This Thesis Has Been Submitted in Fulfilment of the Requirements for a Postgraduate Degree (E.G. Phd, Mphil, Dclinpsychol) at the University of Edinburgh
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This thesis has been submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for a postgraduate degree (e.g. PhD, MPhil, DClinPsychol) at the University of Edinburgh. Please note the following terms and conditions of use: • This work is protected by copyright and other intellectual property rights, which are retained by the thesis author, unless otherwise stated. • A copy can be downloaded for personal non-commercial research or study, without prior permission or charge. • This thesis cannot be reproduced or quoted extensively from without first obtaining permission in writing from the author. • The content must not be changed in any way or sold commercially in any format or medium without the formal permission of the author. • When referring to this work, full bibliographic details including the author, title, awarding institution and date of the thesis must be given. Kierkegaard’s Reception of Hamann: Language, Selfhood and Reflection Steven David Martz Ph.D. The University of Edinburgh 2012 Declaration I composed this thesis, the work is my own. No part of this thesis has been submitted for any other degree or qualification. Name……………………………….. Date……………………………………… To Yvä, Leah and Jona Your love and grace have sustained me. Abstract This thesis investigates Søren Kierkegaard’s (1813-1855) reception of the writings of Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788). I focus on four specific topics. In chapter one I examine Kierkegaard’s early reception of Hamann which I argue provides the basis for Kierkegaard’s conception of his own authorial task. In particular, I examine concepts of humour and systematicity and the centrality of the figure of Socrates. Central to my argument is a contrast between Kierkegaard’s reception of Hamann and that of Hegel’s review. In chapter two I show that Kierkegaard develops an argument against speculative philosophy and its claims to have achieved the absolute beginning. I argue that Kierkegaard appeals to Hamann’s critique of Kant which centres around the possibility of a priori cognition and the dependency of reason on language. I contend that Kierkegaard takes up Hamann’s critique in order to show that the absolute beginning which speculative philosophy claims to have achieved in the form of pure thinking is unachievable because of the dependency of thought on language. Chapter three examines the conception of selfhood in Hamann and Kierkegaard. I address their views of the self as unified and their critique of alternative conceptions of selfhood which undermine this unity. I show that Kierkegaard’s arguments in relation to despair and forgetfulness share important similarities with Hamann. Chapter four explores Kierkegaard’s critique and repair of post-Kantian reflection theory. I demonstrate that Kierkegaard proceeds to provide a minimal view of the self achieved through reflection which finally encounters its own limits in its own self-knowledge. I propose that Kierkegaard presents this as Socratic ignorance and that his model for outlining the limits of self-knowledge stems from Hamann. I develop my argument by arguing that for Hamann and Kierkegaard self-knowledge is only available through divine revelation. i Table of Contents Abstract ________________________________________________ i Abbreviations ____________________________________________ iv Introduction __________________________________________ 1 Chapter One Style, System, and Socrates: Kierkegaard’s Early Reception of Hamann Introduction _______________________________________ 12 I. Style and Socrates _______________________________ 17 II. Systematicity and Humour ________________________ 30 Conclusion ________________________________________ 52 Chapter Two The Presuppositionless Beginning: Agency, Language and the Problem of the Immediate Introduction _______________________________________ 57 I. Existential Forgetfulness and the Formal Critique ___________________________ 58 II. Reflection and the Immediacy of Pure Being ___________________________________ 62 III. Infinite abstraction, the Immediacy of Pure thinking and Language ___________________ 66 IV. Hamann: Vernunft ist Sprache ____________________ 74 A. Introduction _______________________________ 74 B. Reason, Language and Christological Mystery _____________________ 81 C. Receptivity, Spontaneity, and Error __________ 93 Conclusion ________________________________________ 108 ii Chapter Three The Existential Self: Hamann and Kierkegaard on Diagnosis and Cure Introduction _______________________________________ 110 I. Hamann _______________________________________ 113 II. Kierkegaard ____________________________________ 124 A. Infinitude’s Despair _______________________ 124 B. Forgetfulness ____________________________ 134 Conclusion ______________________________________ 148 Chapter Four Reflection & The Dialectical Self: Pantheism, Infinitude, Socratic Ignorance, and the Word Introduction _______________________________________ 150 I. Pantheism, Metaphysics and The Loss of Infinitude _______________________ 152 II. Regaining Infinitude: Problems with Reflection and Romanticism _______________________________ 161 III. Regaining the Dialectical Self: Limits and Possibility ___________________________ 170 IV. Know Thyself! Socratic Ignorance and the Word _________________________________ 177 Conclusion _______________________________________ 201 Conclusion __________________________________________ 203 Bibliography ____________________________________________ 210 iii Abbreviations CA Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Anxiety , ed. and tr. Reidar Thomte (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). CI Søren Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, ed. and tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989). CUP Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, ed. and tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992). E/O I Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or I , ed. and tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). E/O II Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or II , ed. and tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987). H IV - VII Johann Georg Hamann, Briefwechsel , vol.IV-VII, ed. Arthur Henkel (Weisbaden: Insel, 1959-1979). JP Søren Kierkegaard, Journals and Papers , 7 vols., ed. and tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1967-78). KrV Immanuel Kant, Critique of Pure Reason , ed. and tr. Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1998). LS Johann Georg Hamann, Londoner Schriften , Historische- kritische Neuedition, ed. Oswald Bayer and Bernd Weissenborn (Munich: C.H. Beck, 1993). iv N I - N VI Johann Georg Hamann, Sämtliche Werke , 6 vols., ed. Josef Nadler, Historical-critical edition (Vienna: Herder, 1949-57). PF Søren Kierkegaard, Philosophical Fragments , ed. and tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985). R I - VIII Johann Georg Hamann, Hamann's Schriften , ed. Friedrich and Gustav Adolf Wiener (VIII, 2 vols.), (Berlin: G. Reimer, 1820-1843). SKS Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter , 28 text volumes and 28 commentary volumes, ed. Niels Jørgen Cappelørn, Joakim Garff, Jette Knudsen, Johnny Kondrup, and Alstair McKinnon (Copenhagen: Gad Publishers, 1997 – ). SM James C. O’Flaherty, Hamann’s Socratic Memorabilia: A Translation and Commentary (Baltimore: The John Hopkins Press, 1967). SUD Søren Kierkegaard, The Sickness unto Death , ed. and tr. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1980). ZH I - III Johann Georg Hamann, Briefwechsel , vol.I-III, ed. Walter Ziesemer and Arthur Henkel (Weisbaden: Insel, 1955-1957). v Introduction In 1856, the year following Kierkegaard’s death, Peter Christian Zahle (1825- 98) published a short monograph, In Memory of Johann Georg Hamann and Søren Aabye Kierkegaard .1 From such an early date, Hamann was already recognised as significant to Kierkegaard’s authorship. The next work devoted to Kierkegaard’s relation to Hamann appeared in 1922. 2 Since that time, not a single full length study has been produced investigating a relation that has been widely recognised as perhaps the most significant in Kierkegaard’s intellectual development and authorship. From the time of Rodemann’s publication to the present day there have been a handful of articles and chapters in edited volumes published exploring the relation between Hamann and Kierkegaard, as well as Hamann receiving brief mention in numerous studies. In fact, it has become something of a standard practice in Kierkegaard studies to gesture towards Hamann, but these rarely go beyond the superficial. 3 In relation to other areas of Kierkegaard studies, Kierkegaard’s reception of Hamann has been not been thoroughly investigated. The present work is a modest contribution to correcting this. A lack of material devoted to explicating Kierkegaard’s reception of Hamann does not in and of itself necessarily warrant a study of the kind I undertake here. However, given the virtual universal agreement regarding the importance of Hamann for Kierkegaard’s authorship, and the relatively little attention this has received, I 1 Peter Christian Zahle, Til Erindring om Johan Georg Hamann og Søren Kierkegaard (Copenhagen: Thiele, 1856). See “Peter Christian Zahle” in Dansk Biografisk Leksikon , ed. Povl Engelstoft (Copenhagen: J.H. Schulz, 1944), p.414-417. See also “Peter Christian Zahle” in Encounters with Kierkegaard: a life seen by his contemporaries