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#8766 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Wed Dec 16, 2009 11:08 pm
Subject: RE: [Kierkegaardians] Eight answers to eight questions
nancyanddonray
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JimR, you said:
Don, I think your difficulty in understanding my view is related to your difficulty in identifying a stable sphere between the aesthetic and the religious.

You seem to continually want to either reduce the ethical sphere to the aesthetic sphere (calling it "Hegelian" and "first ethics"), or inflate it to the religious sphere (calling it "second ethics"). You don't seem to have a stable position for the subjectivity of such diverse characters as Judge William, Socartes, and the tragic heroes of F&T.

I hear K saying that life is not about staking out a position. Staking out a position is or easily becomes playing God. It becomes the game, “I know more than you know” or “I know and you don’t” therefore “I am very important.” It is like I now know so I can just sit back and relax and laugh at all the poor schmuck’s who don’t have a clue. I admit I am often guilty of playing this game. More than I like to admit.

 

In reality I am always already one of the poor schmucks. I do not know and I cannot know. My job is to believe but not in a position but to be constantly open to the unknown, it’s possibilities, it’s surprises, it’s changeableness, it’s changing of me. I am not committed to any-thing but I am committed to that which is higher and that can change me. My work is to live in the universal yet always aware that it is limited and there is something higher. It is to live in openness, open to possibility. My task is to keep all things and yet no-thing within me.

 

I am not the aesthetic ideal nor the ethical ideal nor the religious ideal. I am some mixture of all of them even when and if I deny one or the other. The spheres are the ideal. K’s characters, including the judge, Socrates, the aesthete and all the rest are ideal types. Beyond that I don’t know. Come to think of it, “I know squat,” to quote a friend. I am always trying to figure out these ideals but it keeps alluding me.

 

But you knew this didn’t you?

 

 

Don

 

,___


#8765 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Wed Dec 16, 2009 10:28 pm
Subject: RE: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
nancyanddonray
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All, I want to give my answer to the now famous or infamous 8 questions. I could go through them one by one but that is not necessary. My answer to all 8 is, “I do not know!” The floor is now open for discussion I believe.

Don

 

From: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com [mailto:kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Don Anderson
Sent: Monday, December 14, 2009 2:03 PM
To: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian

 

 

1.       Is there a difference between subjectivity and subjective thinking?

2.       If so, which comes first in the experience of the human being – subjectivity or subjective thinking?

3.       Is subjectivity not particular?

4.        Is subjective thinking not universal?

5.       Which is closest to the truth of the matter, the particular or the universal?

6.       Are they then the same thing?” or to put it another way, “Are they totally congruent?”

7.       Can they ever be made to be congruent?

8.       If they cannot be made congruent in our consciousness which of the two are we going to look to for the maximum truth? Hint: Hegel chose one side and K chose the other.

 

don

 

 


#8764 From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@...>
Date: Wed Dec 16, 2009 5:14 am
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Eight answers to eight questions
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Looking forward to your answers, Don. Thanks for posing good questions.

Jim R

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 3:56 PM, Don Anderson <don@...> wrote:
 

All,

 want to send a big Mahalo to both Jim’s for answering my eight questions. I am tempted to give each of you a letter grade J but I told Kenneth the other day, I think in a conversation we had off forum, that we don’t give or get letter grades here so I will stick to that, LOL. I will in due time give my answers to the questions but that will take another day or two. Happy holidays and Aloha.

Don


#8763 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2009 8:56 pm
Subject: Eight answers to eight questions
nancyanddonray
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All,

 want to send a big Mahalo to both Jim’s for answering my eight questions. I am tempted to give each of you a letter grade J but I told Kenneth the other day, I think in a conversation we had off forum, that we don’t give or get letter grades here so I will stick to that, LOL. I will in due time give my answers to the questions but that will take another day or two. Happy holidays and Aloha.

Don

 


#8762 From: "jimstuart46" <jjimstuart@...>
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2009 5:39 pm
Subject: Eight answers to eight questions
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Don,

Here are my answers to your eight questions. Hopefully this will advance the
issue.

1.Is there a difference between subjectivity and subjective thinking?

Yes, for K, subjectivity or inwardness is a term used for the overall spiritual
condition of the human being. The more subjectivity the better, according to K.

Subjective thinking is thinking in which the single individual involves himself
in his thinking and is aware of himself in his relation to his thinking. He
thinkins his thoughts with infinite passion and with infinite concern for his
eternal happiness.

2.If so, which comes first in the experience of the human being – subjectivity
or subjective thinking?

I would say they come into existence at roughly the same time – when the
individual advances from the immediate aesthetic and towards the ethical.

3.Is subjectivity not particular?

Each single individual has his own particular, unique, subjectivity.

4.Is subjective thinking not universal?

Any act of subjective thinking is a particular. To the extent that the thinker
thinks in concepts/thoughts/language, his acts of subjective thinking involve a
universal element.

5.Which is closest to the truth of the matter, the particular or the universal?

I think this is a poorly framed question. K advocates "truth as inwardness"
rather than the traditional philosophical account which advocates "truth as
knowledge".

Inwardness, at least before the leap to have faith in the absolute paradox,
involves subjective thinking.

6.Are they then the same thing?" or to put it another way, "Are they totally
congruent?"

There is a big difference between the particular and the universal. In fact they
form a dichotomy, rather like subjective v. objective or quantitative v.
qualitative.

7.Can they ever be made to be congruent?

No, but I would say that they are both necessary aspects of human existence.

8.If they cannot be made congruent in our consciousness which of the two are we
going to look to for the maximum truth? Hint: Hegel chose one side and K chose
the other.

Hegel stuck to the philosophical notion of truth as knowledge, whereas
Kierkegaard committed himself to truth as inwardness.

For K, when the single individual makes the leap to faith, his particularity
becomes so accentuated that to a large extent he has gone beyond the universal
and can no longer communicate with others. I am reminded of the following
remarkable passage from "Fear and Trembling":

"Faith's knight knows ... that it is glorious to belong to the
universal. He knows that it is beautiful and benign to be the
particular who translates himself into the universal, the one who so
to speak makes a clear and elegant edition of himself, as immaculate
as possible, and readable for all; he knows it is refreshing to
become intelligible to oneself in the universal, so that he
understands the universal and everyone who understands him
understands the universal through him in turn, and both rejoice in
the security of the universal. He knows that it is beautiful to be
born as the particular with the universal as his home, his friendly
abode, which receives him straightaway with open arms when he wishes
to stay there. But he also knows that higher up there winds a lonely
path, narrow and steep; he knows that it is terrible to be born in
solitude outside the universal, to walk without meeting a single
traveller. He knows very well where he is, and how he is related to
men. Humanly speaking he is insane, and cannot make himself
understood to anyone. And yet 'insane' is the mildest expression for
him. If he isn't viewed thus, he is a hypocrite and the higher up
the path he climbs, the more dreadful a hypocrite he becomes." (F&T, Hannay, p.
103)

Don, I think your difficulty in understanding my view is related to your
difficulty in identifying a stable sphere between the aesthetic and the
religious.

You seem to continually want to either reduce the ethical sphere to the
aesthetic sphere (calling it "Hegelian" and "first ethics"), or inflate it to
the religious sphere (calling it "second ethics"). You don't seem to have a
stable position for the subjectivity of such diverse characters as Judge
William, Socartes, and the tragic heroes of F&T.

Jim S

#8761 From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@...>
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2009 12:25 am
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
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I like your questions, Don.  Let me shoot at some answers.

In the meantime ponder the following:

1.       Is there a difference between subjectivity and subjective thinking?

Yes.
 

2.       If so, which comes first in the experience of the human being – subjectivity or subjective thinking?


Subjective thinking.  We reflect ourselves into simplicity.
 

3.       Is subjectivity not particular?


Yes, it is particular -- it is the unique particularity of the subjective individual.
 

4.        Is subjective thinking not universal?

That depends upon how you are using the word "universal."  I think some of K's thought was influenced by Kant's aesthetics, in which Kant describes a subjective universal as the ground of aesthetic experience.  If we do take K's theory of the stages at face value, it's universal in that it applies to everyone, but it only applies to everyone as individuals.  It provides general categories of thought in which we can understand our own particularities.
 

5.       Which is closest to the truth of the matter, the particular or the universal?

That's a silly question, as should be evident by my answer above.
 

6.       Are they then the same thing?” or to put it another way, “Are they totally congruent?”

A slightly less silly question.  "Particular" and "universal" are concepts.  The universal is one way of talking about the particular, the particular is one way of talking about the universal.  The universal is realized in the particular, and the particular is at least initially understood by the universal.  The universal never ceases to be true, but finds its only true expression in the particular.
 

7.       Can they ever be made to be congruent?

Answered above.
 

8.       If they cannot be made congruent in our consciousness which of the two are we going to look to for the maximum truth? Hint: Hegel chose one side and K chose the other.

I don't think you're quite right about Hegel, but I think that is how K sounds like he views Hegel at times.  The more important thing is understanding their different concepts of particular and universal.  

Jim R


#8760 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Tue Dec 15, 2009 12:03 am
Subject: Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
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JimS, you said:



I feel I answered your questions here in my two long posts to you – my posts 8692 ("Re: An answer to Kenneth's question" sent 6-12-2009 at 10:37am) and 8693 ("Second thoughts on thought and thinking" sent 6-12-2009 at 1:47pm).

Did you not notice them? Do you want me to re-send them?

I did notice them and have not forgotten them. In fact I have written several pages in response but that is not yet ready to send.

What I see in all this is a complete disconnect between your interpretation of all these matters and my interpretation.  I am looking for a way to come at it in a way that I can make you (and maybe JimR? Naah.) understand what I see that it appears you do not see. I have not yet clarified a way forward for me. When I do I will share it with you.

 

In the meantime ponder the following:

1.       Is there a difference between subjectivity and subjective thinking?

2.       If so, which comes first in the experience of the human being – subjectivity or subjective thinking?

3.       Is subjectivity not particular?

4.        Is subjective thinking not universal?

5.       Which is closest to the truth of the matter, the particular or the universal?

6.       Are they then the same thing?” or to put it another way, “Are they totally congruent?”

7.       Can they ever be made to be congruent?

8.       If they cannot be made congruent in our consciousness which of the two are we going to look to for the maximum truth? Hint: Hegel chose one side and K chose the other.

 

don

 

 


#8759 From: "jimstuart46" <jjimstuart@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 10:26 pm
Subject: Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
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Don,

I feel I answered your questions here in my two long posts to you – my posts
8692 ("Re: An answer to Kenneth's question" sent 6-12-2009 at 10:37am) and 8693
("Second thoughts on thought and thinking" sent 6-12-2009 at 1:47pm).

Did you not notice them? Do you want me to re-send them?

Jim S


--- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, "Don Anderson" <don@...> wrote:
>
> JimS, you said;
>
> Hegel's system does not allow the qualitative dialectic. .It only allows
> quantitative dialectic.
>
> What is your interpretation of the qualitative/quantitative dialectic? How is
it important to a discussion of E/O.
>
> I have said that the quantitative takes place in logic, the logic of
language and in thought in general. It is about necessary progression. The
qualitative dialectic takes place in being or existence and cannot be thought,
cannot be captured in language. It can only be believed. Are we in agreement
here?
>
> Don
>

#8758 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 9:00 pm
Subject: Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
nancyanddonray
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JimS, you said;

Hegel's system does not allow the qualitative dialectic. …It only allows quantitative dialectic.

What is your interpretation of the qualitative/quantitative dialectic? How is it important to a discussion of E/O.

I have said that the quantitative takes place in logic, the logic of language and in thought in general. It is about necessary progression. The qualitative dialectic takes place in being or existence and cannot be thought, cannot be captured in language. It can only be believed. Are we in agreement here?

Don


#8757 From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 8:56 pm
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
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Don, if there's one thing I definitely get out of K's authorship, it's that a human being is not a disembodied voice, and that the religion he believes in -- perhaps one very different from yours -- thinks the physical body is so important that even God was born into a physical body at one point in history.   While K read Plato and was influenced by the teachings of Socrates (and drew a great deal from this tradition), he was not in fact a Platonist who believed the body was an intrusion upon the soul best left behind as soon as possible. 

On a more practical level, about communication, there have been a number of studies for quite some time about the importance of physical presence to communication.  Something like over 80% of communication is non-verbal even in a conversation. 

Plus, physical presence allows you to see an individual interact with other individuals, the context of that interaction, etc. 

Jim R

On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 3:28 PM, Don Anderson <don@...> wrote:
 

JimR, you said,

I believe physical presence and developing knowledge of others over a long period of time matters.  So my answer would be yes, if we could speak Danish fluently, and travel back in time not just to meet K, but to get to know him and spend substantial amounts of time with him, maybe years, then yes, we may get to know him better than we could know him through his authorship.

 

I think it depends on the kind of knowledge you are seeking. If it is carnal knowledge then yes physical presence is rather important but is it absolutely necessary? Is physical presence necessary for spiritual knowledge? What does physical presence add? Have not many people formed close friendships, even close spiritual connections by means of long distance correspondence? I feel strongly that I have done so a number of times.

 

Don


#8756 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 8:28 pm
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
nancyanddonray
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JimR, you said,

I believe physical presence and developing knowledge of others over a long period of time matters.  So my answer would be yes, if we could speak Danish fluently, and travel back in time not just to meet K, but to get to know him and spend substantial amounts of time with him, maybe years, then yes, we may get to know him better than we could know him through his authorship.

 

I think it depends on the kind of knowledge you are seeking. If it is carnal knowledge then yes physical presence is rather important but is it absolutely necessary? Is physical presence necessary for spiritual knowledge? What does physical presence add? Have not many people formed close friendships, even close spiritual connections by means of long distance correspondence? I feel strongly that I have done so a number of times.

 

Don


#8755 From: "jimstuart46" <jjimstuart@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 5:32 pm
Subject: Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
jimstuart46
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Don,

Thank you for your reply.

Perhaps, I did not make myself clear originally, but the argument I put forward
was supposed to be a view of the situation as seen by Kierkegaard. I was engaged
in Kierkegaard interpretation, and not in Hegelian studies.

Thus again:

"Here is the bottom line:

Hegel's system does not allow the qualitative dialectic. It does not allow the
leap. It does not allow the single individual to actualise a possibility. It
only allows quantitative dialectic.

Judge William has chosen himself absolutely. Judge William has made the leap to
become an existing human being."

As your points one and three, and the first sentences of two, concern your
interpretation of Hegel, they are not relevant as criticism of my original
argument which purely concerns the interpretation of Kierkegaard.

There only remains the last sentence of your point two:

"It is not clear to me that Judge William has made a leap however."

I think Kierkegaard is a little ambiguous on this issue. Sometimes he (or his
pseudonyms) talks of the leap being something only the religious individual does
when he makes the final transition from religiousness A (immanence) to
religiousness B (transcendence).

However, elsewhere he seems to suggest that every time an individual acts, every
time an individual actualises a possibility in concreto, there is a leap.

And it is certainly in the spirit of K to talk about the leap from non-existence
to existence, which is how he describes the transition from the aesthetic to the
ethical, which is a necessary step before the individual can ascend to the level
of the religious.

Jim S

#8754 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 8:08 am
Subject: Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
nancyanddonray
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JimS,

Hegel's system does not allow the qualitative dialectic. It does not allow the leap. It does not allow the single individual to actualise a possibility. It only allows quantitative dialectic.

1. Hegel's system does not allow the qualitative dialectic. It only allows quantitative dialectic.

It depends on what you mean by “quantitative dialectic.” Hegel certainly discusses “the qualitative” and “the qualitative.”

2.  It does not allow the leap.

 Yes, this is true in the strictest sense. Hegel sees all change as following a logical sequence as I understand it now. It is not clear to me that Judge William has made a leap however.

3. It does not allow the single individual to actualise a possibility.

Hmmm, I’m not so sure about this. I think he allows that single individuals can actualize possibilities. The difference between Hegel and K is usually in the “how” and not the “what.” But you may be right.

don


#8753 From: "jimstuart46" <jjimstuart@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 7:04 am
Subject: Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
jimstuart46
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Don,

Your unreserved praise of Carlisle's book was in your post 7486:

"I want to thank you for, about a year ago, recommending the book by Claire
Carlisle called Kierkegaard's Philosophy of Becoming: Moments and Positions. I
just finished reading it and am wondering only why it took me so long to get
around to reading it. I found that it speaks very force fully to issues I have
been concerned about in Kierkegaard's philosophy, namely the question of Kinesis
(movement and change). Carlisle's book is extremely well written and very clear
in discussing this and related concepts. I think it is a must read for anyone
interested in K."

With regard to my "faulty reasoning" it seems you are not prepared to back to
your claim that "I can find fault with your reasoning", because now you write:

"I don't know what else to say. I never intended to say that E/O II was Hegelian
in every way. I am well aware that it does not believe that the Hegelian
dialectic is adequate for overcoming the aporia of existence. I did want to say
that the passages that started this thread seemed to have Hegelian elements to
them in their imminence and that is all. There is much of E/O that I must
continue to appropriate but I don't yet buy into many of the standard
assumptions about it by the commentators. This is my last word on the subject
for now."

Let me recall what I said and your initial response:

Jim S (8721): "Here is the bottom line:

Hegel's system does not allow the qualitative dialectic. It does not allow the
leap. It does not allow the single individual to actualise a possibility. It
only allows quantitative dialectic.

Judge William has chosen himself absolutely. Judge William has made the leap to
become an existing human being."

Don (8723): ""Yes I can find fault with your reasoning here but knowing how easy
it is to fall into such reasoning, having done it myself over and over again, I
hope to refrain from judgment and simply make a reply from my pov."

I think it is very unsatisfactory, Don, for you to complain that I am guilty of
faulty reasoning, then rather condescendingly to say, in effect, "oh yes, I used
to be guilty of such faulty reasoning before I saw the light", and then not to
say what my faulty reasoning is.

Are you "refraining from judgement" for my benefit? Or is it that you have no
actual criticism of my reasoning, even though you say you do?

Jim S

#8752 From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 4:33 am
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
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Don, I believe physical presence and developing knowledge of others over a long period of time matters.  So my answer would be yes, if we could speak Danish fluently, and travel back in time not just to meet K, but to get to know him and spend substantial amounts of time with him, maybe years, then yes, we may get to know him better than we could know him through his authorship.

Yes, of course I am _willing_ to believe the worst possible things about K.  The worst possible things may in fact be true.  I do not in fact think that these worst things are the truth.  I just think that they are a possibility.  The fact that I don't know K and can't means that both the best and worst ideas about him just remain possibilities -- as well as the possibility that both the best and worst ideas about him can be true at the same time.   If I were to bet, I'd bet on the latter.

That is why I framed everything as a question.  They are questions.  I wonder about these things.  I can never know.

There is nothing wrong with having an objective point of view about some things, Don.  K himself said as much in a number of places, even affirming that for some topics (like, practical matters of state), deciding by consensus is a good thing.  We're not supposed to be in a subjective passion about Everything.  Climacus repeatedly mocks in CUP those who are passionate about the wrong things and objective about the wrong things.  The point is that we're supposed to be passionate and subjective primarily, and perhaps in some ways only exclusively, about that which affects our eternal happiness.  To be passionate about anything else is to be misdirected. 

I agree wholeheartedly with Climacus on this point.  I think K does too. 

We are not supposed to be passionate about CUP and the ideas contained therein.  Climacus -- and I have already quoted him recently about this topic -- said that those who are, who quote him as an authority, misunderstand him.  It's all bound up with his claim to be a humorist at the end.  Why do you think he calls himself a humorist if he wants all his ideas taken with dead seriousness, Don? 

If you really believe this, Don:

<<An important aspect of K’s message is the notion that the only one who can know me is me and the only one who can know you is you. Whether you are a contemporary of the person or historically removed one who is outside of the subjects skin has only approximate knowledge. The self is not open to inspection by outsiders. It is hidden.>>

Then you also believe that we cannot get to know K through his writing or, at least, cannot be sure of any knowledge of him we gain. 

You seriously misunderstand me in a couple of places.  Let me clarify:

<<
How can one blame the early death of his siblings on his intelligence and idealism or even entertain such a notion?  Were the sanitary conditions any different in Copenhagen from any other place in that time.>>

I did not blame the early death of K's siblings on K's intelligence and idealism.  Yes, that is a seriously crazy idea, but you're the one who came up with it, not me.  What I said, in fact, was:

<<
I wonder how much the many early deaths of his siblings had to do with his disposition, how much the grotesquely unsanitary conditions in Copenhagen had to do with it, how much his intelligence and idealism had to do with it.>>

I blame the deaths of his siblings for his disposition, not the other way around.  I blame the unsanitary conditions in Denmark for his disposition, not the other way around.  I blame his intelligence and his idealism for his disposition, not the other way around.

That sentence of mine as a list of separate possibilities.  K's attitudes could have been influenced by the early deaths of many of his siblings.  They could have been influenced by his intelligence.  They could have been influenced by his idealism.  They could have been influenced by all these at once and by other factors.

And yes, he may have been seeking what he thought was a higher calling by refusing to marry Regine.  I agree with you -- that is a possibility.  Or he may have been using the notion of a higher calling to escape other forms of responsibility.  I accept both as possibilities.  I don't know.  Both are probably true at once.

Yes, K could be a real jackass.  By the end of his life, he had no close relationships with any of his family members and no more than one or two friends -- and I'm not even sure how close he was to those.  The only person I feel fairly sure that he loved to the end of his life was Regine, but he managed to find a way to keep her at arm's length too.     

The sanitary conditions in Copenhagen were not dissimilar to the sanitary conditions in other major European cities (such as London), but it was far less sanitary in these cities than out in the country.  Serious problems with clean water, basic hygiene...frankly disgusting.  I don't know how people could stand the smell.  Read Jonathan Swift's "Description of a City Shower" (poem) for a nice example.  It's over 100 years early, but conditions had not significantly changed:

http://www.web-books.com/Classics/Poetry/Anthology/Swift/DescriptionCity.htm

Or read Engels's description of the city of Manchester in the mid 19thC.  Manchester was worse than Copenhagen, I get the impression, but that will give you some idea.

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1844engels.html

Again, the following is a serious misreading of my post -- I have no idea how you can come up with this reading of it:

<<
By no means was K a hollow shell of a man any more than any other person is a hollow shell because they have certain physical disabilities.>>

K being a "hollow shell of a man" has nothing to do with any disabilities he may or may not have, at least not in my thinking.  I never said that it did.

What I actually said was:

<<
I wonder how much the many early deaths of his siblings had to do with his disposition, how much the grotesquely unsanitary conditions in Copenhagen had to do with it, how much his intelligence and idealism had to do with it.

I wonder because of all this if he was a cowardly, hollow shell of a man even though he was a great philosopher -- if there was a man beneath those ideas, or just a bunch of ideas.>>

The word "disability" appears nowhere in those sentences, or even in my entire post, so I'm wondering how and why you would invent such a notion out of nowhere.

I am talking only about his personality.  Was it all intellectual vanity?  Was it deep feeling?  Could be either or both.  I don't know.

I would guess that K took Christianity very, very seriously, had serious doubts about himself and most of those around him, and spent his life trying to work them out. 

Yes, being a Christian your whole life and not knowing God's forgiveness until the end is a bad thing, but I didn't say that.  I simply wondered why that was the case.  However, this claim of his does tell us something about his own appraisal of his own religious consciousness -- a religious consciousness out of which he wrote his entire life. 

I am very glad he felt he knew it at the end, though. 

Yes, I have read Garff's bio, as well as others, and yes, I have allowed my ideas about K to be influenced by it.  It's the only real bio of K out there as far as I'm concerned -- a mass of archival data supports Garff's claims.  Lowrie and Hannay did not do significant archival research in Denmark.  The other major researcher who has done archival research in Denmark, Bruce Kirmmse, was Garff's translator, so he must have felt pretty good about Garff's work at the time. 

You can't discount all of Garff's bio because it's been criticized on some points.  You need to see if the points I'm making reference to are the points of critique, and if so, is the critique valid?  It's not been out long enough to be thoroughly scrutinized, I don't think. 

Jim R

On Sun, Dec 13, 2009 at 10:42 PM, Don Anderson <don@...> wrote:
 

JimR,

The question I raise is this. If we could go back in time and meet K in 1843 would we know him any better than we can know him from reading his writings. I think the answer would be an emphatic  NO! An important aspect of K’s message is the notion that the only one who can know me is me and the only one who can know you is you. Whether you are a contemporary of the person or historically removed one who is outside of the subjects skin has only approximate knowledge. The self is not open to inspection by outsiders. It is hidden. Let us consider tiger woods. Did his wife know him until recently? Do we? Does she now? Do we now? Did and does anyone? We do know that what we know now is different from what we knew two weeks ago. Knowledge is an elusive thing from the outside.

Your questions below betray your objective outlook. K’s absolute major point is that our interpretation of anyone’s outer appearance is not that person’s self.

Not only that but your questions reveal that you are ready to believe the worst about K on the basis of your reading and interpreting K’s biographers with their biographers. Here are my list of wonders point by point.

I wonder if K did not want to marry Regina because of his father or if that was an excuse.

Did K run away from life or did he seek a higher calling in life.

I’m not sure K did not know God’s forgiveness until the end of his life but what is the harm in that.

I don’t think K was a “jackass” with his brother and almost all of those around him. He seemed pretty friendly to me.

How can one blame the early death of his siblings on his intelligence and idealism or even entertain such a notion?  Were the sanitary conditions any different in Copenhagen from any other place in that time.

By no means was K a hollow shell of a man any more than any other person is a hollow shell because they have certain physical disabilities.

I wonder if these notions are mostly from reading Garff’s autobiography of K, a book whose integrity has been seriously questioned.

Don Anderson


#8751 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 3:42 am
Subject: RE: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
nancyanddonray
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JimR,

The question I raise is this. If we could go back in time and meet K in 1843 would we know him any better than we can know him from reading his writings. I think the answer would be an emphatic  NO! An important aspect of K’s message is the notion that the only one who can know me is me and the only one who can know you is you. Whether you are a contemporary of the person or historically removed one who is outside of the subjects skin has only approximate knowledge. The self is not open to inspection by outsiders. It is hidden. Let us consider tiger woods. Did his wife know him until recently? Do we? Does she now? Do we now? Did and does anyone? We do know that what we know now is different from what we knew two weeks ago. Knowledge is an elusive thing from the outside.

Your questions below betray your objective outlook. K’s absolute major point is that our interpretation of anyone’s outer appearance is not that person’s self.

Not only that but your questions reveal that you are ready to believe the worst about K on the basis of your reading and interpreting K’s biographers with their biographers. Here are my list of wonders point by point.

I wonder if K did not want to marry Regina because of his father or if that was an excuse.

Did K run away from life or did he seek a higher calling in life.

I’m not sure K did not know God’s forgiveness until the end of his life but what is the harm in that.

I don’t think K was a “jackass” with his brother and almost all of those around him. He seemed pretty friendly to me.

How can one blame the early death of his siblings on his intelligence and idealism or even entertain such a notion?  Were the sanitary conditions any different in Copenhagen from any other place in that time.

By no means was K a hollow shell of a man any more than any other person is a hollow shell because they have certain physical disabilities.

I wonder if these notions are mostly from reading Garff’s autobiography of K, a book whose integrity has been seriously questioned.

Don Anderson

If I could get to know Kierkegaard, Kenneth, that would really be something.  He's dead.  We have his writing.  We can try to understand his ideas, and the ideas he put into the mouths of the characters he made up, and come to know him somewhat that way, but...

You don't think Kierkegaard believed a person's ideas -were- the person, do you? 

I'd like to know what Kierkegaard was so ashamed about concerning his father that he wouldn't marry Regine because he would have to tell her about it.

I'd like to know if that was a nonsense excuse he invented to allow him a way to run away from life.

I wonder why he felt he didn't really know God's forgiveness until close to the end of his life. 

I wonder why he was  such an jackass to his brother and to almost all of the people around him without wondering what that meant in terms of his own Christianity. 

 

I wonder how much the many early deaths of his siblings had to do with his disposition, how much the grotesquely unsanitary conditions in Copenhagen had to do with it, how much his intelligence and idealism had to do with it.

I wonder because of all this if he was a cowardly, hollow shell of a man even though he was a great philosopher -- if there was a man beneath those ideas, or just a bunch of ideas.

I wonder if he wondered that himself. 

I will never know.  No one will.  Some people will invent their own answers and call it "knowing Kierkegaard."   

Jim R 

 

 

From: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com [mailto:kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of James Rovira
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 7:15 PM
To: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages

 

 

If I could get to know Kierkegaard, Kenneth, that would really be something.  He's dead.  We have his writing.  We can try to understand his ideas, and the ideas he put into the mouths of the characters he made up, and come to know him somewhat that way, but...

You don't think Kierkegaard believed a person's ideas -were- the person, do you? 

I'd like to know what Kierkegaard was so ashamed about concerning his father that he wouldn't marry Regine because he would have to tell her about it.

I'd like to know if that was a nonsense excuse he invented to allow him a way to run away from life.

I wonder why he felt he didn't really know God's forgiveness until close to the end of his life. 

I wonder why he was  such an jackass to his brother and to almost all of the people around him without wondering what that meant in terms of his own Christianity. 

I wonder how much the many early deaths of his siblings had to do with his disposition, how much the grotesquely unsanitary conditions in Copenhagen had to do with it, how much his intelligence and idealism had to do with it.

I wonder because of all this if he was a cowardly, hollow shell of a man even though he was a great philosopher -- if there was a man beneath those ideas, or just a bunch of ideas.

I wonder if he wondered that himself. 

I will never know.  No one will.  Some people will invent their own answers and call it "knowing Kierkegaard."   

Jim R 

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 10:14 PM, Kenneth <karmstrong@...> wrote:

 

A great summary. You know Kierkegaard. I know squat.

 

_,_._,___


#8750 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Mon Dec 14, 2009 2:57 am
Subject: RE: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
nancyanddonray
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JimS, I don’t know what else to say. I never intended to say that E/O II was Hegelian in every way. I am well aware that it does not believe that the Hegelian dialectic is adequate for overcoming the aporia of existence. I did want to say that the passages that started this thread seemed to have Hegelian elements to them in their imminence and that is all. There is much of E/O that I must continue to appropriate but I don’t yet buy into many of the standard assumptions about it by the commentators. This is my last word on the subject for now.

I do have Clare Carlisle’s  book that you quote from. I’m not sure how I praised it earlier but my main hope was that we might discuss it. There is much about it that I find fascinating both positively and negatively. The fourth chapter that you recommend highly I find so-so. On the other hand I think chapter five on repetition is fascinating. But none of it is beyond critical examination. I was excited that she was going to discuss inwardness but was disappointed feeling that she did not break any new ground. When she talked about movement I found myself at times wondering if this was a doctoral dissertation. This was especially my thoughts when I read her hast two chapters. On the other hand there were moments of insight, Chapter 5 being the high point.

Don

 

From: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com [mailto:kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of jimstuart46
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 5:07 AM
To: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian

 

 

Don,

Thank you for your reply. Your write:

"I think we have been talking past one another, Surprise!"

I am not so sure. I think I was writing clearly and simply when I wrote:

"Here is the bottom line:

Hegel's system does not allow the qualitative dialectic. It does not allow the leap. It does not allow the single individual to actualise a possibility. It only allows quantitative dialectic.

Judge William has chosen himself absolutely. Judge William has made the leap to become an existing human being." (#8721)

You seemed to understand what I said clearly enough when you made your reply:

"Yes I can find fault with your reasoning here but knowing how easy it is to fall into such reasoning, having done it myself over and over again, I hope to refrain from judgment and simply make a reply from my pov." (#8723)

I would rather you did not "refrain from judgement" but tell me explicitly what fault you find in my reasoning here.

I think the distinction Kierkegaard draws in his book Either/Or between the Hegelian aesthete and the anti-Hegelian Judge William is fundamental for a correct understanding of K's authorship as a whole. For Kierkegaard, Hegel was a stumbling block to the would-be Christian, and his whole authorship was geared to showing how Hegelianism is the devil's favoured device for preventing his Danish contemporaries (or his Copenhagen intellectual contemporaries, at least) from perceiving clearly what is required for the earnest, sober individual to become a Christian.

Admittedly Kierkegaard may in his pseudonymous work have occasionally used the devil's methods to defeat the devil, although neither you nor Jim R has given me a clear example of this. Perhaps one of you is thinking of the remark to use reflective thought to move the individual out of reflection.

May I recommend you re-read Chapter Four of "Kierkegaard's Philosophy of Becoming" by Clare Carlisle – a book you have praised on this forum. Carlisle argues more powerfully and more eloquently that I can for the interpretation of Kierkegaard, I have been trying to put forward.

At one stage, I was preparing to quote vast chunks from Carlisle's book, but instead I will restrict myself to selected quote from the Kierkegaard commentator Johannes Climacus:

"Either/Or, the title of which is in itself indicative, has the existence-relation between the esthetic and the ethical materialize into existence in the existing individuality. This to me is the book's indirect polemic against speculative thought, which is indifferent to existence. That there is no conclusion and no final decision is an indirect expression for truth as inwardness and in this way perhaps a polemic against truth as knowledge." (CUP, Hong, p. 252)

"Part I is an existence-possibility that cannot attain existence, a depression that must be worked upon ethically. … At its maximum it is despair. Consequently, it is not existence, but existence-possibility, orientated toward existence, and brought so close that one almost feels how every moment is wasted in which a decision has not yet been reached. But the existence-possibility in the existing A does not want to be conscious of this and holds existence at bay by the most subtle of all deceptions, by thinking. He has thought everything possible, and yet he has not existed at all. … In other words, the relation [between A (the aesthete) and B (Judge William)] must not be between immature and mature thinking, but between not existing and existing. Therefore, as a thinker, A is advanced; as a dialectician, he is far superior to B. He possesses all the seductive gifts of understanding and intellect; it thereby becomes more clear what makes B differ from him.

Part II is an ethical individuality existing on the basis of the ethical. .. The ethicist has despaired (see Part II, pp. 163-227 – Part I was despair). In despair, he has chosen himself (pp. 239ff). .. Having gone through phantasmal, nebulous images, through the distractions of a luxuriant thought-content … one comes to a very specific human being existing on the basis of the ethical.

The merit of the book, if it has any, does not concern me. If it has any, it must essentially be that it does not provide any conclusion but in inwardness transforms everything: the fantasy-inwardness in Part I into a conjuring up of possibilities with intensified passion, the dialectic into a transforming, in despair, of everything into nothing; the ethical pathos, in Part II into an embracing, with the quiet, incorruptible, and yet infinite passion of resolution, of the ethical's modest task, built up thereby, open before God and men." (Ibid., pp. 253-4)

"The ethicist in Either/Or has saved himself by despairing, has terminated hiddenness in disclosure, but in my opinion there was a discrepancy here. … The discrepancy is that the ethical self is supposed to be found immanently in despair, that by enduring the despair the individual would win himself. … In despairing, I use myself to despair, and therefore I can indeed despair of everything by myself, but if I do this I cannot come back to myself. It is in this moment of decision that the individual needs divine assistance, although it is quite correct that one must first have understood the existence-relation between the esthetic and the ethical in order to be at this point – that is, by being there in passion and inwardness, one indeed becomes aware of the religious – and of the leap. (Ibid, pp. 257-8)

Jim S


#8749 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Sun Dec 13, 2009 5:54 am
Subject: RE: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
nancyanddonray
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That no answer is possible is my answer!

Don

 

From: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com [mailto:kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Kenneth
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 4:54 PM
To: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages

 

 

I did not ask a question to demonstrate that an answer could not be composed.

--- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, "Don Anderson" <don@...> wrote:
>
> Kenneth,
>
> You said:
>
> I invite a Kierkegaardian answer: Whence the 3-sphere-model? Can an answer
> be composed which satisfies Kierkegaard's Ethical Principle?
>
> I think no answer can be composed. What do you think?
>
> The ethical principle is that no possibility is understood until each posse
> has really become an esse. (T)he ethical scrutiny results in the
> condemnation of every posse which is not an esse, but this refers only to a
> posse in the individual himself, since the ethical has nothing to do with
> the possibilities of other individuals. CUP, 1941, p 288
>
> Future Topic? Could any discussion group survive who adopted this as a
> guiding principle?
>
> I love the way you cut to the very heart of the matter - cutting to the
> quick might be a better way of putting it. I would suggest that one must
> discuss with a very large empty space inside - an opening and space that is
> constantly seeking possibilities hitherto unknown. It is not about giving
> information or getting information but rather about serendipity (the sudden
> or the instant). And yet it is something more that can never be said.
> Language and knowledge is always in the way thus the need for that open
> space - the nothing (no-thing).
>
>
>
> Can such a discussion group survive? I don't know nor do I really ask that
> question. I do know I profit from it quite often but perhaps that's just me.
> On the other hand I don't need it.
>
>
>
> Don A.
>


#8748 From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@...>
Date: Sun Dec 13, 2009 5:15 am
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
jamesrovira
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If I could get to know Kierkegaard, Kenneth, that would really be something.  He's dead.  We have his writing.  We can try to understand his ideas, and the ideas he put into the mouths of the characters he made up, and come to know him somewhat that way, but...

You don't think Kierkegaard believed a person's ideas -were- the person, do you? 

I'd like to know what Kierkegaard was so ashamed about concerning his father that he wouldn't marry Regine because he would have to tell her about it.

I'd like to know if that was a nonsense excuse he invented to allow him a way to run away from life.

I wonder why he felt he didn't really know God's forgiveness until close to the end of his life. 

I wonder why he was  such an jackass to his brother and to almost all of the people around him without wondering what that meant in terms of his own Christianity. 

I wonder how much the many early deaths of his siblings had to do with his disposition, how much the grotesquely unsanitary conditions in Copenhagen had to do with it, how much his intelligence and idealism had to do with it.

I wonder because of all this if he was a cowardly, hollow shell of a man even though he was a great philosopher -- if there was a man beneath those ideas, or just a bunch of ideas.

I wonder if he wondered that himself. 

I will never know.  No one will.  Some people will invent their own answers and call it "knowing Kierkegaard."   

Jim R 

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 10:14 PM, Kenneth <karmstrong@...> wrote:
 

A great summary. You know Kierkegaard. I know squat.



#8747 From: "Kenneth" <karmstrong@...>
Date: Sun Dec 13, 2009 3:14 am
Subject: Re: Three Spheres / Stages
two_k_dad
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A great summary.  You know Kierkegaard.  I know squat.

--- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, James Rovira <jamesrovira@...> wrote:
>
> Ah, Kenneth -- what nonsense.  You still miss the fundamental point that you
> -cannot understand others-, and as an ethical subjectivity, you should be
> primarily concerned -with yourself-.  I have made different choices than you
> about my relationship to K.  The fact that you can't respect that or live
> with it is a fact you have to face about yourself, not me.
>
> I have read CUP a few times before you joined the group.  I hadn't noticed
> the phrases "quantitative" or "qualitative" dialectic.  They hadn't struck
> me.  As a result, I was grateful that you drew attention to them.  I did
> write about both Socratic and Hegelian dialectics, which means I am
> crediting K's sources -- not acting as if I invented the terms.  I am not
> using them in any post or in any way except when directly referring to
> them.
>
> I don't feel the need to apologize for having read, or for knowing things.
> How I make a living is irrelevant to this discussion, as I'd be reading and
> writing all this even without making a living at it (I read for 16 years in
> philosophy, theology, and literature while working as an electrician).
>
> I find myself making replies to you that are similar to replies I've made to
> others -- do you have anything to say about K yourself, are you here to
> advance a discussion, or are you here to attack others?   If you see a fault
> in what I'm saying, quote me, quote K, then explain the difference that you
> see between the two.  Then you'd possibly be educating me, and for that I
> would be grateful.
>
> I've been posting quite a bit about K here -- you haven't responded to
> anything I've posted about K (at all, not once, I don't think), or to my
> reading of the difference between the quantitative and qualitative
> dialectic.  I'm not the one holding the cudgel.
>
> Jim R
>
> On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 5:49 PM, Kenneth <karmstrong@...> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > *Jim, your methods do find echoes in K, but they are illustrations of
> > those who cannot keep their sphere's straight.  You `run upstairs' just
> > long enough to find a word or two, a cudgel with SK's initials.  Then you
> > hurry back to your basement brawling.  Two weeks ago you had never heard
> > of qualitative dialectic and now you use it in your tainted replies as if
> > you invented it.  Go read what SK (not his pseudonyms) says about those
> > who make their living off the words of others.  You will disregard the
> > following because it was written by a pseudonym and we have all heard you
> > celebrate holding the antidote.*
> >
> >
> >
> > When the different spheres are not decisively distinguished from one
> > another, confusion reigns everywhere. When people are curious about a
> > thinker's reality and find it interesting to know something about it, and so
> > forth, this interest is intellectually reprehensible. The maximum of
> > attainment in the sphere of the intellectual is to become altogether
> > indifferent to the thinker's reality. But by being thus muddle-headed in the
> > intellectual sphere, one acquires a certain resemblance to a believer. A
> > believer is one who is infinitely interested in another's reality. * *
> >
> > **
> >
> > *Kenneth*
> >
> >
>

#8746 From: "Kenneth" <karmstrong@...>
Date: Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:53 am
Subject: Re: Three Spheres / Stages
two_k_dad
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I did not ask a question to demonstrate that an answer could not be composed.

--- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, "Don Anderson" <don@...> wrote:
>
> Kenneth,
>
> You said:
>
> I invite a Kierkegaardian answer:  Whence the 3-sphere-model?  Can an answer
> be composed which satisfies Kierkegaard's Ethical Principle?
>
> I think no answer can be composed. What do you think?
>
> The ethical principle is that no possibility is understood until each posse
> has really become an esse. (T)he ethical scrutiny results in the
> condemnation of every posse which is not an esse, but this refers only to a
> posse in the individual himself, since the ethical has nothing to do with
> the possibilities of other individuals. CUP, 1941, p 288
>
> Future Topic? Could any discussion group survive who adopted this as a
> guiding principle?
>
> I love the way you cut to the very heart of the matter - cutting to the
> quick might be a better way of putting it. I would suggest that one must
> discuss with a very large empty space inside - an opening and space that is
> constantly seeking possibilities hitherto unknown. It is not about giving
> information or getting information but rather about serendipity (the sudden
> or the instant). And yet it is something more that can never be said.
> Language and knowledge is always in the way thus the need for that open
> space - the nothing (no-thing).
>
>
>
> Can such a discussion group survive? I don't know nor do I really ask that
> question. I do know I profit from it quite often but perhaps that's just me.
> On the other hand I don't need it.
>
>
>
> Don A.
>

#8745 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:44 am
Subject: RE: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
nancyanddonray
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Kenneth,

I can relate to your point. I am reading CUP along with you and I think I am following every move. You really, really cut to the chase. Let him who has ears to hear!

Don

 

From: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com [mailto:kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of Kenneth
Sent: Saturday, December 12, 2009 12:50 PM
To: kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages

 

 

Jim, your methods do find echoes in K, but they are illustrations of those who cannot keep their sphere's straight.  You `run upstairs' just long enough to find a word or two, a cudgel with SK's initials.  Then you hurry back to your basement brawling.  Two weeks ago you had never heard of qualitative dialectic and now you use it in your tainted replies as if you invented it.  Go read what SK (not his pseudonyms) says about those who make their living off the words of others.  You will disregard the following because it was written by a pseudonym and we have all heard you celebrate holding the antidote.

 

When the different spheres are not decisively distinguished from one another, confusion reigns everywhere. When people are curious about a thinker's reality and find it interesting to know something about it, and so forth, this interest is intellectually reprehensible. The maximum of attainment in the sphere of the intellectual is to become altogether indifferent to the thinker's reality. But by being thus muddle-headed in the intellectual sphere, one acquires a certain resemblance to a believer. A believer is one who is infinitely interested in another's reality.  

 

Kenneth


--- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, James Rovira <jamesrovira@...> wrote:
>
> Kenneth -- I've already explained why I don't necessarily feel any
> existential obligation to the speculations of any of K's pseuondyms which,
> if you understood both myself and K, you would see that these reasons are
> indeed "very Kierkegaardian."
>
> You may want to take special note of the concluding line of the quotation
> you yourself provided: "the ethical has nothing to do with the possibilities
> of other individuals." You asking Others to conceive this in terms of Our
> Own possibilities is to miss the point on a very basic level. You should
> only be concerned with how it is a possibility for yourself. You're free to
> answer your questions to yourself out loud to yourself on this forum if you
> wish.
>
> Jim R
>
> On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Kenneth karmstrong@... wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > *I invite a Kierkegaardian answer: Whence the 3-sphere-model? Can an
> > answer be composed which satisfies Kierkegaard's Ethical Principle?*
> >
> > “The ethical principle is that no possibility is understood until each *posse
> > *has really become an *esse. *…(T)he ethical scrutiny results in the
> > condemnation of every *posse *which is not an *esse, *but this refers only
> > to a *posse *in the individual himself, since the ethical has nothing to
> > do with the possibilities of other individuals.†CUP, 1941, p 288
> >
> > *Future Topic? Could any discussion group survive who adopted this as a
> > guiding principle?*
> >
> > *Kenneth*
> >
>


#8744 From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@...>
Date: Sun Dec 13, 2009 2:14 am
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
jamesrovira
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Ah, Kenneth -- what nonsense.  You still miss the fundamental point that you -cannot understand others-, and as an ethical subjectivity, you should be primarily concerned -with yourself-.  I have made different choices than you about my relationship to K.  The fact that you can't respect that or live with it is a fact you have to face about yourself, not me.

I have read CUP a few times before you joined the group.  I hadn't noticed the phrases "quantitative" or "qualitative" dialectic.  They hadn't struck me.  As a result, I was grateful that you drew attention to them.  I did write about both Socratic and Hegelian dialectics, which means I am crediting K's sources -- not acting as if I invented the terms.  I am not using them in any post or in any way except when directly referring to them. 

I don't feel the need to apologize for having read, or for knowing things.  How I make a living is irrelevant to this discussion, as I'd be reading and writing all this even without making a living at it (I read for 16 years in philosophy, theology, and literature while working as an electrician). 

I find myself making replies to you that are similar to replies I've made to others -- do you have anything to say about K yourself, are you here to advance a discussion, or are you here to attack others?   If you see a fault in what I'm saying, quote me, quote K, then explain the difference that you see between the two.  Then you'd possibly be educating me, and for that I would be grateful.

I've been posting quite a bit about K here -- you haven't responded to anything I've posted about K (at all, not once, I don't think), or to my reading of the difference between the quantitative and qualitative dialectic.  I'm not the one holding the cudgel.     

Jim R

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 5:49 PM, Kenneth <karmstrong@...> wrote:
 

Jim, your methods do find echoes in K, but they are illustrations of those who cannot keep their sphere's straight.  You `run upstairs' just long enough to find a word or two, a cudgel with SK's initials.  Then you hurry back to your basement brawling.  Two weeks ago you had never heard of qualitative dialectic and now you use it in your tainted replies as if you invented it.  Go read what SK (not his pseudonyms) says about those who make their living off the words of others.  You will disregard the following because it was written by a pseudonym and we have all heard you celebrate holding the antidote.

 

When the different spheres are not decisively distinguished from one another, confusion reigns everywhere. When people are curious about a thinker's reality and find it interesting to know something about it, and so forth, this interest is intellectually reprehensible. The maximum of attainment in the sphere of the intellectual is to become altogether indifferent to the thinker's reality. But by being thus muddle-headed in the intellectual sphere, one acquires a certain resemblance to a believer. A believer is one who is infinitely interested in another's reality.  

 

Kenneth



#8743 From: "Kenneth" <karmstrong@...>
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:49 pm
Subject: Re: Three Spheres / Stages
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Jim, your methods do find echoes in K, but they are illustrations of those who cannot keep their sphere's straight.  You `run upstairs' just long enough to find a word or two, a cudgel with SK's initials.  Then you hurry back to your basement brawling.  Two weeks ago you had never heard of qualitative dialectic and now you use it in your tainted replies as if you invented it.  Go read what SK (not his pseudonyms) says about those who make their living off the words of others.  You will disregard the following because it was written by a pseudonym and we have all heard you celebrate holding the antidote.

 

When the different spheres are not decisively distinguished from one another, confusion reigns everywhere. When people are curious about a thinker's reality and find it interesting to know something about it, and so forth, this interest is intellectually reprehensible. The maximum of attainment in the sphere of the intellectual is to become altogether indifferent to the thinker's reality. But by being thus muddle-headed in the intellectual sphere, one acquires a certain resemblance to a believer. A believer is one who is infinitely interested in another's reality.  

 

Kenneth


--- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, James Rovira <jamesrovira@...> wrote:
>
> Kenneth -- I've already explained why I don't necessarily feel any
> existential obligation to the speculations of any of K's pseuondyms which,
> if you understood both myself and K, you would see that these reasons are
> indeed "very Kierkegaardian."
>
> You may want to take special note of the concluding line of the quotation
> you yourself provided: "the ethical has nothing to do with the possibilities
> of other individuals." You asking Others to conceive this in terms of Our
> Own possibilities is to miss the point on a very basic level. You should
> only be concerned with how it is a possibility for yourself. You're free to
> answer your questions to yourself out loud to yourself on this forum if you
> wish.
>
> Jim R
>
> On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Kenneth karmstrong@... wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > *I invite a Kierkegaardian answer: Whence the 3-sphere-model? Can an
> > answer be composed which satisfies Kierkegaard's Ethical Principle?*
> >
> > “The ethical principle is that no possibility is understood until each *posse
> > *has really become an *esse. *…(T)he ethical scrutiny results in the
> > condemnation of every *posse *which is not an *esse, *but this refers only
> > to a *posse *in the individual himself, since the ethical has nothing to
> > do with the possibilities of other individuals.†CUP, 1941, p 288
> >
> > *Future Topic? Could any discussion group survive who adopted this as a
> > guiding principle?*
> >
> > *Kenneth*
> >
>

#8742 From: "Don Anderson" <don@...>
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2009 10:32 pm
Subject: Re: Three Spheres / Stages
nancyanddonray
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Kenneth,

You said:

I invite a Kierkegaardian answer:  Whence the 3-sphere-model?  Can an answer be composed which satisfies Kierkegaard's Ethical Principle?

I think no answer can be composed. What do you think?

The ethical principle is that no possibility is understood until each posse has really become an esse. (T)he ethical scrutiny results in the condemnation of every posse which is not an esse, but this refers only to a posse in the individual himself, since the ethical has nothing to do with the possibilities of other individuals. CUP, 1941, p 288

Future Topic? Could any discussion group survive who adopted this as a guiding principle?

I love the way you cut to the very heart of the matter – cutting to the quick might be a better way of putting it. I would suggest that one must discuss with a very large empty space inside – an opening and space that is constantly seeking possibilities hitherto unknown. It is not about giving information or getting information but rather about serendipity (the sudden or the instant). And yet it is something more that can never be said. Language and knowledge is always in the way thus the need for that open space – the nothing (no-thing).

 

Can such a discussion group survive? I don’t know nor do I really ask that question. I do know I profit from it quite often but perhaps that’s just me. On the other hand I don’t need it.

 

Don A.


#8741 From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@...>
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2009 6:45 pm
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
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Kenneth -- I've already explained why I don't necessarily feel any existential obligation to the speculations of any of K's pseuondyms which, if you understood both myself and K, you would see that these reasons are indeed "very Kierkegaardian." 

You may want to take special note of the concluding line of the quotation you yourself provided: "the ethical has nothing to do with the possibilities of other individuals."  You asking Others to conceive this in terms of Our Own possibilities is to miss the point on a very basic level.  You should only be concerned with how it is a possibility for yourself.  You're free to answer your questions to yourself out loud to yourself on this forum if you wish. 

Jim R

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 11:29 AM, Kenneth <karmstrong@...> wrote:
 

I invite a Kierkegaardian answer:  Whence the 3-sphere-model?  Can an answer be composed which satisfies Kierkegaard's Ethical Principle?

“The ethical principle is that no possibility is understood until each posse has really become an esse. …(T)he ethical scrutiny results in the condemnation of every posse which is not an esse, but this refers only to a posse in the individual himself, since the ethical has nothing to do with the possibilities of other individuals.†  CUP, 1941, p 288

Future Topic? Could any discussion group survive who adopted this as a guiding principle?

Kenneth


#8740 From: "Kenneth" <karmstrong@...>
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2009 4:29 pm
Subject: Re: Three Spheres / Stages
two_k_dad
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I invite a Kierkegaardian answer:  Whence the 3-sphere-model?  Can an answer be composed which satisfies Kierkegaard's Ethical Principle?

“The ethical principle is that no possibility is understood until each posse has really become an esse. …(T)he ethical scrutiny results in the condemnation of every posse which is not an esse, but this refers only to a posse in the individual himself, since the ethical has nothing to do with the possibilities of other individuals.† CUP, 1941, p 288

Future Topic? Could any discussion group survive who adopted this as a guiding principle?

Kenneth


--- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, "Kenneth" <karmstrong@...> wrote:
>
>
> I invite a Kierkegaardian answer: Whence the 3-sphere-model? Can an
> answer be composed which satisfies Kierkegaard's Ethical Principle?
>
> Kenneth
>
>
> --- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, James Rovira jamesrovira@
> wrote:
> >
> > Don -- Just to catch up on a request for a quotation of yours, I've
> cited
> > CUP about faith crucifying the understanding several times on this
> list and
> > at least once recently. You can check the archives. I've provide page
> > numbers from the Hongs' translation. You can check the context.
> >
> > Yes, Kenneth, Kierkegaard did take the three-spheres model from prior
> > sources. I apologize for not understanding this as your intent for
> your
> > initial question. I thought you were asking where the model came from
> and
> > how it developed in K's works.
> >
> > The three-sphere model begins with Socrates, is carried through the
> Medieval
> > period, modified by the German Romantics, then taken over by
> Kierkegaard and
> > given by him its most sophisticated restatement. It's restated yet
> again by
> > Freud and has carried forward into contemporary psychology with
> further
> > modifications yet again.
> >
> > It all starts with the Socratic distinction between body, soul, and
> spirit,
> > and then the Socratic definition of personality by its orientation
> toward
> > either body, or soul, or spirit. This orientation plays out a number
> of
> > ways in Plato's works. In the Symposium, orientation toward body,
> soul, or
> > spirit is presented by Diotima as resulting in three different kinds
> of
> > striving for immortality -- bodily striving for immortality through
> > procreation (hence K's discussion of the aesthetic personality in
> terms of
> > his/her relationship to and use of women), soulish striving for
> immortality
> > through social institutions (the soulish becomes clearly associated
> with the
> > ethical in the Medieval tradition and is reflected in K's authorship
> by the
> > Judge's praise of the institution of marriage), and spiritual striving
> for
> > immortality by separation from the bodily and the social for a direct
> and
> > exclusive focus on the divine. K is not much of an innovator on these
> > points. It's what he does with this very long tradition that's
> important.
> >
> > Jim R
> >
> > On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Kenneth karmstrong@ wrote:
> >
> > >
> > >
> > > *OK… that’s one way to answer… by the Aesthetic
> and Intellectual
> > > Principle, world-historically, ‘objectively’. I
> presume by your
> > > method of reply that as far as you know K did not adopt the
> 3-sphere-model
> > > from an earlier proponent. *
> > >
> > > *But let me reword the question to invite a Kierkegaardian answer:
> Whence
> > > the 3-sphere-model? Can an answer be composed which satisfies the
> Ethical
> > > Principle, from an Ethico-religious perspective?*
> > >
> > > *Kenneth*
> > >
> > > **
> > > --- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, James Rovira jamesrovira@
> > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > > How the model developed is actually the most Hegelian thing
>


#8738 From: "jimstuart46" <jjimstuart@...>
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2009 3:07 pm
Subject: Re: Judge William is NOT a Hegelian
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Don,

Thank you for your reply. Your write:

"I think we have been talking past one another, Surprise!"

I am not so sure. I think I was writing clearly and simply when I wrote:

"Here is the bottom line:

Hegel's system does not allow the qualitative dialectic. It does not allow the
leap. It does not allow the single individual to actualise a possibility. It
only allows quantitative dialectic.

Judge William has chosen himself absolutely. Judge William has made the leap to
become an existing human being." (#8721)

You seemed to understand what I said clearly enough when you made your reply:

"Yes I can find fault with your reasoning here but knowing how easy it is to
fall into such reasoning, having done it myself over and over again, I hope to
refrain from judgment and simply make a reply from my pov." (#8723)

I would rather you did not "refrain from judgement" but tell me explicitly what
fault you find in my reasoning here.

I think the distinction Kierkegaard draws in his book Either/Or between the
Hegelian aesthete and the anti-Hegelian Judge William is fundamental for a
correct understanding of K's authorship as a whole. For Kierkegaard, Hegel was a
stumbling block to the would-be Christian, and his whole authorship was geared
to showing how Hegelianism is the devil's favoured device for preventing his
Danish contemporaries (or his Copenhagen intellectual contemporaries, at least)
from perceiving clearly what is required for the earnest, sober individual to
become a Christian.

Admittedly Kierkegaard may in his pseudonymous work have occasionally used the
devil's methods to defeat the devil, although neither you nor Jim R has given me
a clear example of this. Perhaps one of you is thinking of the remark to use
reflective thought to move the individual out of reflection.

May I recommend you re-read Chapter Four of "Kierkegaard's Philosophy of
Becoming" by Clare Carlisle – a book you have praised on this forum. Carlisle
argues more powerfully and more eloquently that I can for the interpretation of
Kierkegaard, I have been trying to put forward.

At one stage, I was preparing to quote vast chunks from Carlisle's book, but
instead I will restrict myself to selected quote from the Kierkegaard
commentator Johannes Climacus:

"Either/Or, the title of which is in itself indicative, has the
existence-relation between the esthetic and the ethical materialize into
existence in the existing individuality. This to me is the book's indirect
polemic against speculative thought, which is indifferent to existence. That
there is no conclusion and no final decision is an indirect expression for truth
as inwardness and in this way perhaps a polemic against truth as knowledge."
(CUP, Hong, p. 252)

"Part I is an existence-possibility that cannot attain existence, a depression
that must be worked upon ethically. … At its maximum it is despair.
Consequently, it is not existence, but existence-possibility, orientated toward
existence, and brought so close that one almost feels how every moment is wasted
in which a decision has not yet been reached. But the existence-possibility in
the existing A does not want to be conscious of this and holds existence at bay
by the most subtle of all deceptions, by thinking.  He has thought everything
possible, and yet he has not existed at all. … In other words, the relation
[between A (the aesthete) and B (Judge William)] must not be between immature
and mature thinking, but between not existing and existing. Therefore, as a
thinker, A is advanced; as a dialectician, he is far superior to B. He possesses
all the seductive gifts of understanding and intellect; it thereby becomes more
clear what makes B differ from him.

Part II is an ethical individuality existing on the basis of the ethical.  ..
The ethicist has despaired (see Part II, pp. 163-227 – Part I was despair). In
despair, he has chosen himself (pp. 239ff).  .. Having gone through phantasmal,
nebulous images, through the distractions of a luxuriant thought-content … one
comes to a very specific human being existing on the basis of the ethical.

The merit of the book, if it has any, does not concern me. If it has any, it
must essentially be that it does not provide any conclusion but in inwardness
transforms everything: the fantasy-inwardness in Part I into a conjuring up of
possibilities with intensified passion, the dialectic into a transforming, in
despair, of everything into nothing; the ethical pathos, in Part II into an
embracing, with the quiet, incorruptible, and yet infinite passion of
resolution, of the ethical's modest task, built up thereby, open before God and
men." (Ibid., pp. 253-4)

"The ethicist in Either/Or has saved himself by despairing, has terminated
hiddenness in disclosure, but in my opinion there was a discrepancy here.  … The
discrepancy is that the ethical self is supposed to be found immanently in
despair, that by enduring the despair the individual would win himself. … In
despairing, I use myself to despair, and therefore I can indeed despair of
everything by myself, but if I do this I cannot come back to myself. It is in
this moment of decision that the individual needs divine assistance, although it
is quite correct that one must first have understood the existence-relation
between the esthetic and the ethical in order to be at this point – that is, by
being there in passion and inwardness, one indeed becomes aware of the religious
– and of the leap. (Ibid, pp. 257-8)

Jim S

#8737 From: James Rovira <jamesrovira@...>
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:46 pm
Subject: Re: [Kierkegaardians] Re: Three Spheres / Stages
jamesrovira
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Don -- Just to catch up on a request for a quotation of yours, I've cited CUP about faith crucifying the understanding several times on this list and at least once recently.  You can check the archives.  I've provide page numbers from the Hongs' translation.  You can check the context. 

Yes, Kenneth, Kierkegaard did take the three-spheres model from prior sources.  I apologize for not understanding this as your intent for your initial question.  I thought you were asking where the model came from and how it developed in K's works.   

The three-sphere model begins with Socrates, is carried through the Medieval period, modified by the German Romantics, then taken over by Kierkegaard and given by him its most sophisticated restatement.  It's restated yet again by Freud and has carried forward into contemporary psychology with further modifications yet again.  

It all starts with the Socratic distinction between body, soul, and spirit, and then the Socratic definition of personality by its orientation toward either body, or soul, or spirit.  This orientation plays out a number of ways in Plato's works.  In the Symposium, orientation toward body, soul, or spirit is presented by Diotima as resulting in three different kinds of striving for immortality -- bodily striving for immortality through procreation (hence K's discussion of the aesthetic personality in terms of his/her relationship to and use of women), soulish striving for immortality through social institutions (the soulish becomes clearly associated with the ethical in the Medieval tradition and is reflected in K's authorship by the Judge's praise of the institution of marriage), and spiritual striving for immortality by separation from the bodily and the social for a direct and exclusive focus on the divine.  K is not much of an innovator on these points.  It's what he does with this very long tradition that's important. 

Jim R

On Sat, Dec 12, 2009 at 8:19 AM, Kenneth <karmstrong@...> wrote:
 

OK… that’s one way to answer… by the Aesthetic and Intellectual Principle, world-historically, ‘objectively’.  I presume by your method of reply that as far as you know K did not adopt the 3-sphere-model from an earlier proponent.   

But let me reword the question to invite a Kierkegaardian answer:  Whence the 3-sphere-model?  Can an answer be composed which satisfies the Ethical Principle, from an Ethico-religious perspective?

Kenneth


--- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, James Rovira <jamesrovira@...> wrote:
>
> How the model developed is actually the most Hegelian thing about K's entire
> pseudonymous authorship, at least in my opinion, Kenneth.
>
> It starts with the first work in K's pseudonymous authorship, E/O I. There,
> the "aesthete" or Johannes the Seducer (all characters named "Johannes" are
> aesthetic creations along the lines of Don Juan) suggests a progression for
> aesthetic personalities, which he defines in terms of three different kinds
> of desire. There are two types of aesthetic personalities, reflective and
> immediate, and those three types of desire are expressions of one of those
> two types of aesthetic personalities.
>
> The first kind of desire, the lowest, is very unformed as the person doesn't
> distinguish himself much at all from his environment. The second stage has
> a more specific object of his or her desire, but desire is defined in terms
> of wanting a class of objects, not a specific object (say, I want a fast
> car). The third stage of desire is one in which the person differentiates
> him/herself from the object of his or her desire enough to want -that-
> particular object (I want a 1976 Corvette). Johannes the aesthete gets the
> idea of this progression from three different operas by Mozart.
>
> The an ethical personality, Judge Wilhelm, reads E/O I and responds by
> saying, yeah, that's right, but there's something beyond that, the ethical.
> He shows, in a very Hegelian move, that the ethical stage encompasses the
> insights of the aesthetic but goes beyond it. A dialectic that encompasses
> previous insights but goes beyond them is a Hegelian, not Socratic,
> dialectic.
>
> Climacus comes along, write as book Philosophical Fragments, then
> "concludes" it with a postscript (CUP) which encompasses all the insights of
> the previous stages, all the insights of all previous pseudonymous authors,
> in fact, but goes beyond them into the religious, which is itself divided
> into two stages, A and B.
>
> Kierkegaard thought at the time he's concluded his aesthetic production,
> having summed it all up in CUP. Hence the signed appendix.
>
> Jim R
>
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 4:29 PM, Kenneth karmstrong@... wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > The three-spheres of human existence are used extensively by Climacus,
> > etal. Whence this model?
> >
> >
>




--
James Rovira
Tiffin University


#8736 From: "Kenneth" <karmstrong@...>
Date: Sat Dec 12, 2009 1:19 pm
Subject: Re: Three Spheres / Stages
two_k_dad
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Send Email Send Email
 

OK… that’s one way to answer… by the Aesthetic and Intellectual Principle, world-historically, ‘objectively’.  I presume by your method of reply that as far as you know K did not adopt the 3-sphere-model from an earlier proponent.   

But let me reword the question to invite a Kierkegaardian answer:  Whence the 3-sphere-model?  Can an answer be composed which satisfies the Ethical Principle, from an Ethico-religious perspective?

Kenneth


--- In kierkegaardians@yahoogroups.com, James Rovira <jamesrovira@...> wrote:
>
> How the model developed is actually the most Hegelian thing about K's entire
> pseudonymous authorship, at least in my opinion, Kenneth.
>
> It starts with the first work in K's pseudonymous authorship, E/O I. There,
> the "aesthete" or Johannes the Seducer (all characters named "Johannes" are
> aesthetic creations along the lines of Don Juan) suggests a progression for
> aesthetic personalities, which he defines in terms of three different kinds
> of desire. There are two types of aesthetic personalities, reflective and
> immediate, and those three types of desire are expressions of one of those
> two types of aesthetic personalities.
>
> The first kind of desire, the lowest, is very unformed as the person doesn't
> distinguish himself much at all from his environment. The second stage has
> a more specific object of his or her desire, but desire is defined in terms
> of wanting a class of objects, not a specific object (say, I want a fast
> car). The third stage of desire is one in which the person differentiates
> him/herself from the object of his or her desire enough to want -that-
> particular object (I want a 1976 Corvette). Johannes the aesthete gets the
> idea of this progression from three different operas by Mozart.
>
> The an ethical personality, Judge Wilhelm, reads E/O I and responds by
> saying, yeah, that's right, but there's something beyond that, the ethical.
> He shows, in a very Hegelian move, that the ethical stage encompasses the
> insights of the aesthetic but goes beyond it. A dialectic that encompasses
> previous insights but goes beyond them is a Hegelian, not Socratic,
> dialectic.
>
> Climacus comes along, write as book Philosophical Fragments, then
> "concludes" it with a postscript (CUP) which encompasses all the insights of
> the previous stages, all the insights of all previous pseudonymous authors,
> in fact, but goes beyond them into the religious, which is itself divided
> into two stages, A and B.
>
> Kierkegaard thought at the time he's concluded his aesthetic production,
> having summed it all up in CUP. Hence the signed appendix.
>
> Jim R
>
> On Fri, Dec 11, 2009 at 4:29 PM, Kenneth karmstrong@... wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > The three-spheres of human existence are used extensively by Climacus,
> > etal. Whence this model?
> >
> >
>


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