kierkegaard - irony vs beleif (by gregory reece) (1)

7/18/2019 Kierkegaard - Irony vs Beleif (by Gregory Reece) (1)

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Chapter 2

lrony

In

Religious Belief and Religious Biography

In Concluding Unscientific Postscript ta Philosophical Fragments' Kierkegaard's

pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus addresses the concept of irony.

His treatment

of

irony reveals important links and subtle differences with

the way in which Kierkegaard treated irony in the dissertation. For

example, irony, in the Postscript, is described

as

a cotifinium between two

existence spheres.

"There are three existence-spheres: the esthetic, the ethical, the religious.

To

these

three there is a respectively corresponding confinium [border territory]: irony is the

confinium between the esthetic and the ethical;

humor is

the confinium between the

ethical and the religious.,,2

It is clear that this treatment

of

irony

as

a border territory between the

esthetic and the ethical is importantly similar and yet different from

Kierkegaard's earlier treatment of irony. First, Climacus maintains the

earlier emphasis

upon

irony

as more

than a rhetorical flourish or a brief

attitude. Second, he elaborates on the connection between irony and

individuation that is first addressed in the dissertation. Iron y is a

move ment away from immediacy and toward the ethical and the religious.

However, what is missing is the central concem

of

the dissertation

discussion

of

the subject, the concem with ironic philosophy and its

implications for a way

of

life marked by individuality and historicity.

A good way to unpack

what

Climacus has in mind in such a

description is to see what

he

means by the esthetic, or the immediate, and

the ethical. Andre w Cross describes Kierkegaard's concept

of

immediacy

in this

way:

Soren Kierkegaard,

Concluding Unscientific Postscript,

ed and trans. Howard V Hong

and Edna H. Hong, Kierkegaard's Writings, 12/1 (princeton University Press, 1992).

2 Ibid., 501-502.

[

1ro' Y in Religions Beliefand Religions i o g r a p ~

31

"For

Climacus, the immediat

y

person

is

o ne :vho has

n?t

become

s u f ~ c i e n t l y

detached from his given existence and his gtven purswts for the notlon of

responsibility for his mannerof existence even to arise for him.,,3

According to Cross, the immediate person is identified by C l i m a c ~ s . with

the esthete. An immediate person may have the charactenstlc of

unreflectively foIlowing the given

of

his or her life situation or may be

overly reflective

but

still immediate. As Cross describes this seco nd

alternative:

"He

gives himself over so much to the

a c t i ~ t y

reflectïJ:g that never, as the

current phrase goes, 'gets a life.' Occupymg himself r e ~ e c ~ v e fantasy, he

never puts any ofhis reflections into practice; he prefers to live v1canously, through

fantasizing about the lives of others."

Though the reflective esthete lives a life

of

fantasy such a

p e ~ s o ~ ,

like

unreflective person, "takes certain given conditions as

d e t e r r r u n a t l ~ e

of his

life

[and]

he ultimately forsakes responsibility for whether

t h ~ t l i ~

goes

weil

or

poorly."5 The reflective esethete may be closer the

t ~ r u c ,

an d

hence the ethical, than the purely immediate person but lives a life that S

still marked by immediacy.

Irony arises through self reflection. t marks the turning away from

immediacy and toward the ethical. Hence the ironist's emptiness.

SUC?

a

person has turned away from immediacy but has not

et

made

t h ~ e t h i c ~

self choice. As in the disser tation Climacus makes 1t clear

that

tony S

more

than a rhetorical flourish.

''Irony is an existence-qualification, and t h u ~ n o ~ g is. more ludicrous than

regarding it as a style of speaking or an author s countlng ~ s e ~ f lucky to express

himself ironicaily once in a while. The person wh o has. s s ~ n t l a l . 1 r ~ n y

~ a s 1t

ail d ~ y

long and is

not

bound to any style, because he has the m ~ t e l ~ him. Irony S

the cultivation of the spirit and therefore follows next after lffimediacy; then cornes

the ethicist, then the humorist, then the religious person.,,6

Or

as

Cross describes Climacus' ironist:

"[I]t should be clear why Climacus sees irony as a border zone ~ e ~ e e n immediacy

(which includes the aesthetic) and the ethical. Between the

pos1t;t0n

of the p.erson

who takes his given immediate nature as b ~ t e data for t he p u r ~ w t of a meanmgEul

life (and as determining what would constltute a ~ e a n m g f u ~ life) and the person

who takes his immediate nature as an object

of chOlce;

there

S

the pers

on

who has

3 Andrew Cross ''The Perils of Reflexive Irony," in The

Cambridge Companion

to

Kierkegaard,.eds. l ~ s t i a r Hannay and Gordon D. Marion (Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press,

1998), 142.

4 Ibid., 143.

5 Ibid., 145.

6

Soren Kierkegaard, Conclnding Unscientific Postscript, 503 504.

kierkegaard - irony vs beleif (by gregory reece) (1)

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