Being and Givenness In Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Authorship

Abstract

Kierkegaard's narrative of self-becoming, his philosophy of change or actualisation, marks what has been called his radical departure from traditional Western conceptions of relationship between existence and essence.1 If ethics, according Kierkegaard, pertains single existing human and not race, then and highest must regard as such and not qua particular of human species: ethical . . . is for individuals, he writes, while telos is for the whole human race.2 If, then, is not a given universal, it must either be given every separately orbe responsibility of every formulate for and by himself. As we shall see, Kierkegaard holds both these options together in dialectical tension: infinite good (or Salighed) is posited by self for itself only on ground of a potency which is given with immediate life of every human being. This is, then, according Kierkegaard's ontology of self, mode in which being is received. In terms of this ontology, being is received, not as essence, but as pure potency; immediacy is of being as potential be.3 And yet, as I shall try show, concept of potency is not a negative one for Kierkegaard as it is for Aristotle. This means that 'for what' of every potency is also given within immediacy-only not in terms of a metaphysical necessity. Rather, 'for what' inherent in immediate potential of selfhood must be conceived in terms of possibility, or freedom, alone. The 'positive' in Kierkegaard's understanding of potency is that for potency remain true itself it must not violate its being as being-free for itself, so that freedom is understood be, at least in pseudonymous works, an end unto itself. The wider purpose of this essay is provide some of groundwork that will make it possible add Kierkegaard's voice recent cross-over discussions in philosophy and theology regarding concepts of gift and (Marion, Derrida, Milbank). In order do this, it is necessary interpret one use of Kierkegaard's term (Umiddelbarhed) as givenness of being. It will then be necessary trace Kierkegaard's interpretation of being as (Virkelighed) and follow peculiar dialectic of passivity (reception) and activity (response) at play in every change from potency actuality. Kierkegaard deploys term in various contexts and on several topoi. I wish not only identify immediacy as one such topos, but also show how it operates as original condition of possibility for every change from potency actuality-the condition of possibility, that is, for every higher hypostasis of spirit. This rather formal preamble will then set stage for an investigation of Vigilius Haufniensis' phenomenology of fate. This will serve not only as an example of one way relates immediacy of his or her being, but also as a way observe dynamics of actualisation at work in finite spirit's response suffering inherent in all being-given. Actuality Being as Actuality in every one of its modes, corresponds existence, to individual who lies outside and is not absorbed in concept.4 The kind of being that Kierkegaard refers as he thus opposes ideal being-which at one point he even downgrades from status of 'being' at all.5 Actuality, in every one of its modes, thus cannot be thought, for thought dissolves or translates actuality into possibility, into a thought-essence or concept.6 If this means that Kierkegaard conceives of being, once again, as an and not a metaphysical category, it does not imply that actuality is something other than metaphysical definition of unity of thought and being, but it does mean that Kierkegaard ethically reverses priority of terms. …