Kirkegaard quote

"My head is as empty and dead as a theatre when the play is over?!"

40-42III A224

BUSTLING ACTIVITY ON THE SINKING SHIP

BUSTLING ACTIVITY ON THE SINKING SHIP

What is funny about extreme busyness amid extreme danger?

Insofar as money is a something, the relativity between richer and poorer is not comic, but if it is token money, it is comic that it is a relativity. If the reason for people's hustle-bustle is a possibility of avoiding danger, the busyness is not comic; but if, for example, it is on a ship that is sinking, there is something comic in all this running around, because the contradiction is that despite all this movement they are not moving away from the site of their downfall.

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to

Philosophical Fragments 1:555 (KW 12)

[Voice: Johannes Climacus]

Soren A Kierkegaard embarged on a review of the emerging church.

It was only the other day that Soren A Kierkegaard embarged on a review of the emerging church.

He was reminded of his earlier thoughts in as much as the community was transforming in to a theatrical exsistance and stage sets.

He had concluded that society no longer consisted of individuals or groups devided in to social hierarchy. Its make up was of an undifferentiated mass, " the public". He had concluded that the mass "the public" was most dangerous and significant in power.

It , "The Public" would march as soon as someone said march! It would never ask the least of questions which could make it seen as the power more or less proportionate to its state of anonymity..

Story from Kierkegaard continues at Hiland praise.

"Nor can it be lack of exercise for I walk all day long"

I like the story of Kierkegaard going to his doctor as he says in a journal entry 1845. he had complained about being out of sorts.The doctors reply was "You have probable drunk too much coffee and you don't walk enough!" Three weeks later he was speaking once more to the doctor "I really do not feel well" Soren said " But it cannot be the coffee, for I do not drink coffee." "Nor can it be lack of exercise for I walk all day long". "So the reason must be that you don't drink coffee and you walk too much!" the doctor replied. Soren concluded his infirmity was on him because he drank coffee or if he didn't drink coffee his infirmity was because of that. He reckoned that this was a human affliction that all had to deal with.

SK in reflection of himself summer 1848

."..oh, if there is a time and a place for jokes in eternity, I am convinced that the idea of my thin legs and my trousers, which have been the object of ridicule, will be my blessed amusement. In Eternity,-but, mind you, not a second before. " SK in reflection of himself summer 1848 after feeling the strain of the conflict with the magazine The Corsair.

I ask: what does it mean when we continue to behave as though all were as it should be, calling ourselves Christians according to the New Testament, when the ideals of the New Testament have gone out of life? The tremendous disproportion which this state of affairs represents has, moreover, been perceived by many. They like to give it this turn: the human race has outgrown Christianity.

sak 1852

Does miscommunication elicit comedy?

Does miscommunication elicit comedy? When the Word became pork. When a German-Danish pastor declares, “the Word became pork( Fleisch)”this is comic. The comic is not just the ordinary contradiction that arises when someone speaks a foreign language he does not know and evoke by the words an effect totally different from the one he wants. But because he is pastor and he is preaching the contraindication is sharpened, since in a pastor's discourse speaking is used only in a more special sense, and the least that is assumed as a given is that he can speak the language. More over, the nontraditional strays into ethical territory: a person may innocently make himself guilty of blasphemy. Concluding Unscientific postscripts

It wasn't until December 1837 that Kierkegaard realised that he was defending Christianity from outwith it.

He said If Christ is to come in to his life it must be according to the Scriptures.

It would seem that he came in through locked doors.

On 18 May1838 he had an experience which represented a new beginning a "prodigal's return".

Later he said " I mean to have a more inward relation to Christianity".

Aren't people absurd! They refuse to use the freedom they do have; but demand those they don't have. They have freedom of thought! They demand freedom of speech.

SK

Soren's approach to God is an interesting one which sits firmly with the notion you must love God first then your fellow man.

This love from a Christian standpoint is commanded: but the commandment of love is the old commandment which is always new.
His approach is very much to cultivate a God relationship. A God filled life...a Zoe life.

Soren A Kierkegaard

To reduplicate is to be what one says.

SK 1848

“Fear and Trembling” has three problems.
Problem 1

Is there a teleological suspension of the ethical?
(Is conscience higher than good?)

Problem 2

Is there an absolute duty to God?
(Do we have to do what is required?)

Problem 3

Was it ethically defensible of Abraham to conceal his purpose from Sarah, from Eleazar and from Isaac?
Kierkegaard's discourse on these problems astounds me, what a mind!

A little time after Kierkegaard's exams Peter Stilling searched out Kierkegaard's teacher, a man named Brochner. Stilling reckoned that he could complete his philosophy studies in a year and a half, after all Stilling had noted Kierkegaard had not taken any more time. “Ah yes” said Brochner, “Don't fool yourself! Soren Kierkegaard was something else, he could do everything”.

I found this book on Kierkegaard balanced and helpful. It would be a good book as an introduction for a new reader. It has been available in the UK for a few years.

Its safe to say after all the different commentators have spoken, we can have them agree quickly:

that Kierkegaard was not a philosopher of the traditional sense.

Readers of Kierkegaard's work do not see clear lines of argument, he writes in a different name, then claims that it was him in directly and then critiques his own writing.!

One reason for this could be to allow and facilitate the reader to think beyond who actually wrote it i.e. Kierkegaard to a higher level.

In his work the logic is sound but not easily digested in some free like fashion.
I read his work and think this is deep and then on reading and reflection think no its quite light, in insight, strangely again on reflection I see it as even deeper than the first time!

Some cannot simply say he stood for.. and give a paragraph summary of the essence of his thinking.

Within his writing Kierkegaard's self recognition gives rise to a sequence as follows.

Aesthetic immediacy
finite common sense
Irony
ethics with irony as its incognito
Humour
religiousness with humour as its incognito
Immanenal religiousness (Socrates)
Paradox
Christianity.

“Humour is the last stage of existence- inwardness before faith”.

so
Irony to humour, to religious, to awakening, to Christianity.
Interesting?!

Christ not a martyr!

Why is it Christ cannot be called a martyr? because he was not a witness to the truth, but "the truth", and his death not martyrdom but atonement.

s.k. 49 x1 a 119

BUSTLING ACTIVITY ON THE SINKING SHIP

What is funny about extreme busyness amid extreme danger?

Insofar as money is a something, the relativity between richer and poorer is not comic, but if it is token money, it is comic that it is a relativity. If the reason for people's hustle-bustle is a possibility of avoiding danger, the busyness is not comic; but if, for example, it is on a ship that is sinking, there is something comic in all this running around, because the contradiction is that despite all this movement they are not moving away from the site of their downfall.

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to
Philosophical Fragments 1:555
S.K.

You really feel how much you lack, when you can't speak a language in the way you can your native tongue- all the differences of shade and tone.

SK 41 iii a 156

The best help in all action is-to pray; that is true genius, then one never goes wrong,

S.K

The youngest of seven children, Soren Aabye Kierkegaard was born in 1813 in Copenhagen. His sisters, mother and two of his brothers died before he was 21. His father was a sober, religious man who clouded his childhood. After seven years of study he starting criticising Christianity, the Christianity that his father advocated. It was in 1840 that he passed his theological degree.

After breaking of his engagement to Regine Olsen in 1841, he devoted himself to his writing. Kierkegaard has attracted attention from philosophers and writers, from inside and outside of the post-modern tradition.

I would appreciate comments and views from his readers on this man and his writings.