Text and the Performative Act

Abstract

Commenting on Nicomachean Ethics, bk. X, Kierkegaard criticizes Aristotle because he rates contemplative life higher than practice of political virtue.1 Kierkegaard says, the contemplative life is isolation.2 To think solely for sake of thinking, he argues, is to think disinterestedly, which is not human (umenneskelig) way to be. Something happens between being and thinking. He calls it existence (Existents) claiming this ontology of singularity (den Enkelte) involves a comportment directed outside itself. That is to say, being is both finite and infinite, is oriented both vertically and horizontally, toward wholly Other which constitutes a secret, is unsayable, as well as toward other other. Because of being's vertical orientation Kierkegaard has to produce a new methodology by which to present his philosophy of existence. This new approach involves two different communication forms: a direct communication, which is im/possible for communicating unsayable, and an indirect communication that is concealed and only reveals itself upon solicitation. This indirect communications form necessitates existential appropriation for its understanding. Existence is for Kierkegaard human (menneskelig) way to be. This critique of Aristotle is from period of Kierkegaard's first pseudonymous texts: Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, and Repetition. It is tempting to suggest that it is Aristotle's metaphysics that is aim of his critique, but that would be a departure from Kierkegaard's philosophy which is engaged both within and beyond limits of metaphysics. Still, these early texts address a thinking that we do not encounter in indirect communications concealed within them. These writings constitute a phenomenology of singularity without context, and thus they resemble Aristotle's own approach which, by dissecting various components of human experience, found it easier to see what each contains.3 With Kierkegaard's authorship we are introduced to singularity from a number of perspectives, not perspectives that in any way can be considered real-therefore pseudonymity-but perspectives that attempt to describe experiences of singularity first outside of a problematizing context and later, as we shall see, within it. What is of immediate interest is thus Kierkegaard's methodology, movement between direct and indirect communication, and requirement that these two modes of communication be read differently in order to reveal his phenomenology of singularity. The problematic occurs when in these early writings a context is seemingly included: for example, marriage, work, and political in Either/Or II , Sarah, general (det Almene), not to mention tax collector in Fear and Trembling, and a journey to Berlin in Repetition. These (worldly) inclusions, however, do not constitute context; rather, they are for purpose of presenting a philosophy of existence. That is to say, they assist in explaining ontological structure of singularity. Kierkegaard is not operating within a subject/object paradigm. He is not examining human relationships as such. That only happens later in Works of Love, for example, where Kierkegaard posits a context, thus problematizing existence. In domain of thinking, positive can be classed in following categories: sensate certainty, historical knowledge, speculative resuits. But this is precisely untrue .... All of this positive fails to express state of knowing subject in existence.4 Kierkegaard's project is fairly obvious as Calvin O. Schrag has so eloquently shown: As Heidegger's ontological and existentialist descriptions can arise only from ontic and existential experience, so Kierkegaard's ontic and existential elucidations express an implicit ontology.5 However, being of singularity, as Kierkegaard understands it, contains dimensions quite different from, for example, those of Heidegger's Dasein, being of which is finite. …