I very much enjoyed this conversation when it appeared, and am happy to hear that Part II will be forthcoming. Am I right in remembering that it is to revolve around De Anima et Resurrectione?
Dense discussion with subtleties. The modern tendency is to incorporate everything into sciences in order to synthesize all existing and precedented concepts to make sense for modern minds. From the Cartesian mechanical orders of the corporeality in the world to quantum physics, backward toward the Creation as One, depicted and interpreted or analyzed later as Substance from which derivative predicates unfold. Sheer understanding and thick ignorance of mine are making me say these things.
The treatise of Gregory of Nyssa is transparently and beautifully introduced in the conversation. Structural categorizations (ex: divisions of theologies) are on the other hand from a scientific practice.
Internal mind cinema makings to be a psychic drama for individualization of outer realities may have the same origine, but in very wrought and artificially elaborated ways
I used to think (and maybe wrote) St. Augustin pointed out the First Utterance from which God's narratives are unfolding as the former is Eternity, the latter is time. The fulfillment, salvation, back onto Eternity, a mere subscriber like me can say anything.
Just one more. Without all sublime and subtle aspects of Gregory of Nyssa, that humanity was created as a community to be one body, mirroring Divine image on its reflection would be utilized or even abused by institutional or political agenda of today on their operational level for the realization of a socialism.
In short: Fear and Trembling is a critique of Sittlichkeit, not of 'reason'. That is, it is a critique of the reduction of moral reasoning to simply making a positive contribution to one's society. How can you justify the refusal to get on board with the project of your society?--That's the question of Fear and Trembling.
Kierkegaard hardly ever bothers to actually name the references he is making. Yet in Fear and Trembling he explicitly cites Hegel's Philosophy of Right. That should be a big clue to the meaning of the work. Actually, though, you don't really need a clue. Once you have Sittlichkeit in mind, it is clear this is what is at stake.
I suppose what I mean is that if you think Fear and Trembling is "fideistic," you are misunderstanding the text. The point is not 'faith versus reason' but 'faith versus the moral reasoning of society'. Similar points could be made for other Kierkegaardian texts. Lots of people read Philosophical Fragments as pitting faith against philosophy. But the point is really faith versus Hegelian speculative comprehension. In fact, it's actually impossible to say whether Philosophical Fragments is a theological or a philosophical text, due to its blending of the "two", as Jean-Yves Lacoste has pointed out (see Lacoste's Appearing of God, which O'Donovan has translated). In my thinking, if someone rejects Hegelian speculative comprehension, that hardly makes her or him fideistic.
If I understand you, you probably have a sunnier view of Hegelian speculative comprehension than Kierkegaard, which may in fact be a substantial disagreement with him. But I'd be interested to hear more some time on where your agreements and disagreements with Hegel and the other German Idealists lie.
No, that is not what I think. I said nothing about fideism. My dislike of Fear and Trembling lies in its failure to answer Hegel effectively; it merely inverts the logic of Sittlichkeit and thereby falls into an obvious trap.
To be very pedantic, you do mention "fideism" or rather "an aspect of fideism" with respect to Kierkegaard in the interview I am referencing. That being said, the reversal of Sittlichkeit is an interesting claim. Not in respect to Fear and Trembling, because there is no positive logic (and thus no inversion) developed there--it's merely making the negative point that Sittlichkeit cannot wholly subsume faith. But later, in Practice in Christianity, that text could very well be described as an inversion of the logic of Sittlichkeit, as it builds off the idea of the "double danger" in Works of Love and affirms that the true Christian is always persecuted. Kierkegaard is indeed here working off intentionally simplistic assumptions: human society is always and everywhere selfish, for example. I could certainly see how you would disagree with that, given your historical work on how Christian teaching does to some extent transform particular human societies. However, I actually understand your writings having to do with the New Testament to lean more in this Kierkegaardian direction, unless I am far off the mark.
Kierkegaard himself concurs with that--Do you remember the journal entry "New Fear and Trembling"? It's the first one included in the Hongs F&T, if I'm remembering rightly. I find all the 'hidden knight of faith who's just an ordinary bourgeois' to be rather nauseating, and I think the Kierkegaard of Practice in Christianity does too.
I very much enjoyed this conversation when it appeared, and am happy to hear that Part II will be forthcoming. Am I right in remembering that it is to revolve around De Anima et Resurrectione?
Dense discussion with subtleties. The modern tendency is to incorporate everything into sciences in order to synthesize all existing and precedented concepts to make sense for modern minds. From the Cartesian mechanical orders of the corporeality in the world to quantum physics, backward toward the Creation as One, depicted and interpreted or analyzed later as Substance from which derivative predicates unfold. Sheer understanding and thick ignorance of mine are making me say these things.
The treatise of Gregory of Nyssa is transparently and beautifully introduced in the conversation. Structural categorizations (ex: divisions of theologies) are on the other hand from a scientific practice.
Internal mind cinema makings to be a psychic drama for individualization of outer realities may have the same origine, but in very wrought and artificially elaborated ways
I used to think (and maybe wrote) St. Augustin pointed out the First Utterance from which God's narratives are unfolding as the former is Eternity, the latter is time. The fulfillment, salvation, back onto Eternity, a mere subscriber like me can say anything.
Just one more. Without all sublime and subtle aspects of Gregory of Nyssa, that humanity was created as a community to be one body, mirroring Divine image on its reflection would be utilized or even abused by institutional or political agenda of today on their operational level for the realization of a socialism.
This comment is in relation to a different video recently uploaded, from the 'Origins of Language' channel: I think you would reevaluate Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling if you read Merold Westphal's Kierkegaard's Critique of Reason and Society (https://www.psupress.org/books/titles/0-271-00830-X.html) or Paul Martens's recent commentary on Fear and Trembling (https://wipfandstock.com/9781620320198/reading-kierkegaard-i/).
In short: Fear and Trembling is a critique of Sittlichkeit, not of 'reason'. That is, it is a critique of the reduction of moral reasoning to simply making a positive contribution to one's society. How can you justify the refusal to get on board with the project of your society?--That's the question of Fear and Trembling.
Kierkegaard hardly ever bothers to actually name the references he is making. Yet in Fear and Trembling he explicitly cites Hegel's Philosophy of Right. That should be a big clue to the meaning of the work. Actually, though, you don't really need a clue. Once you have Sittlichkeit in mind, it is clear this is what is at stake.
Yes, Merold is especially good on this. But I can agree with the rejection of Sittlichkeit and still regard F&T as defective for other reasons.
I suppose what I mean is that if you think Fear and Trembling is "fideistic," you are misunderstanding the text. The point is not 'faith versus reason' but 'faith versus the moral reasoning of society'. Similar points could be made for other Kierkegaardian texts. Lots of people read Philosophical Fragments as pitting faith against philosophy. But the point is really faith versus Hegelian speculative comprehension. In fact, it's actually impossible to say whether Philosophical Fragments is a theological or a philosophical text, due to its blending of the "two", as Jean-Yves Lacoste has pointed out (see Lacoste's Appearing of God, which O'Donovan has translated). In my thinking, if someone rejects Hegelian speculative comprehension, that hardly makes her or him fideistic.
If I understand you, you probably have a sunnier view of Hegelian speculative comprehension than Kierkegaard, which may in fact be a substantial disagreement with him. But I'd be interested to hear more some time on where your agreements and disagreements with Hegel and the other German Idealists lie.
No, that is not what I think. I said nothing about fideism. My dislike of Fear and Trembling lies in its failure to answer Hegel effectively; it merely inverts the logic of Sittlichkeit and thereby falls into an obvious trap.
To be very pedantic, you do mention "fideism" or rather "an aspect of fideism" with respect to Kierkegaard in the interview I am referencing. That being said, the reversal of Sittlichkeit is an interesting claim. Not in respect to Fear and Trembling, because there is no positive logic (and thus no inversion) developed there--it's merely making the negative point that Sittlichkeit cannot wholly subsume faith. But later, in Practice in Christianity, that text could very well be described as an inversion of the logic of Sittlichkeit, as it builds off the idea of the "double danger" in Works of Love and affirms that the true Christian is always persecuted. Kierkegaard is indeed here working off intentionally simplistic assumptions: human society is always and everywhere selfish, for example. I could certainly see how you would disagree with that, given your historical work on how Christian teaching does to some extent transform particular human societies. However, I actually understand your writings having to do with the New Testament to lean more in this Kierkegaardian direction, unless I am far off the mark.
There is a touch of fideism in SK. It’s conspicuous in his journals. But that’s not the chief problem with F&T, which is actually too Hegelian.
Kierkegaard himself concurs with that--Do you remember the journal entry "New Fear and Trembling"? It's the first one included in the Hongs F&T, if I'm remembering rightly. I find all the 'hidden knight of faith who's just an ordinary bourgeois' to be rather nauseating, and I think the Kierkegaard of Practice in Christianity does too.
A dizzying claim - If you love (or hate) this 20 second excerpt, then you'll definitely want to engage this 1 hour plus conversation.
The most succinct, yet poetic - Christology as cosmology, creation as Incarnation - snippet ever!
https://twitter.com/AEROdynamicCat1/status/1418004520223789060?s=20