Introduction 1. Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, in the Portable
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Notes Introduction 1. Friedrich Nietzsche, Twilight of the Idols, in The Portable Nietzsche, ed. and trans. Walter Kaufmann (New York: Viking Press, 1954), p. 549. 2. At the very end of Thus Spoke Zarathustra Zarathustra asks, 'Am I concerned with happiness [Gliicke)?' and replies, 'I am concerned with my work [meinem Werke]', in The Portable Nietzsche, p. 439. Henceforth cited as Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. 3. Friedrich Nietzsche, Ecce Homo, 'Thus Spake Zarathustra: A Book for all and None', Sec. 1, in The Philosophy of Nietzsche (New York: The Modem Library, 1954), p. 894. Cited by Henry David Aiken, 'An Introduction to Zarathustra', in Nietzsche: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Robert C. Solomon (Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1973), p. 114. 4. Gbermensch is usually translated as 'overman'; however, Mensch means 'human being' and so a better translation might be 'overbe ing' or 'overindividual'. Since 'overman' can be misleading and the other translations are unfamiliar I shall use the German Gbermensch untranslated. 5. Friedrich Nietzsche, The Antichrist, in The Portable Nietzsche, p. 625. Henceforth cited as Nietzsche, The Antichrist. 6. Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, First Part, 'On the Afterworldly', p.143. 7. The Cognitivity of Religion: Three Perspectives (London: Macmillan; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), chapter 2, pp. 91-133. 1 Abraham, the Knight of Faith 1. Seren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, vol. 1, ed. and trans. Howard V. and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), p. 244. Henceforth cited as Kierkegaard, Postscript. 2. Ibid., p. 186. 3. Ibid., p. 557. 4. Ibid., p. 686. 5. Ibid., pp. 203-4. 6. All references to the Bible are to the Revised Standard Version. For a discussion of these two models of faith, and of a third related model, see my 'Three Models of Faith', International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 12 (1981); reprinted in Contemporary Perspectives on Religious Epistemology, ed. R. Douglas Geivett and Brendan Sweetman (New York, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992). We shall have occasion to note the third model in Chapter 10. 130 Notes 131 7. S!llren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling with Repetition, ed. and trans. Howard V. and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1983), p. 3; and see the note on p. 339. Henceforth cited as Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling. 8. Kierkegaard's source for the Abraham story is the Bible. The story of Abraham's trial of faith, and his being called upon to sacrifice his son, is also found in the Koran (37.99-106). In the Islamic tradition the son is Ismael, not Isaac (the son is not named in the Koranic passage). The Koranic story otherwise is in essence the same. 9. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 20. 10. Johannes de Silentio's retelling is contained in the 'Eulogy on Abraham' and the 'Preliminary Expectoration', Fear and Trembling, pp. 15-23 and 27-53. 11. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 18. 12. Ibid., p. 22. 13. Ibid., p. 35. 14. Ibid., p. 20. 15. Ibid., p. 36. 16. Ibid., p. 20. 17. Ibid., p. 36. 18. Ibid., p. 36. 19. Ibid., p. 40. 20. Ibid., p. 28. The Danish word that Hong and Hong translate as 'anxiety' is Angst (old form: Angest). Others translate Angst as 'dread'. Walter Lowrie in his earlier translation of Fear and Trembling, and in his translation of Begrebet Angest as The Concept of Dread, used the alternative translation. I shall use both English words. 21. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 30. 22. Kierkegaard, The Concept of Ar1xiety, ed. and trans. Reidar Thomte in collaboration with Albert B. Anderson (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980), p. 61. Henceforth cited as Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety. 23. Ibid., p. 91. 24. Ibid., pp. 46 ff, 56, 80 ff. 25. Ibid., p. 117. 26. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 55--6. 27. Ibid., pp. 10-14. 28. Ibid., p. 40. 29. Ibid., p. 55. 30. Ibid., p. 23. 31. Ibid., p. 50. 2 The Joyfulness of Faith 1. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 22. 2. Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 211. Climacus says that what one knows, or as good as knows, one cannot believe; what is known cannot be the object of faith. (Tro in Danish translates as either 'belief' or 'faith'.) 132 Notes 3. Jean-Paul Sartre, L'Existentialisme est ttn humanisme, published in English as Existentialism, trans. Bernard Frectman (New York: Philosophical Library, 1947), pp. 22-3; Frectman's translation is reprinted in part as 'Existentialism' in Existentialism and Human Emotions (New York: Philosophical Library, 1985), p. 19. 4. Sartre, Existentialism, p. 23; 'Existentialism', Existentialism and Human Emotions, p. 20. 5. Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, trans. Hazel E. Barnes (New York: Philosophical Library, 1956), p. 29. 6. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 113 and 115. 7. Ibid., p. 71. 8. Ibid., pp. 82 ff. 9. Ibid., p. 31. 10. For more on the contrast between Charles Manson and Abraham, as he is presented in Fear and Trembling, see Gene Outka, 'Religious and Moral Duty: Notes on Fear and Trembling', Religion and Morality, ed. Gene Outka and John P. Reeder, Jr (Garden City, New York: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1973), pp. 229-30, and my God-Relationships With and Without God (London: Macmillan; New York: St. Martin's, 1989), pp. 28-9 and 3Q-l. 3 The Ethical, Infinite Resignation, and the Demonic 1. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 54. 2. Ibid., p. 82. 3. Ibid., pp. 57-9. 4. Ibid., p. 54. 5. Ibid., p. 60. 6. Martin Buber, Eclipse of God (New York and Evanston: Harper & Row, 1957), pp. 117-18. 7. Ibid., p. 118. 8. Ibid., p. 115. 9. Milton Steinberg, 'Kierkegaard and Judaism', Anatomy of Faith (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1960), p. 147 (Steinberg's emphasis). Quoted by Louis Jacobs, 'The Problem of the Akedah in Jewish Thought', Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling: Critical Appraisals, ed. Robert L. Perkins (Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1981), p. 3. 10. Jacobs, 'The Problem of the Akedah in Jewish Thought', pp. 1-2. 11. Buber, Eclipse of God, p. 118. 12. Jacobs, 'The Problem of the Akedah in Jewish Thought', pp. 8-9. 13. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 70. 14. Ibid., p. 66. 15. Ibid., p. 74. 16. For a related discussion of Kierkegaard's implicit distinction between the ethical1 and the ethical2, see my God-Relationships With and Without God, pp. 20-7. 17. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 65. Notes 133 18. Ibid., p. 33 (emphasis in text). Johannes, however, does sometimes use 'hero' or the expression 'hero of faith' in connection with knights of faith. See pp. 15 and 51. It remains that the tragic hero, and not the knight of faith, is a hero in the straightforward sense that he, or she, receives the acclaim and admiration of many. 19. Ibid., p. 45. 20. Ibid., p. 34. 21. Ibid., p. 40. 22. Ibid., p. 38. 23. Ibid., p. 36. 24. Ibid., p. 37. 25. Ibid., pp. 40-1. 26. Ibid., p. 46. 27. Ibid., pp. 49-50. 28. Ibid., p. 18. 29. Ibid., pp. 41-5. 30. Ibid., p. 41n. 31. Ibid., p. 40. 32. Ibid., p. 48. 33. Ibid., p. 49. 34. Cf. Robert Merrihew Adams, 'The Knight of Faith', Faith and Philosophy, vol. 7 (1990), pp. 391-2. Adams believes that, for Johannes, infinite resignation, and so faith as well, requires 'concentration of desire on a single finite object'. While Johannes sometimes suggests that infinite resignation requires a 'concentration of desire on a single finite object', given the instance of the contemporary knight of faith, this cannot be quite right - unless 'everything' is 'a single finite object'. Adams also suggests that there are three movements of faith in Fear and Trembling, the first being the movement of 'the concentra tion of desire on a single finite object'. This point can be right only if what is infinitely resigned always is 'a single finite object'. 35. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 48. 36. Ibid., p. 49. 37. Ibid., p. 49. 38. Ibid., p. 48. 39. Ibid., p. 44. 40. Ibid., p. 35. 41. Ibid., p. 45. 42. Ibid., p. 34. 43. Adams, 'The Knight of Faith', p. 389. 44. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, p. 50. 45. Ibid., p. 35. 46. Either/Or is a pseudonymous work 'edited' by Victor Eremita. It was published in 1843, the same year Fear and Trembling was published, though Either/Or was published first. 'The Seducer's Diary' is written by a pseudonymous contributor identified in Either/Or only as 'Johannes'. Later, in Stages on Life's Way and in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, he will be referred to as Johannes the Seducer; he is not, of course, to be confused with Johannes de Silentio. S0ren Kierkegaard, 134 Notes Either/Or, I, ed. and trans. Howard V. and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), pp. 301-445. 47. Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling, pp. 89-92. 48. Ibid., pp. 94-7. 49. Ibid., p. 96. 50. Ibid., p. 97. 51. Ibid., p. 110. 52. Ibid., p. 109. 53. Another demonic figure who does good, mentioned by Johannes, is 'Cumberland's Jew' (p. 106). In Richard Cumberland's play The few the central figure, Scheva, is widely regarded as a miser and usurer, while in fact he does great good works, though in secret. This play was presented in Kierkegaard's Copenhagen many times. See Hong and Hong's n. 43 on p. 354 and Walter Lowrie's corresponding note to his translation of Fear and Trembling, in Fear and Trembling and The Sickness unto Death, trans.