Thursday, July 31, 2014

Kierkegaard vs Hegel - Objectivity, Subjectivity, and Faith

The following is a paper I submitted during my undergrad studies at Calvin College. I hope you find it beneficial and that it clarifies some of the nuances existing between thinkers like Kierkegaard and Hegel.

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 idolwhere, 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 acceptableif 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.

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