Open Theology 2020; 6: 606–622 Phenomenology of Religious Experience IV: Religious Experience and Description Maria Gołębiewska* The Phenomenal Aspects of Irony according to Søren Kierkegaard https://doi.org/10.1515/opth-2020-0129 received May 16, 2020; accepted August 05, 2020 Abstract: The aim of the text is to characterise some phenomenal aspects of irony (particularly, of the ironic speech acts), which may be found in the Kierkegaardian reflection concerning diverse ironic attitudes of individuals, mainly of Christians. The constant assumptions in Søren Kierkegaard’s various output – in pseudonymous works, those signed with his own name, in “edifying discourses” and other religious texts – include the teleological conception of the sense of human being and existence. According to the philoso- pher, this sense is determined by the individually chosen and subjectively accepted goal of existence, related to the indicated three stages of life. This is the goal of a person who lives their mortal existence between joke and despair, at an ironic and sceptical distance from rash judgements and generalisations, and at the same time in fear of mundane threats and in fear of God. With the ambiguity of the category of existence, researchers combine an ironic attitude which, according to Kierkegaard, would characterise our way of existence together with its cognition and which would be connected with the conception of sub- jective truth as based on paradox. Kierkegaard wrote about ironic engagement and at the same time distance, about a positive ironic attitude towards the world of the here and now – a mundane immanent reality. According to Kierkegaard, the ironic attitude is closely related to dialectics, which he understood in a specific way – the structures of repetition and doubling are dialectic, and this dialectics may be found, among other things, in communication and in irony as a specific relation between thought and language. One must highlight that Kierkegaard considered two general types of irony: verbal (logical, rhetorical and poetic) and situational (existential), ultimately pointing out their religious aspects. The final part of the article describes different interconnections between the logical plus rhetorical aspects of irony and the issue of religious engagement of individuals (Christians) – their ironic entanglement in the relations between faith and knowledge, faith and doubt, mundane immanent world and transcendent universe. Keywords: irony, existence, phenomenon, repetition, immanence, transcendence 1 Introduction The aim of the article is to characterise some phenomenal aspects of irony (particularly, of the ironic speech acts), which may be found in the Kierkegaardian reflection concerning diverse ironic attitudes of individuals, mainly of Christians. In other words, the investigative aim is to present a contribution of Søren Kierkegaard into studies concerning the subject matter of irony, primarily an irony characterised and able to be charac- terised in the religious texts, considerations, declarations. This contribution pertains to some possible ways of joining and intertwining different kinds of irony which would be more or less typical of the attitudes and intentions of Christians. According to Kierkegaard, this topic cannot be conceived without considering diverse philosophical matters which would be interconnected with the question of irony: dialectics, repeti- tion, redoubling and reduplication, and humour. I gradually explain these notions in the text, and they * Corresponding author: Maria Gołębiewska, Polish Academy of Sciences, Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Warsaw, Poland, e-mail: mgolebiewska@ifispan.edu.pl The Phenomenal Aspects of Irony according to Søren Kierkegaard 607 constitute a certain arrangement, a set in the centre of which we may find the notion of irony. I gradually define these concepts, one after another, mostly referring to the voluminous study Kierkegaard’s Concepts.¹ The constant assumptions in Kierkegaard’s various output – in pseudonymous works, those signed with his own name, in “edifying discourses” and other religious texts – include the teleological conception of the sense of human being and existence. According to the philosopher, this sense is determined by the individually chosen and subjectively accepted goal of existence, related to the indicated three stages of life. This is the goal of a person who lives their mortal existence between joke and despair, at an ironic and sceptical distance from rash judgements and generalisations, and at the same time in fear of mundane threats and in fear of God. With the ambiguity of the category of existence, researchers combine an ironic attitude which, according to Kierkegaard, would characterise our way of existence together with its cogni- tion and which would be connected with the conception of subjective truth as based on paradox. Kierkegaard wrote about ironic engagement and at the same time distance, about a positive ironic attitude towards the world of the here and now – a mundane immanent reality. According to Kierkegaard, the ironic attitude is closely related to dialectics, which he understood in a specific way – the structures of repetition and doubling are dialectic, and this dialectics may be found, among other things, in communication and in irony as a specific relation between thought and language. The existence of the individual in Kierkegaard’s conception, also framed in an ironic way, equalled the awareness of one’s own subjectivity and existence, trying to grasp their ironic, dialectic approach. One must highlight that Kierkegaard considered two general types of irony: verbal and situational, finally pointing out their religious aspects. An additional investigative contribution of the Dane deals with the semantic processes and phenome- nalisation which happens due to irony. His analyses were implicitly rooted in the theses of Locke and Kant concerning the processes of inward, mental phenomenalisation, and this stance was explicitly against Hegel’s position on phenomenalisation comprehended as a certain historical manifestation of the absolute Spirit and the Spirit of universal Geschichte. The theses of The Concept of Irony were inspired by Hegelian thought; however, Kierkegaard implicitly presented there his polemics against Hegel’s concept of dialec- tics, explicitly developing them in later works. One should point out that in The Concept of Irony Kierkegaard explicitly wrote about “phenomenon” and “phenomenal” processes referring to Hegel’s con- ception of “historical-actual phenomenon” in the context of which he considered Socrates’ philosophical stance and activities.² At the same time, he distinctively defined the subjective, inward, mental phenomena in the context of cognitive processes. One may say that Kierkegaard followed Hegel’s theory of phenomenon grasped as a historical “manifestation,” although first and foremost, he proposed his own view on the theory of phenomenon. For he developed the problems of inward, mental phenomenalisation (as “mental appearance”), well-known from the works of Locke and Hume – and Kant as well, who referred to the phenomenalist³ stance of the British philosophers in his Critique of Pure Reason.⁴ 2 The concept of irony Researchers indicate that the English noun “irony” derives from the Ancient Greek term “eirōneía,” used in Ancient Greek comedy, considered i.a. by Aristotle, and after known by means of the Latin word “ironia.” 1 Cf. Emmanuel, McDonald, Stewart (ed.), Kierkegaard’s Concepts (Kierkegaard’s Research: Sources, Reception and Resources, volume 15, tomes I to VI), 2014 (2016). 2 Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony,9:“Before I proceed to an exposition of the concept of irony, it is necessary to make sure that I have a reliable and authentic view of Socrates’ historical-actual, phenomenological existence with respect to the question of its possible relation to the transformed view that was his fate through enthusiastic or envious contemporaries. This becomes inescapably necessary, because the concept of irony makes its entry into the world through Socrates.” 3 Cf. Stokes, “Uniting the Perspectival Subject: Two Approaches,” 23–44. 4 Kant, Critique of Pure Reason, 225 (Division one. Transcendental analytic). 608 Maria Gołębiewska The Ancient Greek meaning of this term: “dissimulation, ignorance purposely affected,” as well as different types of irony (verbal, dramatic, situational, religious) may be found in their later and present use.⁵ Nassim Bravo Jordán characterises the scope of Kierkegaard’s application of the Danish term “Ironi:” From the Greek εἰρωνεία, “dissimulation.” According to its lexical meaning in Danish, it is the expression of something that the speaker does not mean or that is the opposite of what he means. Sometimes it can refer, especially in the aesthetics of the Romantics, to the freedom or arbitrariness of fantasy over its object, or, in a philosophical sense, to the state of mind that puts the finite in contrast with the infinite, thus stripping the former of all its value. Finally, it also makes reference to the method used by Socrates. The word “irony” appears most frequently in The Concept of Irony, followed by the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to ‘Philosophical Fragments’ and Either-Or. Kierkegaard discusses in depth the concept in his doctoral dissertation of 1841, The Concept of Irony, while in the Postscript, published in 1846 under the pseudonym “Johannes Climacus,” Kierkegaard compares irony with the concept of “humour.” It should