Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic

desideratum: ''I do it in the interest of its idea, its meaning; for I cannot live exclusive of the idea;,I cannot endure that my life should have no meaning at a I. The~does after all give a little meaniii&Jo it.: ' 13 For Kierk;. gaard, meaning was not always estranged from man, but became so historically: "The individuals of the contemporary generation are fearful of existence, because it is God-forsaken; only in great masses do they dare to live, and they cluster together en masse in order to feel that they amount to something. " 14 Hence the retrograde direction of his philosophy: '' Jn one word the direction of my writings is , 'Back! ' And although it is all done without 'authority,' there is, nevertheless, something in the accent which recalls a policeman when he faces a riot and says, ' Back!' " 15 Kierkegaard 's psychology of emotion wants to use the""'! eternally, authentically human to conjure up historically lost meaning. Objectless Inwardness What Kierkegaard describes as " being quit with everything fundamental to human existence'' was called, in the philosophical language of his age, the alienat~on ~f su~ject a~d objec~. Any_ critical interpretati_on of Kierkegaard must take ' th1s ahenat1on as 1ts startmg pomt. Not that such mterpretation would want to conceive the structure of existence as one of " subject" and " object" within the framework of an ontological " project." The ca~ories of subject and Qbject themselves originate historically, But it is precisely in these categories that interpretation is able to secure Kierkegaard 's historical figure, a figure that dissolves into general anthropological considerations when the question becomes that of a "project of exist~nce. "&subject and oQi..ecLare historical concepts. they con~ti_tute at the same time the concrete conditLons of Kierkeg£tard's description of Jwman existence ._ This description conceals an antinomy in his thought mat becomes evident in the subject/object relation, to which his "being quit" may be ~ced . . Thi,~ is. an anti!!.Q!!!t in . the conception o~ the relatio~ to. ontological _!lleamng. K1erkegaard cofi"<!eives of such meanmg, contrad1ctof!!y, as_radicillydevolved upon the *I, a~ty-lmmancnt to the subject an'"cL..ru the..same _me~ renounced and unreacnabfe tra~endenc~TFree, active s_!!!tie~ivity is ~r K1erkeg2Jrd tb~ bearer of all reality. ln his youth he accepted Fichte's criticism of Kant , and although he scarcely ever again formulated the problems that are the legacy of the history of idealism from its origins to Hegel, there is still no dou~t that the dissertation expresses what is silently presupposed by all " exisl ~n~1al commun_ication"=·e;~e the ego ~e-abserbed-irrscruti­ Jllzmg the ego m the C , the more emaciated the ego became, Until it ended by becQming__a s~ctor:}S 1mmortal as _ e ifSbano of Aurora. The ego was like the crow, which, qce1ved by the fox's praise of its person, lost the cheese. Thought had gone astray in that reflection continually reflected upon r28 0 CONSTITUTION OF INWARDNESS reflection, and every step forward naturally led further and further away fr~m aJI content. Here it became apparent, and it will ever be so, that when one begms to speculat~t is essential to be pointed in the right direction. It failed to no~ce that what it sought for was in the search itself, and since it refused to look for tt there, it was not in all eternity to be found.~osophy was like a man who has his spectacles on but goes on searching for them; he searches for what is right in front of his nose, but he never looks there and so never finds them. Now that which is external to experience, that which collided with the experiencing subject like a solid body, after which each recoiled from the force of the impact In its own direction; the thing-in-itself, which constantly persisted in tempting the experiencing subject (as a certain school in the middle ages believed the Yisiple emblems in the Eucharist were present in order to tempt the believer); this e~r­ nality, this thing in itself was what constituted the weakness in Kant's system. It even became a problem whether the ego itself was not a thing in itself. ThisProblem was raised and resolved by Fichte. He removed the difficulty connected with this 'in-itself' by placing it within thought, that is, ~rendered the ego infinite as I = T. The producing ego is the same as the produced ego; I = I is the abstract identity. With this he infinitely emancipated thought.' " 6 A phrase from the Unsciemific Postscript corresponds to this thesis where Fichte is played off theologically against Hegel at the same time that the relocation of all "meaning" in pure subjectivity is affirmed: " Instead of conceding the contention of idealism, but in such a manner as to dismiss as a temptation the entire problem of a reality in the sense of a thing-in-itself eluding thought , which like other temptations cannot be vanquished by giving way to it; instead of putting an end to Kant's misleading reflection which brings reality into connection with thought; instead of relegating reality to the ethical-_!:kgel scored a veritable advance; fQ!....!I: became fantastic and vanquished ideali tic scepticism by means of pure thought, which is merely an hypQthesis, and even if it does not so declare itself, a fantastic hy12<>thesis " 17 Here, however, the countervaling tenden~y is already a~pare~t. The question of the thing-in-itself is no longer answered tn the affirmattve wtth the postulate of identity and absolute subjectivity; instead it is repulsed as "temptation" and held in abeyance. For the absolute "I , " the reality of the thing-initself mu t become problematical along with the reality of the "meaning" that is indeed to be situated in the spontaneity of the "I." This insight can also be traced to the dissertation: "But this infinity of thought in Fichte is like every other Fichtian infinity (hi ethical infinity is incessant striving for striving's own sake, his aesthetic infinity is perpetual production for production's own sake, God's infinity is continual development for development's own sake), that is, a negative infinity, an infinity without finitude , an infinity void of all content . Hence when Fichte rendered the ego infinite he asserted an idealism in relation to which all actuality became pale, an acosmism in relation to which his idealism became actuality, notwithstanding the fact that it was docetism. With Fichte thought was CONSTITUTION OF INWARDNESS 0 29 rendered infinite, and .subjectivity became infinite absolute negativity, infinite tension and longing. Fichte hereby acquired a significance for knowing. His Theory of Science rendered knowledge infinite. But that which he rendered infinite was the negative, h~mCe in place of truth he acquired certainty, not positive but negative infinity in the infinite identity of the ego with itself. Jnstead of positive endeavor, i.e. happiness, he obtained negative endeavor, i.e. an ought. " 18 Absolute subjectivity is denied "meaning" along with happiness. The idealist who conceived of " relegating reality to the ethical ," that is, to subjectivity, is at the same time the archenemy of any assertion of the identity of the external and the internal. The pathos of his philosophy is directed against this assertion from the very first sentence of his pseudonymous works: " Dear Reader: I wonder if you may not sometimes have felt inclined to doubt a little the correctness of the familiar philosophic maxim that the external is the int~rnal~ and the inter~ the l external. Perhaps you have cherished in your heart a secret which you felt in aQ its joy or pain was too precious for you to share with another . . .. Perhaps neither of these presuppositions applies to you and your life, and yet you arc not a stranger to this doubt; it flits across your mind now and then like a passing shadow. " 19 Every line of Kierkegaard's work makes this presupposition.-The contradictory elements in Kicrkegaard's formulation of meaning, subject, and object are not sim_ely d~arate. They are interwoven with one another Tbe.U:.figurc js called lnwaroness. ln The Sickness -unJO Death, inwardness is deduced ..}!_the substantiali.!Y. ofJhe subject directly from its disproportionateness to the outer world: "Well , there is no 'corresponding' external mark, for in fact an outward expression corresponding to close reserve is a contradiction in terms; for if it is corresponding, it is then of course revealing. On the contrary," here-in the moment of despair" outwardness is the entirely indifferent factor in this case Where introversion , or what one might call,inwardness wi1b a jammed lock~s so much the predominant factor. " 20 Where Fichte's idealism springs and develops o e center of subjective spontaneity, in Kierkegaard the ''I'' is thrown back onto itself by the superior power of otherness. He is not a philosopher of identity; nor does he recognize any positive being that transcends consciousness. The ~of things is for him neither part of the sub·ect nor inde ndent of it Rather, thjs war(d is oiliiiti t supp tes t e subject with the mere "occasion" for the deed, with mere resistance to the act of faith . In itself, this world remains random rand t~tally indeterminate. Participation in " meaning" is not one of its potentials. In K1er · · I of a sub·ect/ob·ect in 'the He elian sense as there\ ~ven objects; there is only an isolated su · tivit ' a dar ~ I ~ Indeed, on y b crossm~over this a~ nld-subjectivity be able to ~ate in ''meaning ' that otherwise denies itself to suBjectivity's solitude. In ;euon to achieve a transcendental ontology, lnwardnes takes up the "struggle With itself, " on which Kierkegaard the "psychologist" reports. Yet no psycholoay is required to explain this struggle; not even the supposition in which 30 0 CONSTITUTION OF INWARDNESS Schremf, Przywara, and Vetter agree-of ~~I w~ether characte~zing the work or the person . Mourning can be shown , pr