Abstract
The intention of this article is to develop considerations regarding the unity in all that constitutes the multifaceted work of Soren Kierkegaard. The guides to the subject of this investigation are the stages of existence. His work is devoted to considering the unity of all spheres in their original place, which is concrete existence. To search for this unity, Kierkegaard resumes the aesthetic element of existence, which had been abandoned since the Greeks, passing by Christianity and radicalizing itself since philosophers of subjectivity, to show that this abandon provokes the suppression of the aesthetic element, without which oneness is not possible.
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Notes
References to this unity can be found in the text, Point of View for My Work as an Author. Almeida and Valls suggest that “Kierkegaard’s work could be read as a symphony played by an orchestra. (…) Its philosophy is a chorus that needs different voices, counter points, in order to express the perfection of harmony”.
Title of Kierkegaard`s book of 1845, edited by Hilarius Bookbinder and authored by three pseudonymous authors: William Afham (In Vivo Veritas), The married man (Reflections on Marriage) and Frater Taciturnus (Guilty/Not Guilty) (Kierkegaard. Étapes sur le chemin de la vie. Paris: Gallimard, 1948).
Kierkegaard wrote a large part of his work through pseudonyms. It is not uncommon to find interpretations of Kierkegaardian’s concepts based on the parity between what is said by a pseudonym and what is said by the philosopher himself. It is this situation that is considered here to be partial.
Judge Wilhelm is the author of the constant letters in the second volume of Either/Or, and these letters are addressed to the young man, who is a character in the first volume of the same book.
In this work, the author organizes the whole of his work, dividing the production into three categories: aesthetic works (those signed by pseudonyms), religious works (signed by Kierkegaard) and intermediate works, (in reference to Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, the work where he confirms authorship of the pseudonymous works) as well as clarifying the purpose of his work, justifying the fact that the use of pseudonyms served his indirect method of communication and his intention of reaching out to the people of his time (Kierkegaard 1986).
In Fear and Trembling (Kierkegaard 1979), Johannes de Silentio affirms that he is not a philosopher; therefore, he is unable to create a system. In Edifying Discourses, Kierkegaard states that he has no authority to write sermons. This serves as an indirect form of communication, making him equal to his readers in ignorance. If his intention were to pose as an authority on the subjects, he would distance himself from the reader, as does a speaker with the use of a pulpit, which is what he does not want to do.
The Philosopher Martin Heidegger (1988) amply explored this character of existence, in the theme of Care. See, Heidegger, Being and Time, Chapter 6.
According to Kierkegaard in Postscript to Philosophical Fragments: “There are three spheres of existence: the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. The three spheres correspond to two limit zones: irony is the limit zone between aesthetic and ethical; humour, is the limit zone between ethical and religious” (Kierkegaard 2008b).
In Point of View as an Author: “I offered to the world with my left hand, Either Or (the alternative) and with the right, Two Edifying Discourses; however everyone, or nearly everyone reached with their right hand towards my left” (Kierkegaard 1986, p. 33).
At the start of the 19th century, philosophy gained the status of science, which in turn would lead to the overcoming of the sensitive (or subjective) aspects of existence. Kant proposed his critiques in attempt to achieve this status. Hegel worked at constructing a system that would embrace the totality of existence, guaranteeing the clarification of concepts. Hegel saw the possibility of overcoming the appearance of poetry that the philosophic writer could be subject to, but he felt that this movement should not abandon the aesthetic.
“The idea is the true in itself for itself, the absolute unity of the concept of objectivity. The ideal content is not other than the concept in its determinations, its real content is solely the exposition of concept, that is given in the form of an exterior being. (…) but the idea is in itself concrete, in being a concept that is free and self determining, it is in this way that it is determined and becomes reality” (Hegel 1995, pp. 348–349).
“… immediacy, indetermination, indifference, abstract negativity, pure possibility, empty tautology, substantial liberty, demonic pantheon, poetic reality, dualism between the interior and exterior, unhappy conscience, boredom and bad faith” (Binetti 2007, p. 57).
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de Feijoo, A.M.L.C., Protasio, M.M. The Rescue of the Aesthetic Character of Existence in Kierkegaard Philosophy. J Relig Health 54, 1470–1480 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-015-0026-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10943-015-0026-5