Transforming Character: The Manager and the Aesthete

  • Gregory R. Beabout
Chapter
Part of the Humanism in Business Series book series (HUBUS)

Abstract

MacIntyre describes the manager as one of three central contemporary characters; the others are the therapist and the aesthete. The aesthete is a character we meet in reading the works of S0ren Kierkegaard. MacIntyre’s interpretation of Kierkegaard emphasizes a criterionless choice. Widely criticized by Kierkegaardians, MacIntyre acknowledged the flaw in his earlier interpretation and called for more conversation. The encounter between Maclntyreans and Kierkegaardians has been fruitful. As Anthony Rudd has shown, Kierkegaard’s writing provides helpful resources for advancing the project of MacIntyre’s virtue ethics. Kierkegaard writes of the aesthete to bring about a transformation in the reader’s character and understanding of the aesthetic life. From the art of Kierkegaard’s writing we can gain insights about the art of character.

Keywords

Romantic Love Argumentative Strategy Romantic Poet High Selfishness Married Love 
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Notes

  1. 5.
    For interpretations that emphasize literary aspects of his work, in addition to the work of E. Mooney, see E. Ziolkowski (2011) The Literary Kierkegaard (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press).Google Scholar
  2. L. Mackey (1971) Kierkegaard: A Kind of Poet (Philadelphia, PA: Univeristy of Pennsylvania Press).Google Scholar
  3. 6.
    For a helpful and complete survey, see A. Rudd (2012) “Alasdair MacIntyre: A Continuing Conversation,” in J. Stewart (ed.) Kierkegaard’s Influence on Philosophy: Anglophone Philosophy (London: Ashgate), 117–134.Google Scholar
  4. 11.
    As noted earlier, Rudd (2012) traces the conversation in detail. A range of responses by Kierkegaardians to MacIntyre is found in the volume edited by J. Davenport and A. Rudd (2001). That conversation continued in various ways; see, for example, J. Lippitt (2007) “Getting the Story Straight: Kierkegaard, MacIntyre, and Some Problems with Narrative,” Inquiry 50:1, 34–69.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  5. D. Mooney (2007) On S0ren Kierkegaard: Dialogue, Polemics, Lost Intimacy, and Time (London: Ashgate), 120ff. I criticized MacIntyre’s interpretation of Kierkegaard in (1996) Freedom and Its Misuses: Kierkegaard on Anxiety and Despair (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press). In the “Preface to the Second Edition,” (2009), I qualified my comments about MacIntyre on p. 17.Google Scholar
  6. 12.
    A. MacIntyre (2001) “Once More on Kierkegaard,” in J. Davenport and A. Rudd (2001), 339 ff.Google Scholar
  7. 13.
    E. Mooney (2001) “The Perils of Polarity: Kierkegaard and MacIntyre in Search of Moral Truth,” in J. Davenport and A. Rudd (2001), 234.Google Scholar
  8. 15.
    S. Kierkegaard (2001) The Essential Kierkegaard (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 3–7.Google Scholar
  9. 16.
    See Sylvia Walsh’s helpful summary in (1994) Living Poetically: Kierkegaard’s Existential Aesthetics (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press). In Chapter 1, Walsh summarizes Kierkegaard’s arguments against the romanticism of Hans Christian Andersen. In Chapter 2, she summarizes Kierkegaard’s arguments against German romanticism.Google Scholar
  10. 19.
    J. Garff (2005) Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography, trans. Bruce H. Kirmmse (Princeton: Princeton University Press), 88–95.Google Scholar
  11. A. Hannay (2001) Kierkegaard: A Biography (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), 48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  12. G. Beabout (2007), 127–146; F. Jensen (2009) “Poul Martin Møller: Kierkegaard and the Confidant of Socrates,” in J. Stewart (ed.) Kierkegaard and His Danish Contemporaries — Philosophy, Politics and Social Theory, Vol. 7 (Farnham: Ashgate), 101–168.Google Scholar
  13. 21.
    Schlegel captured this when he wrote, “As his artistic ability developed and he was able to achieve with ease what he had been unable to accomplish with all his powers of exertion and hard work before, so too his life now came to be a work of art for him.” F. Schlegel (1971) Friedrich Schlegel’s Lucinde and the Fragments, trans. Peter Firchow (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press), 102, quoted in Walsh (1994), 52.Google Scholar
  14. 36.
    For examples, see R. Furtak (2010) “Kierkegaard and Platonic Eros,” in J. Stewart (ed.) Kierkegaard and the Greek World: Socrates and Plato (London: Ashgate), 105–114.Google Scholar
  15. W. McDonald (2003) “Love in Kierkegaard’s Symposia,” Minerva 7, http://www.sorenkierkegaard.nl/artikelen/Engels/090. Love in kierkegaard.pdf, accessed on 5 May 2013. U. Carlsson (2010) “Love as a Problem of Knowledge in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or and Plato’s Symposium,” Inquiry, 53, 41–57. Plato’s symposium also shapes Kierkegaard’s Stages on Life’s Way, especially “In Vino Veritas.”Google Scholar
  16. 41.
    B. Barlow (1998) “Absence and Presence: The Religious and Psychological Meaning of ‘The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air,’” Religious Studies and Theology, 17, 2, 20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
  17. 42.
    S. Kierkegaard (1997) “The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air,” in Without Authority, trans. H. and E. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press).Google Scholar
  18. 45.
    A. MacIntyre (2001), 355. He concludes his essay, “May the conversation continue!”Google Scholar

Copyright information

© Gregory R. Beabout 2013

Authors and Affiliations

  • Gregory R. Beabout
    • 1
  1. 1.Saint Louis UniversityUSA

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