Kierkegaard's Dialectical Image of Human Existence in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript to The Philosophical Fragments

Abstract

I'll tell you, she said, though it's a rather long story. On the day of Aprhrodite's birth the gods were making merry, and among them was Resource, the son of Craft. And when they had supped, Need came begging at the door because there was good cheer inside. Now it happened that Resource, having drunk deeply of the heavenly nectar-for this was before the days of wine-wandered out into the garden of Zeus and sank into a heavy sleep, and Need, thinking that to get a child by Resource would mitigate her penury, lay down beside him and time was brought to the bed of Love. So Love became the follower and servant of Aphrodite because he was begotten on the same day that she was born, and further, he was born to love the beautiful since Aphrodite is beautiful herself. Diotima's story of the birth of Eros/Human Existence, Plato, The Symposium, 203b-cl But what is existence? It is that child who is begotten by the infinite and the finite, the eternal and the temporal, and is therefore continually striving. Soren Kierkegaard, Postscript, 1.85 With the publication 1846 of The Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments Kierkegaard was providing a promised sequel to the Fragments, as well as announcing his intention of concluding his work as a pseudonymous author order to seek to qualify as a Lutheran pastor.' The Postscript stands as one of the most monumental of his works and is especially significant terms of Kierkegaard's investigation of human existence and the opposition between passion and intellect, faith and reason. The undertaking of this investigation the Fragments Kierkegaard ascribes to the pseudonymous author, Johannes Climacus. Climacus' account of existence the Postscript is significantly shaped by Diotima's story Plato's Symposium of the birth of Eros from the opposed genetic characteristics of each divine and human parent, Resource and Need. In this essay I will explore the legacy of this Platonic image of existence the Postscript, clarifying the process the way this dialectic of existence manifests itself different forms of life or what Kierkegaard describes as stages of existence. In so doing I will clarify the sense which Climacus' account of existence is and represents a synthesis or the unity of the opposed characteristics of the infinite and the finite, the eternal and the temporal.4 At the end of the Postscript Kierkegaard, as editor of the work, addresses the reader and makes much of the claim that in the pseudonymous books there is not a single word by me5 and he disclaims that his own views can be simply identified with the position of any pseudonymous author. Although I believe the account of existence presented the Postscript is compatible with Kierkegaard's views, I have respected his observations about his authorship by ascribing the content of the Postscript to Climacus. 6 In order to see existence differentdialectically, it is necessary to come to some understanding regarding the different ways ewhich Climatus uses the term dialectic, and its cognates and dialectician the Postcript. It is clear that for Kierkegaard, Socrates and the writings of Plato constitute major influence on his thought and mode of communication. The other major influence is Christianity and, more particularrly for Kiekegaard, the task of becoming a Christian. The notion of dialectic is a central concept Kierkegaard's writing, and must be seen the first instance relation to its connection with dialogue and communcation. Dialectic has its roots the thinking approach of Socrates that proceeds by question and answer, the examination and cross-examination of a belief, the scrutiny and testing of position and counter-position. It is this sense that Climacus refers to a dialectical difficulty with the Bible 7 terms of the raising of questions or the bringing forward of oppositions. …