� آنگا� نومیدی عبارت است از اینکه امیدی نداریم حتی به اینکه بتوانیم بمیریم.»
January 19, 2022
„Această boală nu este spre moarte, ci pentru slava lui Dumnezeu, ca, prin ea, Fiul lui Dumnezeu să se slăvească." (Ioan 11,4)."
O lectură foarte grea, din cauza intensității scriitorului și a subiectului pe care îl dezbate. Cuvântul disperare apare aici de 750 de ori (fără prefață, unde îl mai regăsim de 100 de ori) cu precădere în prima parte a cărții, făcându-te să cazi și tu în această boală de moarte care este disperarea. Pentru creștin boala, asuprirea, mizeria și grijile nu sunt de moarte, ci astfel este tocmai maladia care nu recunoaște sensul întrupării, respectiv disperarea. De unde provine însă disperarea? În spirit creștin, originea ei rezidă în omul însuși, iar nu în forma sinelui ca sinteză (ceea ce ar fi implicat că temeiul divin ar fi fost responsabil pentru disperarea omului); cauza disperării trebuie căutată în libertatea umană, în faptul că Dumnezeu, care a făcut din om acest raport, îl lasă cumva din mână, raportul raportându-se la sine. Altfel spus este ț libertății, expresia proastei administrări a economiei existențiale: disperatul este o valoare, dar una cu sens negativ. Disperarea este boala de moarte caracterizată prin neputința de a muri, ca într-o agonie în care lipsește orice speranță de a suprima suferința prin moarte. De aceea disperarea n-a putut apărea decât odată cu credința în nemurirea sufletului, adică doar odată cu creștinismul. Disperarea e numită maladie mortală, o contradicție tulburătoare, acea boală aflată în tine, de a muri veșnic, de a muri și totuși de a nu muri, de a muri moartea. Moartea este sfârșitul maladiei, dar moartea nu este sfârșitul. Iată și o rugăciune dedicata de Kierkegaard credincioșilor predicatori creștini: Dumnezeule din ceruri, îți mulțumesc că n-ai pretins nici unui om că trebuie să înțeleagă creștinismul; căci de s-ar pretinde aceasta, atunci aș fi cel mai nenorocit dintre toți. Cu cât încerc mai mult să-l înțeleg, cu atât îmi pare mai incomprehensibil și cu atât mai mult descopăr doar posibilitatea scandalul. De aceea îți mulțumesc că ceri numai credința și te rog să vrei să mi-o sporești pe mai departe.
O lectură foarte grea, din cauza intensității scriitorului și a subiectului pe care îl dezbate. Cuvântul disperare apare aici de 750 de ori (fără prefață, unde îl mai regăsim de 100 de ori) cu precădere în prima parte a cărții, făcându-te să cazi și tu în această boală de moarte care este disperarea. Pentru creștin boala, asuprirea, mizeria și grijile nu sunt de moarte, ci astfel este tocmai maladia care nu recunoaște sensul întrupării, respectiv disperarea. De unde provine însă disperarea? În spirit creștin, originea ei rezidă în omul însuși, iar nu în forma sinelui ca sinteză (ceea ce ar fi implicat că temeiul divin ar fi fost responsabil pentru disperarea omului); cauza disperării trebuie căutată în libertatea umană, în faptul că Dumnezeu, care a făcut din om acest raport, îl lasă cumva din mână, raportul raportându-se la sine. Altfel spus este ț libertății, expresia proastei administrări a economiei existențiale: disperatul este o valoare, dar una cu sens negativ. Disperarea este boala de moarte caracterizată prin neputința de a muri, ca într-o agonie în care lipsește orice speranță de a suprima suferința prin moarte. De aceea disperarea n-a putut apărea decât odată cu credința în nemurirea sufletului, adică doar odată cu creștinismul. Disperarea e numită maladie mortală, o contradicție tulburătoare, acea boală aflată în tine, de a muri veșnic, de a muri și totuși de a nu muri, de a muri moartea. Moartea este sfârșitul maladiei, dar moartea nu este sfârșitul. Iată și o rugăciune dedicata de Kierkegaard credincioșilor predicatori creștini: Dumnezeule din ceruri, îți mulțumesc că n-ai pretins nici unui om că trebuie să înțeleagă creștinismul; căci de s-ar pretinde aceasta, atunci aș fi cel mai nenorocit dintre toți. Cu cât încerc mai mult să-l înțeleg, cu atât îmi pare mai incomprehensibil și cu atât mai mult descopăr doar posibilitatea scandalul. De aceea îți mulțumesc că ceri numai credința și te rog să vrei să mi-o sporești pe mai departe.
December 28, 2024
I've been on a Danish modernist / existentialist tear this year, after I visited Denmark over the New Year. 2024 began in an AirBnb in rural Denmark reading Lucky Per and Niels Lyhne, and closed on the couch in Michigan reading Kierkegaard.
The thesis of this book I very much agree with: while you can try to define your identity and life on your own, you'll never be fully satisfied with yourself, stuck in "despair," or the "sickness unto death." This is only solvable when you humble yourself before God.
Any person deals with internal contradictions. As an example, take the competition between imagination vs satisfaction with your circumstances. Imagination taken to an extreme leads you to exist in an "abstract sensitivity" divorced from reality, and to losing yourself. However, some imagination is obviously good.
On your own, you get stuck in a recursive loop of trying to solve contradictions such as these: "the relation's (the self's) total dependence, the expression of the fact that the self cannot of itself come to or be in equilibrium and rest, but only, in relating to itself, by relating to that which has established the entire relation" (God). Then you fall into a despair, that typically shows up in one of two ways - either disliking yourself and trying to be something that you are not, or disliking yourself and accepting it and not trying to be better.
To even get to this despair, you have to prioritize self-knowledge, and most people don't - "the more knowledge increases, the more it becomes a sort of inhuman knowledge in the production of which the person's self is squandered." Most people are unsatisfied with themselves, but are not self-conscious enough to realize it. Going through the motions of being a human with no deeper self-reflection, is dangerous, however: you can "can get married, beget children, be honored and respected-and perhaps people fail to notice that, in the deeper sense, he is lacking a self. In the world, no great fuss is made over this sort of thing, for in the world, a self is the thing that is least asked about, and most of all, is the thing that is dangerous to show you have."
For those who've accepted that they are in despair, it's not a given that they'll then humble themselves before God and accept his mercy: for example, some people are overtly anti-God, and take pride in their hopeless and ability to see the "truth" about the world. Or - some people are Christians, but beat themselves up for their sins, in an egotistical / self-righteous way, missing that "if God were to forgive him for it, he could have at least have the decency to forgive himself." Both types of people could simply accept God's mercy instead of being so stubbornly full of themselves.
Kierkegaard doesn't explicitly say this, but the last part of the book left me with the conclusion that one aspect of God's greatness is that he has the infinite energy and intelligence to know each of us; he delights in the particular. "God does not avail himself of an abbreviation, he comprehends actuality itself, all of the particulars: for him, the individual does not lie under the concept." I'm separately reading Seeing Like a State, which deals with the casualties of governments and corporations simplifying and standardizing local customs. God has no need to simplify like a state.
This particularly stands out to me as incredible in 2024 - when the onslaught of information in the media drives the opposite tendency of simplifying the complexity through memes, metaphors, generalities, tribes. We must pattern-match incidents and people or become overwhelmed. But God has enough compute to see us in all our quirks.
Another theme of the book is the obviousness and ease of being a Christian. Why would we not accept God's mercy? And why should we need to defend it if we feel it so innately? By comparison, it would be silly to ask someone who is in love, to rationalize their belief. "Isn't it, after all, obvious that it could never occur to someone who is genuinely in love to want to prove to on the basis of three reasons, or to defend it, for he is something that is more than all reasons and more than every defense: he is in love. And the person who does this-he is not in love; he merely pretends that he is."
We should be intuitively drawn to accept God's mercy because he is so obviously greater than us. So much so that even if God wanted to, he couldn't forgive the offense of rejecting Him- "to reject God's mercy is an offense against God which He could not forgive, even if he wanted to, because it would make him less than God - because "the possibility of offense is, if I dare put it this way, the guarantee whereby God protects himself, so that human beings cannot come too close to him...God and human beings are two qualities between which there is an infinite qualitative difference."
The thesis of this book I very much agree with: while you can try to define your identity and life on your own, you'll never be fully satisfied with yourself, stuck in "despair," or the "sickness unto death." This is only solvable when you humble yourself before God.
Any person deals with internal contradictions. As an example, take the competition between imagination vs satisfaction with your circumstances. Imagination taken to an extreme leads you to exist in an "abstract sensitivity" divorced from reality, and to losing yourself. However, some imagination is obviously good.
On your own, you get stuck in a recursive loop of trying to solve contradictions such as these: "the relation's (the self's) total dependence, the expression of the fact that the self cannot of itself come to or be in equilibrium and rest, but only, in relating to itself, by relating to that which has established the entire relation" (God). Then you fall into a despair, that typically shows up in one of two ways - either disliking yourself and trying to be something that you are not, or disliking yourself and accepting it and not trying to be better.
To even get to this despair, you have to prioritize self-knowledge, and most people don't - "the more knowledge increases, the more it becomes a sort of inhuman knowledge in the production of which the person's self is squandered." Most people are unsatisfied with themselves, but are not self-conscious enough to realize it. Going through the motions of being a human with no deeper self-reflection, is dangerous, however: you can "can get married, beget children, be honored and respected-and perhaps people fail to notice that, in the deeper sense, he is lacking a self. In the world, no great fuss is made over this sort of thing, for in the world, a self is the thing that is least asked about, and most of all, is the thing that is dangerous to show you have."
For those who've accepted that they are in despair, it's not a given that they'll then humble themselves before God and accept his mercy: for example, some people are overtly anti-God, and take pride in their hopeless and ability to see the "truth" about the world. Or - some people are Christians, but beat themselves up for their sins, in an egotistical / self-righteous way, missing that "if God were to forgive him for it, he could have at least have the decency to forgive himself." Both types of people could simply accept God's mercy instead of being so stubbornly full of themselves.
Kierkegaard doesn't explicitly say this, but the last part of the book left me with the conclusion that one aspect of God's greatness is that he has the infinite energy and intelligence to know each of us; he delights in the particular. "God does not avail himself of an abbreviation, he comprehends actuality itself, all of the particulars: for him, the individual does not lie under the concept." I'm separately reading Seeing Like a State, which deals with the casualties of governments and corporations simplifying and standardizing local customs. God has no need to simplify like a state.
This particularly stands out to me as incredible in 2024 - when the onslaught of information in the media drives the opposite tendency of simplifying the complexity through memes, metaphors, generalities, tribes. We must pattern-match incidents and people or become overwhelmed. But God has enough compute to see us in all our quirks.
Another theme of the book is the obviousness and ease of being a Christian. Why would we not accept God's mercy? And why should we need to defend it if we feel it so innately? By comparison, it would be silly to ask someone who is in love, to rationalize their belief. "Isn't it, after all, obvious that it could never occur to someone who is genuinely in love to want to prove to on the basis of three reasons, or to defend it, for he is something that is more than all reasons and more than every defense: he is in love. And the person who does this-he is not in love; he merely pretends that he is."
We should be intuitively drawn to accept God's mercy because he is so obviously greater than us. So much so that even if God wanted to, he couldn't forgive the offense of rejecting Him- "to reject God's mercy is an offense against God which He could not forgive, even if he wanted to, because it would make him less than God - because "the possibility of offense is, if I dare put it this way, the guarantee whereby God protects himself, so that human beings cannot come too close to him...God and human beings are two qualities between which there is an infinite qualitative difference."
October 31, 2023
Ich muss gestehen recht spät mit Kierkegaard in Berührung gekommen zu sein, obschon ich Zeuge der vielsagenden Freude meiner Frau wurde als sie seine Werke vor vielen Monaten verschlang. Ich entschied mich jedenfalls für einen Dialog mit dieser durchweg nordischen Gestalt von unheimlichen Klüften und bemerkenswerten Abgründen namens Kierkegaard. Denn genau so schrieb er es und gleichsam so sollte es gelesen werden; als Dialog zwischen Verfasser und Leser. Welch eine Stimulation verschiedenster Gehirnwindungen tritt dabei in Kraft.
Ähnlich dem ewig brandenden Meer versteht es dieser Denker uns in diesem Werk, in ganz sokratischer Manier, Welle für Welle seine tiefsinnigen Beobachtungen bezüglich des Menschen mitzuteilen. Vieles davon war mir natürlich bereits bekannt, aber überaus erfreut und fasziniert war ich von seiner tieferen Logik bei der Auseinandersetzung der verschiedenen Grade unserer Verzweiflung. Niemals wär ich von selbst auf diese Gedanken gekommen. Kierkegaard vermittelt uns als Lösung, wir selbst zu werden, also das eigentliche, ursprüngliche wir, bevor wir uns die jämmerliche Gesellschaft in der wir aufwuchsen als Maßstab für unser Selbst nahmen. Ähnliche Belehrungen, die auch Schopenhauer oder Nietzsche vertraten, als letzterer z.B. sagte: "Werde, der du bist."
So schreibt Kierkegaard aber auch sehr feinfühlig:
"Es ist daher völlig unmöglich, daß die vulgäre Betrachtung recht hat, wenn sie annimmt, die Verzweiflung sei das Seltene, sie ist hingegen das ganz Allgemeine. Es ist also völlig unmöglich, daß die vulgäre Betrachtung recht hat, wenn sie annimmt, daß ein jeder, der nicht meint oder fühlt, verzweifelt zu sein, es auch nicht sei, und daß nur der es sei, der es von sich selbst sagt. Im Gegenteil, wer ohne Affektiertheit von sich sagt, daß er es sei, ist doch ein wenig, ist dialektisch der Heilung näher als alle die, die nicht dafür angesehen werden und sich selbst nicht für verzweifelt halten.
Aber gerade das ist es, worin der Seelenkenner mir gewiß recht geben wird, das Allgemeine, daß die meisten Menschen leben, ohne sich recht bewußt zu werden, daß sie als Geist bestimmt sind - und darauf beruht all die sogenannte Sicherheit, Zufriedenheit mit dem Leben und so weiter, was gerade Verzweiflung ist. Die dagegen sagen, sie seien verzweifelt, sind entweder in der Regel diejenigen, die eine so viel tiefere Natur haben, daß sie sich selbst als Geist bewußt werden müssen, oder diejenigen, denen schwere Ereignisse und furchtbare Entscheidungen dazu verholfen haben, sich als Geist bewußt zu werden - so oder so; denn sehr selten ist gerade derjenige, der in Wahrheit nicht verzweifelt ist."
Welch eine fundamentale Wahrheit vor der ein jeder die Augen verschließt. Die verschiedenen Grade der Verzweiflung haben mich ganz ungemein in den Bann gezogen, denn auch meine eigene Verzweiflung wurde von ihm gleichsam seziert und gab mir oft das große "Ja genau!"-Erlebnis. Ich staunte nicht schlecht wie treffsicher und beinah mit einer Lupe der Mann die tieferen Ursachen meiner inneren Verzweiflung mir vor Augen führte. Oft hatte ich beim Lesen Einwände gegen seine Ausführungen, doch sie wurden zu 99% alle beiseite gefegt und als Lösung wurde mir nichts irdisches, sondern das Ewige und Edle ans Herz gelegt.
Doch Kierkegaard versteht auch, dass das Selbst am wenigsten gefragt wird, dass fast alle nur Masken tragen und in ihrer unbeschreiblichen Jämmerlichkeit unter ihren Mitmenschen für alles was sie tun Bestätigung und Anerkennung suchen, aber auf keinen Fall Aufklärung, denn diese beinhaltet meistens etwas "negatives" und dafür sind sie "zu schwach, zu ängstlich, denn es bedarf höherer geistiger Kräfte", weswegen er auch hinzufügt:
"Wenn aber ein Mensch so phantastisch geworden ist und darum verzweifelt, so kann er doch, obwohl das meistens offenbar wird, recht gut dahin leben; Mensch sein, wie es scheint, beschäftigt mit dem Zeitlichen, heiraten, Kinder zeugen, geehrt und angesehen sein - und man merkt es vielleicht nicht, daß ihm im tieferen Sinne ein Selbst fehlt. Von solchen Dingen macht man in der Welt kein großes Aufheben; denn ein Selbst ist das, was in der Welt am wenigsten gefragt ist, und das ist etwas, was am allergefährlichsten ist, sich anmerken zu lassen, daß man eines hat. Die größte Gefahr, sich selbst zu verlieren, kann in der Welt so still vonstatten gehen, als wäre es nichts. Kein Verlust kann so still abgehen; jeden anderen Verlust, ein Arm, ein Bein, fünf Reichstaler, ein Weib und so weiter bemerkt man doch."
Es ist gleichsam wie als ob er die heutigen YouTube Jammerlappen beschreibt, die wegen der mit ihnen geteilten kleinsten Erkenntnis, die ihnen den Mangel an ihrem Selbst offenbar macht, sofort wegen Cyber-Mobbing rum heulen. Ich kann jedenfalls Kierkegaard durchaus viel abgewinnen und verdanke ihm so manches, selbst was das Göttliche angeht.
Ähnlich dem ewig brandenden Meer versteht es dieser Denker uns in diesem Werk, in ganz sokratischer Manier, Welle für Welle seine tiefsinnigen Beobachtungen bezüglich des Menschen mitzuteilen. Vieles davon war mir natürlich bereits bekannt, aber überaus erfreut und fasziniert war ich von seiner tieferen Logik bei der Auseinandersetzung der verschiedenen Grade unserer Verzweiflung. Niemals wär ich von selbst auf diese Gedanken gekommen. Kierkegaard vermittelt uns als Lösung, wir selbst zu werden, also das eigentliche, ursprüngliche wir, bevor wir uns die jämmerliche Gesellschaft in der wir aufwuchsen als Maßstab für unser Selbst nahmen. Ähnliche Belehrungen, die auch Schopenhauer oder Nietzsche vertraten, als letzterer z.B. sagte: "Werde, der du bist."
So schreibt Kierkegaard aber auch sehr feinfühlig:
"Es ist daher völlig unmöglich, daß die vulgäre Betrachtung recht hat, wenn sie annimmt, die Verzweiflung sei das Seltene, sie ist hingegen das ganz Allgemeine. Es ist also völlig unmöglich, daß die vulgäre Betrachtung recht hat, wenn sie annimmt, daß ein jeder, der nicht meint oder fühlt, verzweifelt zu sein, es auch nicht sei, und daß nur der es sei, der es von sich selbst sagt. Im Gegenteil, wer ohne Affektiertheit von sich sagt, daß er es sei, ist doch ein wenig, ist dialektisch der Heilung näher als alle die, die nicht dafür angesehen werden und sich selbst nicht für verzweifelt halten.
Aber gerade das ist es, worin der Seelenkenner mir gewiß recht geben wird, das Allgemeine, daß die meisten Menschen leben, ohne sich recht bewußt zu werden, daß sie als Geist bestimmt sind - und darauf beruht all die sogenannte Sicherheit, Zufriedenheit mit dem Leben und so weiter, was gerade Verzweiflung ist. Die dagegen sagen, sie seien verzweifelt, sind entweder in der Regel diejenigen, die eine so viel tiefere Natur haben, daß sie sich selbst als Geist bewußt werden müssen, oder diejenigen, denen schwere Ereignisse und furchtbare Entscheidungen dazu verholfen haben, sich als Geist bewußt zu werden - so oder so; denn sehr selten ist gerade derjenige, der in Wahrheit nicht verzweifelt ist."
Welch eine fundamentale Wahrheit vor der ein jeder die Augen verschließt. Die verschiedenen Grade der Verzweiflung haben mich ganz ungemein in den Bann gezogen, denn auch meine eigene Verzweiflung wurde von ihm gleichsam seziert und gab mir oft das große "Ja genau!"-Erlebnis. Ich staunte nicht schlecht wie treffsicher und beinah mit einer Lupe der Mann die tieferen Ursachen meiner inneren Verzweiflung mir vor Augen führte. Oft hatte ich beim Lesen Einwände gegen seine Ausführungen, doch sie wurden zu 99% alle beiseite gefegt und als Lösung wurde mir nichts irdisches, sondern das Ewige und Edle ans Herz gelegt.
Doch Kierkegaard versteht auch, dass das Selbst am wenigsten gefragt wird, dass fast alle nur Masken tragen und in ihrer unbeschreiblichen Jämmerlichkeit unter ihren Mitmenschen für alles was sie tun Bestätigung und Anerkennung suchen, aber auf keinen Fall Aufklärung, denn diese beinhaltet meistens etwas "negatives" und dafür sind sie "zu schwach, zu ängstlich, denn es bedarf höherer geistiger Kräfte", weswegen er auch hinzufügt:
"Wenn aber ein Mensch so phantastisch geworden ist und darum verzweifelt, so kann er doch, obwohl das meistens offenbar wird, recht gut dahin leben; Mensch sein, wie es scheint, beschäftigt mit dem Zeitlichen, heiraten, Kinder zeugen, geehrt und angesehen sein - und man merkt es vielleicht nicht, daß ihm im tieferen Sinne ein Selbst fehlt. Von solchen Dingen macht man in der Welt kein großes Aufheben; denn ein Selbst ist das, was in der Welt am wenigsten gefragt ist, und das ist etwas, was am allergefährlichsten ist, sich anmerken zu lassen, daß man eines hat. Die größte Gefahr, sich selbst zu verlieren, kann in der Welt so still vonstatten gehen, als wäre es nichts. Kein Verlust kann so still abgehen; jeden anderen Verlust, ein Arm, ein Bein, fünf Reichstaler, ein Weib und so weiter bemerkt man doch."
Es ist gleichsam wie als ob er die heutigen YouTube Jammerlappen beschreibt, die wegen der mit ihnen geteilten kleinsten Erkenntnis, die ihnen den Mangel an ihrem Selbst offenbar macht, sofort wegen Cyber-Mobbing rum heulen. Ich kann jedenfalls Kierkegaard durchaus viel abgewinnen und verdanke ihm so manches, selbst was das Göttliche angeht.
May 22, 2020
Among Kierkegaard’s writings Sickness Unto Death is definitely not his easiest work. It begins with a very arcane discussion on the nature of different kinds of despair which relies rather too much on Hegel to immediately comprehensible to most readers. From there, it moves into a discussion on how these different forms of despair relate to the concept of sin. The second part is substantially shorter than the first. If your goodwill lasts into this second section, it’s where the text really comes alive.
I’m going to attempt a brief summary of Kierkegaard’s thoughts on this.
Despair, although taking many forms, fundamentally boils down to a misunderstanding of the relationship between the universal and subjective. This basic division of the self is a borrowing from Hegel. Essentially, Kierkegaard argues, the self consists of an internal universal experience, with a subjective reflection of the universal existing in relation to it. The universal is something which I think objectively exists experientially, by which I mean to say that all people are capable of experiencing the universal experience. What I essentially mean is that all humanity is capable of conceiving of the concept of the infinite. In the West, this infinity is often synonymous with the God of Christianity. The subjective self must then exist in a relation to this distinctly human idea. What I mean is that all experience of self-hood must exist under the shadow of the potential conception of infinitude. The subjective must make peace with its finitude in the face of the infinite.
Kierkegaard then argues that despair stems from an imbalance in this experience. To exist solely in the universal leads to a starvation of the subjective, and selfhood being lost. To exists solely in the subjective leads to a starvation of the deeper part of the soul, and one’s actions become more alike to automation than conscious decision-making. Kierkegaard expands this basic idea with many examples, but fundamentally this misrelation between the two parts of self lies at their core.
Part two moves on from the investigation into the symptoms of despair, and into the moral cause. Here, Kierkegaard begins to look at the idea of sin. Kierkegaard argues that to despair is to sin. The opposite of sin, he argues, is not virtue, but faith. The solution to sin is not to be virtuous, but to have faith. Of course, one must also strive to be virtuous, but this occurs basically automatically if one rejects despair and embraces faith. To despair is to sin, and it is only in despair that one is actually likely to behave in a manner which is not virtuous. By misrelating the universal and subjective, one enters into a state of immorality by default, because one loses the ability to perceive the world in an accurate manner.
However, how does one then balance the two? That is the role of faith. To put the two in perfect balance is basically impossible, so humanity exists in a state of despair constantly, although in most people in a different degree to one who submits totally to the universal or the subjective. The key then is to embrace faith, which essentially provides the tools to exist in this balance as best as possible. See Fear and Trembling for more of Kierkegaard’s discussion on the nature of faith.
Of course, this then ties into original sin. Kierkegaard leaves much of the details of the relation between all of this and original sin up to the reader, but as I see it, the suggestion is that by partaking in the tree of life, humanity gained access to the universal, and so have to exist in this relation between subjective and universal. This knowing is itself the original sin. Original sin is dissolved into the concept of the knowing. By being aware of the universal, we are constantly in a state of sin and only the atonement can absolve us of this.
So, I hope that was basically comprehensible. As I have said, I think this is one of Kierkegaard’s harder works, but it is very rewarding. I’m not sure that many modern readers will readily accept Kierkegaard’s solutions to these problems, but I think the questions are just as relevant now as they ever were. How should we deal with the concept of infinity? What should we do in the face of despair? These questions matter just as much now as ever.
I’m going to attempt a brief summary of Kierkegaard’s thoughts on this.
Despair, although taking many forms, fundamentally boils down to a misunderstanding of the relationship between the universal and subjective. This basic division of the self is a borrowing from Hegel. Essentially, Kierkegaard argues, the self consists of an internal universal experience, with a subjective reflection of the universal existing in relation to it. The universal is something which I think objectively exists experientially, by which I mean to say that all people are capable of experiencing the universal experience. What I essentially mean is that all humanity is capable of conceiving of the concept of the infinite. In the West, this infinity is often synonymous with the God of Christianity. The subjective self must then exist in a relation to this distinctly human idea. What I mean is that all experience of self-hood must exist under the shadow of the potential conception of infinitude. The subjective must make peace with its finitude in the face of the infinite.
Kierkegaard then argues that despair stems from an imbalance in this experience. To exist solely in the universal leads to a starvation of the subjective, and selfhood being lost. To exists solely in the subjective leads to a starvation of the deeper part of the soul, and one’s actions become more alike to automation than conscious decision-making. Kierkegaard expands this basic idea with many examples, but fundamentally this misrelation between the two parts of self lies at their core.
Part two moves on from the investigation into the symptoms of despair, and into the moral cause. Here, Kierkegaard begins to look at the idea of sin. Kierkegaard argues that to despair is to sin. The opposite of sin, he argues, is not virtue, but faith. The solution to sin is not to be virtuous, but to have faith. Of course, one must also strive to be virtuous, but this occurs basically automatically if one rejects despair and embraces faith. To despair is to sin, and it is only in despair that one is actually likely to behave in a manner which is not virtuous. By misrelating the universal and subjective, one enters into a state of immorality by default, because one loses the ability to perceive the world in an accurate manner.
However, how does one then balance the two? That is the role of faith. To put the two in perfect balance is basically impossible, so humanity exists in a state of despair constantly, although in most people in a different degree to one who submits totally to the universal or the subjective. The key then is to embrace faith, which essentially provides the tools to exist in this balance as best as possible. See Fear and Trembling for more of Kierkegaard’s discussion on the nature of faith.
Of course, this then ties into original sin. Kierkegaard leaves much of the details of the relation between all of this and original sin up to the reader, but as I see it, the suggestion is that by partaking in the tree of life, humanity gained access to the universal, and so have to exist in this relation between subjective and universal. This knowing is itself the original sin. Original sin is dissolved into the concept of the knowing. By being aware of the universal, we are constantly in a state of sin and only the atonement can absolve us of this.
So, I hope that was basically comprehensible. As I have said, I think this is one of Kierkegaard’s harder works, but it is very rewarding. I’m not sure that many modern readers will readily accept Kierkegaard’s solutions to these problems, but I think the questions are just as relevant now as they ever were. How should we deal with the concept of infinity? What should we do in the face of despair? These questions matter just as much now as ever.
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September 18, 2018Tiêu đ� của cuốn sách dựa trên Kinh Thánh (John 11:4), khi Chúa hồi sinh Lazarus và tuyên b� s� ốm yếu bênh tật của Lazarus không dẫn đến cái chết (The Sickness is not unto death). Đối với Anti Climacus (hay Kierkegaard), the sickness unto death không phải là s� ốm yếu bệnh tật v� th� xác. The sickness unto death là cơn bệnh mang yếu t� tinh thần tâm linh, là s� hoàn toàn không ý thức được v� bản ngã, là s� không ý thức được v� ý nghĩa của s� tồn tại độc lập như một con người, là s� chối b� bản ngã khi ý thức được v� nó, là s� chối b� bản ngã đ� tạo ra một hình ảnh của bản th� ch� dựa trên các thành tựu và mục tiêu cá nhân ch� quan. Trên tất c�, với Kierkegaard (hay Anti Climacus), the sickness unto death là s� chối b� các các giá tr� tinh thần tâm linh của Christianity. Bạn có th� không đồng ý với Kierkegaard vì bạn không tin vào các giá tr� Thiên Chúa, thậm chí t� nhận mình là người vô thần, nhưng có l� bạn khó có th� ph� nhận rằng, một thời điểm nào đó, bạn nhận ra rằng trong xã hội hiện đại, càng với các tiến b� tột cùng của khoa học k� thuật và đời sống vật chất, con người dường như càng hoang mang và lạc lối trong đời sống tinh thần, càng cảm giác thiếu đi một giá tr� tâm linh nào đó c� th� đ� bấu víu. Giữa một xã hội công nghiệp và thương mại hóa, con người dường như càng không d� tr� lời cho câu hỏi mình thực s� là ai và giá tr� gì của bản thân thực s� là riêng biệt và thực chất giữa hàng trăm nghìn các tài khoản mạng xã hội ảo thật gi� lẫn lộn. Mình có thực là con người mà mình trưng lên facebook, instagram, goodreads...cho mọi người chiêm ngưỡng. Và nếu không tin vào giáo lý Christianity, vậy thì bạn chọn cho mình điều gì là mục tiêu của cuộc sống tinh thần tâm linh nếu không đơn thuần ch� là s� thỏa mãn v� vật chất và dục vọng? Đối với Kierkegaard, s� thất bại cho việc tr� lời các câu hỏi đó, chính là The Sickness Unto Death. Giống như khi Nietzsche tuyên b� God is Dead, ông không có ý rằng Chúa không tồn tại. Ngược lại, Chúa đã tồn tại và có ý nghĩa với cuộc sống tinh thần của con người trong quá kh�. Nhưng cùng với s� phát triển của xã hội hiện đại : God is dead, God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? (The Gay Science).
August 14, 2020
"Tüm hastalıkların en kötüsü olan hastalığın [umutsuzluk] benim için en korkunç işareti, onun gizemidir. Yalnızca bu hastalığı ondan acı çekenden saklamak için gösterilen arzular ve iyi niyetli gayretler değil, yalnızca bu hastalığın hiç kimse farkına varmadan insanın içine yerleşmesi değil, aynı zamanda bu hastalığın insanın içine onun varlığını hiç bilmeden çok iyi bir biçimde saklanabilmesidir. Ve kum saati, dünyanın kum saati boşaldı ve yüzyılın tüm gürültüleri sustu; çılgın ve kısır çabamız bitti, yakınlarına gelince, sonsuzlukta olduğu gibi - erkeğin veya kadının, zenginin veya yoksulun, kölenin veya efendinin, mutlunun veya mutsuzun olduğu gibi- her şey sessizlik içindedir; başın ister tacın pırıltısını taşısın ister basit insanların arasında kaybolsun, ister yalnızca günlerin sıkıntılarına ve alın terlerine sahip ol, ister dünya durduğu sürece ünün yüceltilsin, ister isimsiz ve unutulmuş olarak sayısüz kalabalıkların içinde kaybol, ister seni kaplayan bu görkem tüm insansal betimlemeleri aşsın, ister insanlar, ne olursan ol seni yargıların en acısı, en alçaltıcısı ile vursunlar, sonsuzluk milyonlarca benzerinden her biri için olduğu gibi senin için de tek bir konuda bilgiyle donanacaktır: Yaşamının umutsuz olup olmadığı ve umutsuzsa bunu bilip bilmediğin veya bu umutsuzluğu bir kaygı gizi gibj, suçlu bir aşkın meyvesi gibi içine sokup sokmadığın veya umutsuz olarak ve diğerlerine nefret duyarak öfkeye kapılıp kapılmadığın konusunda. Ve eğer yaşamın yalnızca umutsuzluğu taşıyorsa gerisinin hiçbir önemi yoktur! İster zaferler isterse yenilgiler söz konusu olsun, senin için her şey kaybedilmiştir, sonsuzluk seni artık hiç içine almaz, seni hiç tanımamıştır veya daha da kötüsü seni tanırken seni kendi ben'ine, umutsuzluğun ben'ine çiviler!" (s.37)
İnsanın (varsa/farkındaysa) umutsuzluğunun biçimlerini, kendisini ve "eksikliklerini" (bu yönde bir istek olması halinde) tanımlamasına veya sorgulamasına yardım edebilecek/tetikleyebilecek bir eser. Hıristiyan perspektifinin (şahsi kanaatime göre çok) baskın kalması, psikolojik/felsefik tarafın kuvvetini biraz zayıflatsa da teolojik yönden de ilginç bir kaynak oluşmasına vesile olmuş gibi duruyor. Sayfa sayısı yönünden az gibi dursa da sindire sindire okumayı gerektiren bir dil mevcut.
7/10
İnsanın (varsa/farkındaysa) umutsuzluğunun biçimlerini, kendisini ve "eksikliklerini" (bu yönde bir istek olması halinde) tanımlamasına veya sorgulamasına yardım edebilecek/tetikleyebilecek bir eser. Hıristiyan perspektifinin (şahsi kanaatime göre çok) baskın kalması, psikolojik/felsefik tarafın kuvvetini biraz zayıflatsa da teolojik yönden de ilginç bir kaynak oluşmasına vesile olmuş gibi duruyor. Sayfa sayısı yönünden az gibi dursa da sindire sindire okumayı gerektiren bir dil mevcut.
7/10
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November 7, 2016The following is an essay I wrote about the book for my philosophy class which briefly summarizes its main ideas.
The Disrupted “Self� as a Cause of All Despair
According to Kierkegaard’s work “The Sickness unto Death�
The Disrupted “Self� as a Cause of All Despair
According to Kierkegaard’s work “The Sickness unto Death�
Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish writer who lived in the 19th century. During his lifetime Kierkegaard published numerous works which have come to represent the earliest form of philosophical existentialism. Well before Nietzsche and Sartre, Kierkegaard was less concerned about proving or disproving the outside world, but rather focused on the fundamental discomfort every human being experiences when attempting to relate to it. This discomfort which Kierkegaard called “despair� and some other philosophers “anxiety� or “nausea�, became the axis of existentialist thought, which inevitably had to shift its attention inwardly to the human “self�. But what is the “self�? Kierkegaard answered this question in the very first lines of his work “The Sickness unto Death� - “The self is a relation which relates to itself, or that in the relation which is its relating to itself�. The question then arises - how does the “self� give rise to despair?
Kierkegaard attributed the humanly condition of despair to the “self�, in other words the source of despair is the “self�. The self is in itself a relation, a synthesis and precisely this synthesis holds the possibility of despair. This is because the synthesis is made of opposites which if imbalanced become despair. The relation which relates to this synthesis is what determines whether this possibility will become actuality or not. According to Kierkegaard, to have this possibility is a merit, it is what proves the divinity of the human self and what separates the man from the beast. However to actually be in despair is a descent rather than an ascent, and in Christianity it is a sin (“sin is: before God, or with God, in despair not wanting to be oneself, or wanting in despair to be oneself�). In despair the relation continuously causes an imbalance in the synthesis, having let go of God and thus blindly attempting to destroy the “self� and replace it with an artificial sense of self. It does so by playing with the opposites which constitute the “self�. In “The Sickness unto Death� Kierkegaard gives two examples of how the despair expresses itself in the context of the self being imbalanced between infinitude and finitude and between possibility and necessity, because after all “no form of despair can be defined directly, but only with reference to its opposite�. In an imbalance, when one opposite dominates the other, it becomes impossible to become a wholesome self. In the case of infinitude and finitude, if the person loses himself in fantasy and imagination (infinitude) he steers too far away from his “self�, but on the other hand if he gives up all of that to be dominated by wordily things only (finitude) he will not be able to be a true “self� either. Hence the balance in the synthesis is vital to the human “self�. So why does the relation struggle to relate to the synthesis and thus disrupts the divine balance and brings about despair? According to Kierkegaard this seemingly irrational destruction of oneself stems from the self not being grounded in God.
One way in which the self cannot be grounded in God, is if the self is ignorant of God, i.e. it is impossible to conceive the self as a spirit which is able to despair without the knowledge of God. Despite this, this type of despair is very common and least recognized among people, not surprisingly since the person suffering is himself ignorant of it, hence he claims that he is fine and is likely to be a functioning and accomplished member of society. Not only is such a person blind to his own despair, but he does not want to recognize it, because he is comfortable in such a vegetative state, in Kierkegaard’s words, “the dread in a spiritless person is recognizable precisely in his spiritless sense of security�. He feels secure, because such a despair is also least intense, since the person is numb to it. He does not display any symptoms, yet he is sick all the same, “he feels best, considers himself at his healthiest, can appear to others to be in the pink of condition, just when the illness is at its most critical�. So even though the person mutes the painful awareness of his own despair, as a shuddersome consequence he remains unable to heal from it as long as he remains ignorant. Kierkegaard recognized such a despair among pagans, whose self is not grounded transparently in God and thus remains unaccountable.
However a person can also claim to be in despair, so he is (or thinks he is) conscious of his own suffering, and yet does not step out of such a state. Such despair is either “the despair of not wanting to be oneself� or “the despair of wanting in despair to be oneself�. The first one is born from weakness, while the latter one is weakness transformed into defiance, or the feminine despair overtaken by the masculine. If we follow the increasing degree of consciousness one has about the nature of the self, we have to start by examining the despair of weakness first. Despair of the immediate falls under this category. A person despairing over the immediate claims he is in despair, despite being unable to detect it correctly - “he stands there pointing to something that is not despair, explaining that he is in despair, and yet, sure enough, the despair is going on behind him unawares�. Why can’t such a person see the true despair? Because he despairs over worldly things, while the self is eternal (“next to God there is nothing so eternal as a self�), so he is unable to see anything which does not manifest itself externally, an image which is infinitely comical to Kierkegaard. Yet the dissatisfaction eats him from the inside and the only tool he has in combating it, is fantasy. Through his fantasy he wishes to get rid of whatever self he conceives of, and acquire a new self. This illusion that one can slip into a new self, like into a pair of new pants is destroyed by reflection. Once a person recognizes the fact that the self is eternal, the illusion of becoming something else is shattered. This understanding is so devastating, that most people cannot move past it and resort to a certain passivity of just not wanting to be oneself. Thus they get stuck in what Kierkegaard referred to as “immediacy with a little dash of reflection added�. Their consciousness is elevated from that of weakness to that of recognition of its own weakness, however the spirit remains chained, the person cannot accept his true self.
The despair of not wanting to be oneself, as we discussed, is despair of worldly things and externalities. However once a person undergoes a shift of focus from the immediate to the eternal, the despair of passivity becomes active. Such a despair “comes not from the outside in the form of passivity in the face of external pressure, but directly from the self�. In other words, this kind of despair becomes conscious of having an eternal self and now wants in despair to be itself. It is hypnotized by its own eternity, however it misuses it by in wanting to be itself, clinging on to it, and not letting go (having faith) and losing itself in eternity in order to win itself. Kierkegaard writes of such despair: “the self wants in despair to rule over himself, or create himself, make this self the self he wants to be, determine what he will have and what he will not have in his concrete self�. Such a controlling self cannot lose itself in eternity, it does not have faith in God, because it does not know what a self, grounded transparently in the power which created it, will look like. It is obsessed with creating a perfect self, the despair is at the height of its fever. It is so intense and relentless that it is almost demonic (according to Kierkegaard demonic despair is the most intense despair because the fallen angel is fully conscious of itself). It derives pleasure of being its own master, however it continuously contradicts itself, by trying to be a self it consequently becomes no self.
In his book “The Sickness unto Death� Kierkegaard discussed in detail all the types of despair that plague people. The self being the source of all despair; Kierkegaard pointed to the disrupted relation’s relating to the self to define its intensity. In fact the key message of the human condition of despair is expressed in the title of the book. “The Sickness� refers to despair, and “unto Death� indicates that the only way to escape it, is to die. But this is not “death� in the physical sense, but death in a more theological/Christian understanding. One could say it is the death of the artificial self. Overall the despair is the disrupted self’s struggle to die, but once one acquires faith, he is no longer clinging unto that false sense of security. This is when the self undergoes a transformation, becomes grounded in God and its enlightenment destroys despair.
April 22, 2016
What is it about great books that make us feel as though, even on ours first read, we have read them before? They come to us already familiar. Their profundity seems to have bubbled over and dribbled down into the culture. Over time such books exert an oblique influence on our paradigms so that soon enough, to pick one example, we unwittingly assume Cartesian suppositions about the self without even having read Descartes� Meditations. The Sickness unto Death seems to be one such “great book,� for I can only explain its peculiar familiarity by its stature and influence. It has undoubtedly had a formative role to play in Sartre’s and Heidegger’s thinking, and the existentialists in general are heavily indebted to it. My interest in that particular drift of thought has in some sense initiated me into Kierkegaard’s own piercing way of writing, for it is the shared goal (perhaps the only shared goal) of existentialist writers to “awaken� the reader into an awareness of their own individual, self-responsible existence.
It is interesting to read SUD from a position of acquaintance with those thinkers who have secularized Kierkegaard’s insights. I found that Kierkegaard’s explicit Christianity made the “existential� dimension of the book more immediate and gripping. At the same time, though, I am able to see more clearly how Kierkegaard’s particular religious conviction frames his analysis of selfhood in a way that raises an important concern, namely, his exclusive focus on personal salvation. Where does good old neighbour-love enter in? It seems that something significant is missing from the picture, and if we are to be cautious we must decide for now that Kierkegaard’s myopic vision for individual salvation precludes a “prescriptive� interpretation of the work as a whole. To be sure, it would not be too far off to call SUD a “self-help book,� for the bent of the analysis is an elucidation of despair for the sake of the reader’s own “upbuilding.� I wonder, though, how far such elucidation can go in the task of personal upbuilding?
Kierkegaard’s analysis also brings up a profound and deeply unsettling question without giving us any assurance of an answer (leaving us without assurance was indeed part of the point). It seems that the most compelling and important question to ask after reading SUD is, quite strangely: “Did God do the right thing in creating us? Is being a self worth it?� Or, framed more religiously: “Is it worth it, to be separate from God?� Being a “self� is the condition of possibility for rejecting salvation, as Kierkegaard has shown so clearly � it is even possible that a self can knowingly reject salvation (“there is no obscurity that could serve as a mitigating excuse�), which is far stranger and of more profound importance than the insight that we can unknowingly reject salvation. We are then inclined to ask, are these conditions of possibility worth it? Can we handle our selfhood, our radical freedom? Free will is a curse on those who misuse it, to be sure � being a self is the possibility of real danger. But free will is a blessing on those who use it right, and so being a self is also the conditions of possibility for real joy. So, once again: is the risk worth it?
We must admit, there is no way to judge.
All we can say is that right now we are, in a carefully qualified sense, separate from God: “God, who constituted man as a relation, releases it from his hand, as it were.� This means that we can relate ourselves to ourselves in such a way that we interpret ourselves as actually separate from God � we thus interpret ourselves into our own damnation. Or we can do the opposite and interpret ourselves as grounded in God � we can have faith, and in this way allow God to save us from damnation.
Yet this leads to a new question: how could damnation be predicated upon the inwardness/closedness of the self, which is the very thing which cuts off the hope for salvation? This is the greatest Catch-22 of all time! Dostoyevsky voices the same chilling complaint to God in Ivan Karamazov’s poem “The Grand Inquisitor.� Humans, he says, are for the most part too weak for their freedom � why then give it to them at all? They will be stuck in this Catch-22 forever. We cannot answer this question in any definite sense, and at best we can read SUD with a renewed appreciation of the depth of our choices.
It is interesting to read SUD from a position of acquaintance with those thinkers who have secularized Kierkegaard’s insights. I found that Kierkegaard’s explicit Christianity made the “existential� dimension of the book more immediate and gripping. At the same time, though, I am able to see more clearly how Kierkegaard’s particular religious conviction frames his analysis of selfhood in a way that raises an important concern, namely, his exclusive focus on personal salvation. Where does good old neighbour-love enter in? It seems that something significant is missing from the picture, and if we are to be cautious we must decide for now that Kierkegaard’s myopic vision for individual salvation precludes a “prescriptive� interpretation of the work as a whole. To be sure, it would not be too far off to call SUD a “self-help book,� for the bent of the analysis is an elucidation of despair for the sake of the reader’s own “upbuilding.� I wonder, though, how far such elucidation can go in the task of personal upbuilding?
Kierkegaard’s analysis also brings up a profound and deeply unsettling question without giving us any assurance of an answer (leaving us without assurance was indeed part of the point). It seems that the most compelling and important question to ask after reading SUD is, quite strangely: “Did God do the right thing in creating us? Is being a self worth it?� Or, framed more religiously: “Is it worth it, to be separate from God?� Being a “self� is the condition of possibility for rejecting salvation, as Kierkegaard has shown so clearly � it is even possible that a self can knowingly reject salvation (“there is no obscurity that could serve as a mitigating excuse�), which is far stranger and of more profound importance than the insight that we can unknowingly reject salvation. We are then inclined to ask, are these conditions of possibility worth it? Can we handle our selfhood, our radical freedom? Free will is a curse on those who misuse it, to be sure � being a self is the possibility of real danger. But free will is a blessing on those who use it right, and so being a self is also the conditions of possibility for real joy. So, once again: is the risk worth it?
We must admit, there is no way to judge.
All we can say is that right now we are, in a carefully qualified sense, separate from God: “God, who constituted man as a relation, releases it from his hand, as it were.� This means that we can relate ourselves to ourselves in such a way that we interpret ourselves as actually separate from God � we thus interpret ourselves into our own damnation. Or we can do the opposite and interpret ourselves as grounded in God � we can have faith, and in this way allow God to save us from damnation.
Yet this leads to a new question: how could damnation be predicated upon the inwardness/closedness of the self, which is the very thing which cuts off the hope for salvation? This is the greatest Catch-22 of all time! Dostoyevsky voices the same chilling complaint to God in Ivan Karamazov’s poem “The Grand Inquisitor.� Humans, he says, are for the most part too weak for their freedom � why then give it to them at all? They will be stuck in this Catch-22 forever. We cannot answer this question in any definite sense, and at best we can read SUD with a renewed appreciation of the depth of our choices.
October 23, 2021
Ovo je jedna od težih knjiga koje sam do sada pročitao, bez obzira na njene malene gabarite. Nije u pitanju nivo neprobojnosti Jakoba Bemea, niti loši i nezgrapni spisi Aristotela ili Hegela, pa ipak je teško na svoj način. Teško je zbog apsurda kojim se bavi i apsurdnog rečnika kojim to saopštava.
I što je najčudnije - teže je o ovoj knjizi pričati/pisati nego je razumeti. Naravno, čim o njoj ne mogu sa sigurnošću pričati, znači da dosta toga jeste ostalo neprobojno za mene, ovde i sada, i poziva na još koje čitanje, što će svakako i biti slučaj, ipak... dok moj razum baš ne uspeva do kraja da presloži utiske i pouke i to prenese bilo kome, moja duša kao da je razumela sve ovo.
U sledećoj Kjrekegorovoj knjizi koju čitam to postaje još jasnije, no već ovde sasvim je očigledno - čovek je postao previše mekan za religiju, za veru, za Boga, za apsolut. Niče i svi kritičari su pogrešili, kritikujući opštu, narodsku religiju sa idejom da je ona za slabiće, robove, umorne, prosečne... i dok je sve to tačno, svi takvi kritičari zaboravili su ili nisu bili sposobni da dobace dotle, do onog krajnjeg, graničnog stanja ljudskog postojanja, do susreta sa večnošću, pa makar u tumačenju tog susreta došli do zaključka da je večnost - ništa, ali zaista doživeti to granično stanje, ne razumom, ne logikom, ne emocijom, nego punoćom svoje egzistencije. Stajati ogoljen, oljušten kao truli luk, sve do poslednjeg, zdravog sloja, centra, nije za slabiće i robove.
Čovek je kroz vekove postao sve manje sposoban za taj susret. Nikada i nije bio, u proseku, sposoban za to, ali je, čini se, baš zbog tehnološkog napretka koji nije ispraćen duhovnim rastom, već baš suprotno - potpunim opadanjem, je doveo do mekanog, razmaženog i za pravu duhovnost nesposobno čovečanstva. Čovečanstvo koje ni iz svih svojih m,ilijardi danas ne bi moglo iznedriti ni tuce duhovnika u punom smislu te reči - iako je uvek, u svakom trenutku, u svakom dobu, svaki čovek sposoban za to, iako je to zapravo jedina njegova sudbina. Ova knjiga je o tome. O susretu sa apsolutom. O stajanju pred bogom. O očajanju kada tog susreta nema. O očajanju kada taj susret želimo. O očajanju kada taj susret ne želimo. O očajanju kada taj susret imamo. O očajanju.
"Greh je onda pred bogom očajnički ne želeti biti samim sobom ili očajnički želeti biti samim sobom."
I što je najčudnije - teže je o ovoj knjizi pričati/pisati nego je razumeti. Naravno, čim o njoj ne mogu sa sigurnošću pričati, znači da dosta toga jeste ostalo neprobojno za mene, ovde i sada, i poziva na još koje čitanje, što će svakako i biti slučaj, ipak... dok moj razum baš ne uspeva do kraja da presloži utiske i pouke i to prenese bilo kome, moja duša kao da je razumela sve ovo.
U sledećoj Kjrekegorovoj knjizi koju čitam to postaje još jasnije, no već ovde sasvim je očigledno - čovek je postao previše mekan za religiju, za veru, za Boga, za apsolut. Niče i svi kritičari su pogrešili, kritikujući opštu, narodsku religiju sa idejom da je ona za slabiće, robove, umorne, prosečne... i dok je sve to tačno, svi takvi kritičari zaboravili su ili nisu bili sposobni da dobace dotle, do onog krajnjeg, graničnog stanja ljudskog postojanja, do susreta sa večnošću, pa makar u tumačenju tog susreta došli do zaključka da je večnost - ništa, ali zaista doživeti to granično stanje, ne razumom, ne logikom, ne emocijom, nego punoćom svoje egzistencije. Stajati ogoljen, oljušten kao truli luk, sve do poslednjeg, zdravog sloja, centra, nije za slabiće i robove.
Čovek je kroz vekove postao sve manje sposoban za taj susret. Nikada i nije bio, u proseku, sposoban za to, ali je, čini se, baš zbog tehnološkog napretka koji nije ispraćen duhovnim rastom, već baš suprotno - potpunim opadanjem, je doveo do mekanog, razmaženog i za pravu duhovnost nesposobno čovečanstva. Čovečanstvo koje ni iz svih svojih m,ilijardi danas ne bi moglo iznedriti ni tuce duhovnika u punom smislu te reči - iako je uvek, u svakom trenutku, u svakom dobu, svaki čovek sposoban za to, iako je to zapravo jedina njegova sudbina. Ova knjiga je o tome. O susretu sa apsolutom. O stajanju pred bogom. O očajanju kada tog susreta nema. O očajanju kada taj susret želimo. O očajanju kada taj susret ne želimo. O očajanju kada taj susret imamo. O očajanju.
"Greh je onda pred bogom očajnički ne želeti biti samim sobom ili očajnički želeti biti samim sobom."
February 16, 2017
"sonlu varlığı ve sonsuz varlığı arasına sıkışan insan 'kendi olma' sürecini umutsuzluk içinde yaşar."
"umutsuzluğun özü yaşamın hiçbir şey olmamasıdır."
Kitap müthişti. Bu kadar etkileneceğimi hiç tahmin etmeden başlamıştım. Kısacık gibi görünse de bir süre sonra daha yavaş okumak düşünmek ve içselleştirmek istiyorsunuz. Umutsuzluğun hayatın içinde, Tanrının da insanın içinde varolduğu gerçeği ile yaptığımız yapacağımız her şeyin ve işleyeceğimiz tüm günahların bizi umutsuzluk içinde bırakmasıyla olumsuzlukların başladığı ve hayatın gerçeğinin aslında bu olumsuzluklarla bezeli olduğu, sizi artık sadece umutsuzlukla mücadele edilmemesi gerektiği yönünde durma sağlamalıdır. Bunu anlatırken aslında hayatın sürekliliğine dair umut aşılayan yegane kitap olabilir elinizdeki kitap... Özenle tüketiniz..
"umutsuzluğun özü yaşamın hiçbir şey olmamasıdır."
Kitap müthişti. Bu kadar etkileneceğimi hiç tahmin etmeden başlamıştım. Kısacık gibi görünse de bir süre sonra daha yavaş okumak düşünmek ve içselleştirmek istiyorsunuz. Umutsuzluğun hayatın içinde, Tanrının da insanın içinde varolduğu gerçeği ile yaptığımız yapacağımız her şeyin ve işleyeceğimiz tüm günahların bizi umutsuzluk içinde bırakmasıyla olumsuzlukların başladığı ve hayatın gerçeğinin aslında bu olumsuzluklarla bezeli olduğu, sizi artık sadece umutsuzlukla mücadele edilmemesi gerektiği yönünde durma sağlamalıdır. Bunu anlatırken aslında hayatın sürekliliğine dair umut aşılayan yegane kitap olabilir elinizdeki kitap... Özenle tüketiniz..
January 4, 2013
I have to say an extraordinary piece of philosophy. And the most serious work I came across concerning Christianity. Kierkegaard's words simplified a lot of concepts about despair, and also translated our emotions and our awareness of the self and how complex that is. I don't think that its difficult to read, the matter discussed is deep yes but the way the author had delivered it was elegant. The book is a page-turner no doubt, Soren Kierkegaard is sure a genius and he was not the type of authors of whom you can sense that they're skeptic or timid toward their own work.
April 14, 2008
A self is a self that relates to itself -- says Barnacle Bill the Sailor.
No wonder Sweden hated Denmark until recently.
The quintessential 'brooding Dane' makes Hamlet seem like Milton Berle.
He makes Aristotle and Plato seem relevant in comparison.
Not recommended for anyone who has something constructive to do or works with sharp objects.
No wonder Sweden hated Denmark until recently.
The quintessential 'brooding Dane' makes Hamlet seem like Milton Berle.
He makes Aristotle and Plato seem relevant in comparison.
Not recommended for anyone who has something constructive to do or works with sharp objects.
March 25, 2020
- A muri moartea înseamnă a trăi, a proba trăind faptul de a muri: și a putea trăi în această stare pentru o singură clipă înseamnă a trăi în vesnc. Omului i este insuportabil faptul că nu se poate elibera de sine însuși.- Kierkegaard are o filosofie paradoxala fiindcă așa e și creștinismul, și pentru asta e unul dintre filosofii mei preferați.
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