I'd like to note, however, that if you wish to make use of my work, remember to cite your sources, including this webpage. The general rule of thumb is this: whenever you use anything, even an idea or concept, that you did not come up with yourself, use proper citation. The integrity of your project is too important to risk through acts of plagiarism.
So cite any and all sources you end up using. Yes, even if it's a paper posted by some schmuck on an online blog somewhere.
Cheers.
Philosophy 333
James Sellers
10/11/13
Writing Assignment #02
Kierkegaard often disagrees
with Hegelian ideas. In this case, he disagrees with Hegel's
definition of what constitutes truth with regard to the question of
Christianity as truth. Hegel would say that truth is an absolute and
objective certainty; this certainty is possible through having
complete knowledge in its final form. Kierkegaard pseudonymously
disputes this idea through Climacus when he asserts that truth as
objective certainty has no power to transform the subject as an
individual, and neither is it conducive to the passion and inwardness
that are important conditions for truth relevant to the subject as an
existing individual. For these reasons, Climacus states that truth is
subjective and that how the subject relates herself to truth
has greater significance than what
she relates herself to. This comes to expression in the passage in
Concluding Unscientific Postscript
that compares the virtuous pagan praying to an idol and the nominal
Christian who prays to the true God. In this paper, I will explore
what truth means both objectively and subjectively and what these
different interpretations mean for the definition and location of
truth that Climacus wishes to espouse.
Climacus
understands objective truth as a mutual agreement between thinking
and being (189). Essentially, one's thinking must correspond with
reality, or what is,
and vice-versa; the subject must approach truth without biases of any
kind, and the subject's beliefs must correspond to what factually is
the case. For Climacus, however, this two-way agreement falls short.
It turns Christian truth into mere approximation, whereby
Christianity, were it to ever be proven as objective truth, would
become a mere obligation instead of the object of passion, an
abstraction instead of a personal reality. Additionally, this
agreement between thinking and being does not take into account the
problem of flux that is inherent to human existence:
“If, in the two definitions given,
being is understood as empirical being, then truth itself is
transformed into a desideratum [something
wanted] and everything is placed in the process of becoming, because
the empirical object is not finished, and the existing knowing spirit
is itself in the process of becoming. Thus truth is an approximating
whose beginning cannot be established absolutely, because there is no
conclusion that has retroactive power” (189).
By this
account, truth has only partial reality as approximating abstraction
and not as a timeless reality. If truth as a two-way correspondence
between thinking and being is the ideal, then it will always be in a
process of approximation.
These
problems with the objective account lead Climacus to reject it in
favor of a subjective account. Climacus suggest that people think of
truth not as an abstract approximation external to the subject to
which she must comport herself dispassionately, but rather something
that the subject reflects upon inwardly in order to exist in
subjectivity. In other words, the question is not necessarily what
human beings believe, but rather how
they relate themselves to what they believe; the issue is how human
beings can live in truth in a subjectively authentic manner. The
divergence of the objective and the subjective comes to a head when
Climacus writes:
“When the question about truth is
asked objectively, truth is reflected upon objectively as an object
to which the knower relates himself. What is reflected upon is not
the relation but that what he relates himself to is the truth, the
true. If only that to which he relates himself is the truth, the
true, then the subject is in the truth. When the question about truth
is asked subjectively, the individual's relation is reflected upon
subjectively. If only the how of this relation is in truth, the
individual is in truth, even if he in this way were to relate himself
to untruth” (199).
Climacus
does not necessarily deny the existence of objective truth as
something to which the subject must relate herself. However, he goes
one step beyond this, stating that the manner
of subjective relation to objective truth is more important than the
content of the
subject's beliefs. If the question is whether or not one can have
knowledge of God, the objective relation to truth encounters the
problem of approximation, whereby objective knowledge of God
deliberates dispassionately in the hopes of somehow proving God
objectively. This is problematic, however, because “God is a
subject and hence only for subjectivity in inwardness” (200).
The
subjective relation, on the other hand, has personal and urgent
reality for the subject. Climacus endorses this mode of relation. An
objective seeker of God can only approximate the truth of God as an
idea, but a subjective seeker of God is infinitely concerned with how
she relates to truth. The person who knows the truth objectively but
relates to the truth impersonally prohibits
truth's genuine, transformative effect in her life. But the person
who, while objectively in untruth, relates to it in truth allows
herself to experience truth nevertheless on account of her intensely
personal and authentic passion and need. If the question is where
more truth can be found, in the objective relation or in the
subjective relation, Climacus feels that the answer reveals itself in
the comparison of the nominal Christian with the virtuous pagan:
“If someone who lives in the midst
of Christianity enters, with knowledge of the true idea of God, the
house of the true God, and prays, but prays in untruth, and if
someone lives in an idolatrous land but prays with all the passion of
infinity, although his eyes are resting upon the image of an
idol—where,
then, is there more truth? The one prays in truth to God although he
is worshipping an idol; the other prays in untruth to the true God
and is therefore in truth worshipping an idol” (201).
Put
simply, actions speak louder than words. The pagan who prays with
life-transforming intensity feels the effects of genuine faith, which
inwardly spurs him to action, whereas the Christian who goes to
church out of a sense of obligation and prays dispassionately feels
no such effects of genuine faith and is not inwardly prompted to
action. The pagan likewise struggles with uncertainty and takes hold
of faith, while the Christian settles for a mere approximation of
God. Acknowledging the truth intellectually is by itself an
insufficient belief, because belief must be practiced to have
effectual value. What one believes must be reflected in one's
actions. As an example, Climacus considers the figure of Socrates,
who was willing to die for belief in immortality. “He stakes his
whole life on this “if”; he dares to die, and with the passion of
the infinite he has so ordered his life that it might be
acceptable—if
there is an immortality”
(201). So with regard to the prayers of the virtuous pagan and the
nominal Christian, the transforming power of their beliefs decides
whether a subject is in truth or not. As such, the truth ultimately
lies in the subjective. Climacus supports this conclusion further
when he states that the objective emphasis is on what
is said and the subjective with how it
is said (202). “At its maximum,” he writes. “this 'how' is the
passion of the infinite, and the passion of the infinite is the very
truth. But the passion of the infinite is precisely subjectivity, and
thus subjectivity is truth” (203). In this way, it is preferable
(according to Climacus) to pray to a false god in truth rather than
praying to the true God in untruth.
With
truth being located in subjectivity, Climacus provides a definition
of this truth: “An
objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with
the most passionate inwardness, is the truth,
the highest truth there is for an existing person”
(203). This means that past a certain point, objective knowledge
becomes suspended for the subject, and the infinite passion of
inwardness grows stronger in this objective uncertainty. The subject
thus chooses objective uncertainty, fueled by infinite passion.
Climacus observes that this definition also expresses what it means
to have faith. Without a sense of objective uncertainty and risk, one
does not need something like faith. “If I am able to apprehend God
subjectively, I do not have faith; but because I cannot do this, I
must have faith” (204). Only in the absence of objective certainty
can something as hopeful as faith occur. Praying in truth thus means
to let faith guide one through inward passion in how one relates to
one's beliefs.
In
short, Climacus concerns himself primarily with the authenticity of
the subject's relation to objective truth. The orientation of the
subject and the power of a belief to transform the subject in a real
and life changing way ultimately makes the most important difference.
Truth is thus found in subjectivity, in the heart of the believer as
her beliefs drive her to action. The Hegelian idea of absolute
knowledge becomes unattainable to the subject, but this very
suspension of objectivity brings faith's value to light. In this
sense, Climacus implies that Christianity as truth does not lend
itself easily to the modern understanding, but is rather something
best understood through the genuine and earnest practice of faith.
Works
Cited:
Kierkegaard,
Søren. Concluding
Unscientific Postscript.
Hong ed. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1846.
189-204. Print.
