ABSTRACT Kierkegaard's Practice of Edification: Indirect Communication

ABSTRACT Kierkegaard’s Practice of Edification: Indirect Communication, the Virtues, and Christianity Mark A. Tietjen, B.S., M. Div., Th.M., M.A. Mentor: Robert C. Roberts, Ph.D. The ultimate aim of Kierkegaard’s authorship is to build up his reader’s character. Kierkegaard’s signed, religious works suggest this reading, but some interpreters say that the more indirect, pseudonymous character of many of Kierkegaard’s works undermines such an interpretation. I argue against recent deconstructive interpretations of Kierkegaard’s indirect communication that would refute the character-building reading. These interpretations are based upon undialectical conceptions of indirect communication and uncharitable views of Kierkegaard’s stated intentions. To demonstrate Kierkegaard’s character-building interests, I consider his clarification of the virtue of faith in several of his most important pseudonymous writings. Finally, I consider some possible implications of Kierkegaard’s methods for contemporary moral philosophy. Copyright © 2006 by Mark A. Tietjen All rights reserved TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………….. vi DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………… viii Chapter 1. Kierkegaard, Conceptual Clarification, and the Virtue Tradition………... 1 Introduction A Preliminary Glance at Edification Conceptual Clarification Kierkegaard and the Virtue Tradition Objection One: Kierkegaard Opposes the Classical Tradition Objection Two: Kierkegaard Opposes Virtue Looking Ahead 2. ‘Différance’ or Dialectic: ‘Blunt Reading,’ the Pseudonyms, and the Importance of the Existence-Spheres…………………………………….. 31 Roger Poole on Kierkegaard’s Indirect Communication Introduction Poole’s Charge of ‘Blunt Reading’ Clearing Away the Blunt Reading, Part I: Privileging the Literary “Clearing,” Part II: ‘Undecidability’ and ‘Différance’ “Clearing,” Part III: ‘Différance’ and the Pseudonyms Overcoming Poole’s Undialectical Reading An Alternative to ‘Différance,’ Part I: Kierkegaard’s Existence- Spheres An Alternative to ‘Différance,’ Part II: Kierkegaardian Dialectic iii 3. Indirect Communication in Kierkegaard’s Lectures and The Point of View ………………………………………………………………............ 89 Introduction Indirect Communication in the Lectures “The Ethical as Universal” and Communication Communication’s Mediums: Imagination and Actuality Indirect Communication and the Maieutic The Special Case of Christian Communication Deconstructing The Point of View Fenger on Kierkegaard’s Mythic Religious Beginnings Garff’s Deconstructive Point of View Deconstructive Conclusions Virtue in The Point of View Reading the Authorship Virtuously: A Hermeneutic of Belief Writing the Authorship Virtuously: Kierkegaard’s Maieutic Practice Living the Authorship Virtuously: Kierkegaard before Humanity and Kierkegaard before God Conclusion: Kierkegaard’s Christian Witness 4. Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Dialectic of Faith………………… ……… 161 Introduction Kierkegaard as Poet-Dialectician Preliminaries Johannes de silentio and “Existential Faith” Faith Is a Passion iv Faith Gives Up ‘the World’ and Gets Back ‘the World’ Johannes Climacus and Faith: An Imaginary Construction and An Historical Costume Faith Is a Passion, Part Two (As a Passion) Faith Is Against the Understanding Faith Is a Task for Life Faith Is a Gift from God Faith Is an Ongoing Relationship with Christ Faith Has a Historical Point of Departure Anti-Climacus and “the Ideal” of Faith Faith’s Alternative is the Possibility of Offense at Christ Faith Is Rest in God Conclusion 5. Kierkegaard and Contemporary Moral Philosophy…………………….... 215 Introduction Kierkegaard and Williams Williams’s Critique of Reductionism in Ethics Reflectiveness as a Problem for Ethics Kierkegaard and ‘the Loss of the Individual’ MacIntyre, Austen, and Kierkegaard Conclusion: “Radical Virtue Ethics” and the Possibility of Edification SOURCES CONSULTED…………...………………………………………………. 264 v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to offer my sincere gratitude to the many people and institutions that have contributed both directly and indirectly to the completion of this project. Many of the seeds of this dissertation were sown during my undergraduate and seminary years. Thus, I would first acknowledge Palm Beach Atlantic University and in particular the friendship and guidance of Daniel Goodman, Robert Wharton, Robert Myers, and Daniel Strait. The late James Loder of Princeton Theological Seminary introduced me to the thought of Kierkegaard, and thus I owe him a tremendous debt of gratitude. Diogenes Allen, Wentzel van Huyssteen, and Matthew Frawley—all of Princeton—were each instrumental in my learning to think philosophically. I also thank Baylor University and especially the Department of Philosophy and the Graduate School for their outstanding support of graduate students. This support has alleviated much of the pressure and anxiety that graduate students commonly experience. In particular, I thank Donna Praesel for her kindness and endless willingness to assist me in so many ways. I also wish to acknowledge Michael Beaty, Robert Baird, Stuart Rosenbaum, and Anne-Marie Bowery, the current and former chairs and graduate studies directors of the Department of Philosophy. Graduate school would hardly be bearable without a wonderful community of “co-laborers,” and so I thank my fellow students with whom I shared countless conversations and tasty beverages. John Davenport, Michael Foley, and Dr. Bowery, the outside readers of my committee, gave selflessly of their time and energy, and I am indebted to them. I am most grateful to Robert Roberts, Stephen Evans, and Margaret Watkins Tate, who each deserve credit for any successes of this vi project, and I am grateful that the help I have received from them has gone beyond mere academic concerns. Let me also express appreciation to Gordon Marino and Cynthia Lund of the Hong Kierkegaard Library at St. Olaf College. During the summer of 2005 I spent one month there as a summer fellow, and I benefited greatly from both the Kierkegaard scholars present and the library itself. Finally, I offer the warmest thanks to my family—especially my parents Tom and Alice—who have always encouraged me to do well in whatever I do and to do so with earnestness. And, I thank my wife Amy Julia: your virtue delights me. vii To Dr. Loder viii CHAPTER ONE Kierkegaard, Conceptual Clarification, and the Virtue Tradition Introduction In this dissertation I will defend the thesis that the ultimate aim of Kierkegaard’s authorship is the edification of his reader and that the signed and pseudonymous works are directed toward this common end. Clearly those pieces he calls ‘upbuilding’ (as well as many others that lacked that title—though not his signature) are directed toward the reader’s edification; however, I shall argue that not only those, but also the pseudonymous writings share this aim. I am not defending a reading that will (or would) analyze passage after passage to show how, for example, A’s thoughts on Mozart are themselves edifying. (In fact, I do not think they are). Rather, my intention is to present a way of reading the authorship, including these passages, in light of Kierkegaard’s larger, global aim of edification. 1 In claiming that Kierkegaard’s entire authorship 2 is 1Interestingly, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript , Johannes Climacus interprets Either/Or in just this light. “That Either/Or ends precisely with the upbuilding truth (yet without so much as italicizing the words, to say nothing of didacticizing) was remarkable to me. I could wish to see it emphasized more definitely in order that each particular point on the way to existing Christianly-religiously could become clear. The Christian truth as inwardness is also upbuilding, but this by no means implies that every upbuilding truth is Christian; the upbuilding is a wider category” (Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 256 ). 2In The Point of View for My Work as an Author Kierkegaard excludes from the authorship his master’s thesis and two literary reviews, From the Papers of One Still Living and Two Ages (Søren Kierkegaard, The Point of View , ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1998), 29). Nevertheless, I think it is plausible to consider the reviews as works which, on the whole, contribute toward the end of edification. This suggestion will gain warrant upon our examination of Two Ages in chapter five. While the later polemical writings (compiled in The Moment ) take a much stronger tone than Kierkegaard’s earlier works, I am inclined to think that they too may be included in my thesis as well. There are differing opinions on what to do with these writings and I will avoid that discussion here. 1 2 concerned with the edification of his reader, I am suggesting we read it as a ‘work of love.’ 3 For all of Kierkegaard’s polemicizing against a variety of targets, these arguments are, more than anything, works of love. Just as Socrates sought to disabuse his interlocutors of hubris so that they would genuinely care for virtue, Kierkegaard’s apparently ‘unedifying’ or ‘nonedifying’ works (i.e. the pseudonymous, the ironical, the indirect, etc.) can be seen as having a similar Socratic aim. 4 In this chapter I shall first expound what I mean by the notion of edification in Kierkegaard. Then I will explore the theme of conceptual clarification that runs throughout the authorship,

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