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/lit/ - Literature

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5649226 No.5649226 [Reply] [Original]

>he's a philosopher
>in scandinavia
>in denmark
>he does it for free
>he takes his "job" very seriously
>he does it because it is the only amount of insight and clarity he will ever have in his pathetic life
>he lambasts churches he doesn't like because whenever he gets upset he has a crisis of faith
>he lambasts churches he doesn't like because they interfere with the teleological suspension of the ethical and the apolitical nature of faith
>he will never have a real job
>he will never come to terms with his romantic desires
>he will never have a straight spine
>he will never seperate the Danish state from the Church
>he will never be a knight of infinite resignation
>he will never be a knight of faith

>> No.5649249

Did he do it for free?

>> No.5649257

>>5649226

Kierkegaard is a janitor on /sp/?

>> No.5649728

good thread

>> No.5649772

>>5649226
He is a fag
He let go of a beautiful girl who was dynamite at sucking cock
He has a hunched back
He's definitely a homo

>> No.5650001

>>5649772
Don't talk shit about Kierky you fucking knight of infinite resignation

>> No.5650207

>>5650001

That would be too kind, for it implies he has at some point made a leap of faith and failed.

>> No.5650375

>>5649226
I'm a knight of infinite resignation. How do I into faith? Serious question.

>> No.5650380

>>5649226
Kierkegaard thread?

Kierkegaard thread.

I have started reading his work, in regards to subjective truth, the HOW and not the WHAT, is this relevant on in the ethical potentia/reality?

I mean, how would it apply to actual objects of inquiry like the molecule?

>> No.5650389

>>5650380
>how would it apply to actual objects of inquiry like the molecule?
It wouldn't, that is not what is important for Kierkagaard

>> No.5650392

>>5650375
I resigned my entire life because I had severe depression and a personality disorder. Yet despite this state, my life continues to be successful.

I have learned over 8 years that God is in control and through giving up control of my life, I have gained his direction. I wouldn't have it any other way now.

Dunno if this helps

>> No.5650394

>>5649226
kek

>> No.5650404

>>5650389
I thought so, is it only in regard to the ethical?

If it is, I get it, if not, I need some guidance.

>> No.5650405

>>5650375
How do I even get to the infinite resignation stage?

>> No.5650415
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5650415

>>5649226
>keine Geld

>> No.5650430

>>5650404
>is it only in regard to the ethical?
No. It's about everything involving psychology
-meaning
-ethics
-happiness
-love
-etc...

>> No.5650435

>>5649226
So how would a knight of faith live life? He literally just believes that shit will go well even when it obviously won't?

>> No.5650443

>>5650435
Yep, and he doesn't care if it goes "wrong" either

>> No.5650445

>>5650430
Thanks, can you give mean example in a thought experiment?

>> No.5650457

>>5650443
So what's hard about this? You just have to delude yourself into believing shit, and then not get pissed when your delusions don't happen.

>> No.5650474

>>5650457

I have lived like this for 8 years, and I haven't really ever been let down in a big way (minor niggles aside).

So when things keep working out, you have faith that they will continue in the future. If things were constantly going wrong, I might live another way.

But that is what faith is, a lived virtue

>> No.5650478

>>5650445
In Abraham’s case, he suspended the ethical, the moral standard, that a “father should love his son more dearly than himself.” He suspended this in order to fulfill a promise with god that his people will rise and be mighty and numerous, a paradox then that Isaac, his only son would be sacrificed. In order for God’s promise to be fulfilled, he had to sacrifice Isaac, yet Isaac was the only offspring Abraham had. Abraham believed Isaac was going to die and not die at the same time.
>>5650457
It only makes since in a religous context m80.

>> No.5650495

>>5650392
>giving up control of my life

How does this manifest? You still have to live your own life. You still have to make all the decisions. God doesn't give you tips, hints or cheat codes. So - how?

>> No.5650510

>>5650495
Think "go with the flow", but in a more passionate sense.

>> No.5650530

>>5650478
No it fucking doesn't make sense. So christ had faith in the Godhead that he would both be crucified and not be crucified? It's nonsense, and I would argue that it's not even possible to be a Knight of Faith since you're already aware that you're deluding yourself beforehand, and no amount of delusion can change the fact that you still know that many things won't work out, despite attempts to block out awareness of your skepticism in order to keep your contradictory faith going.

I can see how this would work for belief in God because, as humans, we can necer obtain confirmation of God's existence or lack thereof, but I take issue with Kierkegaard using the binding of isaac because it's from the primitive, Jewish part of the Bible, and he's projecting his own skilled intellect onto the writers of that section.

>> No.5650538

>>5650495
I have a strong 'sense' that I will teach philosophy at university, I can't prove this sense, but it is very influential. So I have faith that I will do so at some point in my career.

That sense drives me to study and work hard at philosophy, to do well, to make contacts. This is the work I do. But when things get difficult, I remind myself of this conviction.

Then there are all these little coincidences, like being offered a tutoring position because a lecturer happened to have more students that semester. Or attending a church with a lecturer (I had no idea when I first attended).

So this is how I live. I appreciate if this sounds like lunacy. To be honest, if someone said this to me, I would be very sceptical.

But that is faith to me

>> No.5650539

So this whole believing-in-things-and not-minding-if-it-don't-work business reminds me of the stoics yet I see Capt Kierk compared often with Nietzsche. What's up with that? How are the two similar? I know Nietzsche didn't like the stoic attitude and thought they weren't active enough. What makes Kierky here different? Sorry if this is a dumb question

>> No.5650540

>>5650530
>No it fucking doesn't make sense.
Kierkagaard wouldn't disagree.

>> No.5650542

>>5650495

This>>5650510 is also pretty good.

>> No.5650561

>>5650539
Nietzsche and Kierkegaard are on the opposite end of the spectrum from the stoics. The stoics are almost a mild Buddhism, they believe in setting expectations so low that dissapointmenf is unlikely, whereas Kierkegaard believes in setting them as high as possible, but giving no fucks if things fall short.

>> No.5650577

>>5650539
>How are the two similar?
Both hate the masses (for basically the same reason), both love subjectivity, both think the quest for pure knowledge (i.e hegelian philosohy, science) is wholly devoid of passion and are critical of it because of this etc...
>weren't active enough.
The knight of faith would be anything but inactive.

>> No.5650580

>>5650495

You have to understand that most of what Kierkegaard means is pointed towards the internal struggle that appears when one deals with some crisis regarding one life

So most of the terms of most philosophies appoints not to what you ought to do, but what you should think about of. In this case Kierkegaard promizes that you will live empowerized by will if you take the leap of faith route. You may think now "what i ought to do if i think like this", but just thinking like a knight of faith will make your decisions different.

The dichotomy of the knights is the thing about living life for having god on this material life, or rejecting life because god is not on this plane.

>>5650530

Have you seen how powerful is the will of those that believe in god without having his reason mess up the things? They border dementia, but they aren't demental themselves to the point of being incontrollable themselves. It's like they are the dementia itself.

>> No.5650598

>>5650580
I'm in a crisis in life right now. I'm in total confusion. I have to decide about the future and I find it hard to decide. I'm in a very Kierkegaardian situation so to speak. Yet I don't understand what it means to make a leap of faith in my case.

>> No.5650601

>>5650540
No response for the rest of my post?

>> No.5650612

>>5650598

Nigger you should read Kierkegaard then. And after that seek some clarifications of stuff if you want.

But if you don't have time for the decision, read this:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knight_of_faith

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard#Three_stages_of_life

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/kierkegaard/

>> No.5650616

>>5650538
yeah man i know what you mean

>> No.5650622

I spread my ass for Kierkegaard.

>> No.5650653

>>5650598
>>>/fear&trembling/
>>>/repetitions/
>>>/worksoflove/

>> No.5650662

>>5650561
>>5650577
thanks guys, the whole knight of resignation thing tripped me up but now its clearer to me

>> No.5651086
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5651086

>>5649226
>whenever he gets upset he has a crisis of faith

This happens to me.


I'm reading Two Ages at the moment and in his prefatory remarks he analyzes why we prefer an author's earlier works to his later. It's interesting, quite a bit more so than some silly book I once read called The Advanced Genius Theory, which purported to discuss the same thing.

>> No.5651713
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5651713

>2014
>not being a knight of faith

>> No.5651741

quality thread

>> No.5651762

>>5651741
Such irony

>> No.5651782

>>5651762
Why? You weren't here untill now.

>> No.5651787

>>5651762
go spoil air somewhere else heathen dyke

>> No.5651843

What are some good points of comparison between the knight of faith and the overman?

>> No.5651919

>>5649226

Kierkegaard is the definition of tl;dr

>> No.5651980

>>5651919
fear and trembling is like 120 pages, 130 tops

If you really think thats long than you need to leave /lit/ forever

>> No.5652144

Glad butterfly hasn't derailed this thread with her bullshit yet, though she might learn something about he man she refuses to read if she did.

Reminder that f&t is not a work of theology and that god can be thought of as the absurd.

>> No.5652165

>>5651843
Here's my attempt - I hope I don't screw up too much:

The Overman and KoF are two modes of existence.

The overman is a way of being that puts the art (creation) above (mere) existence. So, someone who's a candidate for "overman" is willing to die for his artwork. He self-transcends. Potential example of overmen are Jesus Christ (Nietzsche's own example, don't be suprised) - because he willingly went into death to "complete his teaching"; or Socrates, who, just like Christ, could escape but preferred to stay and die to prove a point. the "human, all too human" insticnct would be to escape to safety... in the Overman, the innstinct to survive doesn't supersede the insinct to create... the latter is above everything else

(By "artwork" I don't just mean a composition or a painting... I mean in the Nietzschean sense: artwork is any creation. An overman sees his OWN LIFE as an artwork. He "paints" his own life and self-transcends it into art.)

so Christ/Socrates would be two candidates for the overman, another one would possibly be Empedocles, who jumped into a vulcano to "join the gods".

But all these people: Empedocles, Christ,... also had a strong belief in God(s). So they were also potential Knights of Faith, because they placed absolute reliance on the absolute (outside of themselves). One can have both traits of the "overman" and "knight of faith". But you can imagine someone having characteristics of the overman, without having any charcteristics of the KoF. And the opposite. How?

the KoF absolutely relies on the Absolute. The Overman absolutely relies only on himself, and his own creativity. The Overman is like a pregnant woman whose total goal of existence is a commitment to give birth to a superior child. The KoF however, relies on his own creative power ONLY insofar as they were talents given by God. A pure example of a KoF is Abraham. Abraham has almost only KoF traits and no Overman traits.

now even though they're opposite in some sense, we know that a friend of Nietzsche SENT him Kierkegaard's books over mail. We never know if Nietzsche read them or not. But in the next letter, Nietzsche wrote to the guy - I paraphrase from memory: "Well, if someone uses religion as tool for liberation, then I have nothing against it" - this suggests Nietzsche read a little of Kierkegaard and thought that Kierkegaard's religion was just a "tool" he used to transcend the masses

(While the masses use it in a totally different way: to suppress the above-average individuals)

Personally, I think the KoF ideal makes more sense, and "works" better: IT EVEN accomplishes what an "Overman" should accomplish better. That is to say, even if there was no God, it would be better to believe in Him; it would result in more "overman-ish" existence. Because of the power of positing a divine security outside of oneself.

BUT actually, Nietzsche was aware of this. This is why he wrote somewhere: "why don't we invent new gods?" and his "Dionysus"...

>> No.5652186

>>5652165
Continued: my former post was s sketchy and quick comparison full of grammatical errors... it was just to give the anon an idea. It's meant to be taken with a grain of salt. It's just for 4chan. Of course I encourage the anon to read Nietzsche and Kierkegaard himself to get a proper idea of the overman and the knight of faith.

To conclude, my impression is that Nietzsche was successful at his project of destruction (of our current values and morals) but he wasn't successful at re-constructing.

The Dionysus ideal, the Zarathustra model. They just don't work. The Cross is still more meaningful to us. One possibility is that Nietzsche's time hasn't come yet. Who knows, that's possible.

But I suspect it will never come, and Christ, and the Cross, will continue to be the highest symbols.

You can't really take Dionysus seriously, just like you can't take Athena seriously, or Zeus, or Odin, or Wotan, or any other gods. Their time is long gone. You can pretend to take them seriously by going to neo-pagan meetings, but that's it. It's a role-playing game.

Back to the point, we can only relate to a conception of the divine that is absolute. So Islam's Allah, or Buddhism's "Dharma-Kaya", or even Hinduism's Brahman. These things, we can still take seriously. These are still powerful ideas.

Why is Christianity special? I think it's because Jesus Christ really lived, as a historical person, in Rome.

We often forget how preposterous and crazy that idea is. That a Jewish carpenter born in a barn is proclaimed to be the Creator of the Universe. It's absolutely bonkers. That's why it captures us, like a Zen koan.

"What is Buddha?" - "Three pounds of flax."
"What is Buddha?" - "A piece of dried shit."

"What is God, the Creator of the Universe?" - "A carpenter born in a barn and executed like a lowly criminal."

(These two religions have in common that a paradox is at the center, the very inner sanctum of the whole religion. Not mystical visions, not mystical union with God, but a total paradox.)

However, the difference is still that Christ was historical. It doesn't even matter what we think about Christ's historicity. The improtant thing is that it CLAIMS to be historical. Buddhism never really does. The Indian religions were always INDIFFERENT to history. Ask them a Buddhist: "What if Buddha never existed?" They will likely reply: "So what? The teachings are still good." - But if you ask a Christian, they will insist that the historicity of Christ is absolutely fundamental. Everything stands and falls on the crucifiction and resurrection.

>> No.5652204

>>5652186
I maintain that the idea that "The Creator of the Universe is this particular guy, this carpenter, son of Mary, from Nazareth, etc." - was even more heretical to a Jew than the idea that there is no God.

"There is no God" - they were used to that. Even the Old Testament mentions it. But that God was a particular guy, this was , to the iconoclastic Jews, the highest form of slander, the highest blasphemy imaginable.

We should still be able to feel how preposterous that claim is!

Buddha simply invented a new category for himself. He said: "I am not human, I am buddha, I am tathagata". It's neither god, nor man; it's a special category. So it's not as paradoxical. The paradox was created later in the Chinese Chan tradition.

The problem with most "Christians" is that they just accept Christ as if it was a fact among many. Yeah, I'm a Christian, so I guess Christ was God. As if there was nothing crazy about it.

In that sense, I can understand why Dietrich Bonhoffer, that Protestant saint, said: "I prefer to hang out with people who have nothing to do with the church."

An atheist is oftentimes more religious than a "Christian". Because the "Christian" makes the whole thing into business as usual.

The Atheist however, still feels the craziness of that claim.

OK I went off on a tangent. Sorry anons, I hope I haven't completely derailed the thread.

To conclude, I think both Nietzsche and Kierkegaard try to solve the apparent contradiction that human is both a finite being, but has some compulsion or passion towards the infinite. Kant already knew this: we want to know God, the Universe, but our reason is limited; and yet, we can never stop wanting to know God. Our nature is set up paradoxically, to desire what it can never know, never have.

Nietzsche simply proclaims that the God is dead, and the finite being attains infinity through its creation. It's really a Greek ideal revived and revised. Attaining immortality for Greeks meant attaining honor, fame, being remembered by future generations. For Nietzsche, it's not about being recognized by people, but there's still this idea of making one's life into something heroic, an artwork.

For Kierkegaard, the paradox is resolved externally; Christ resolves it for us, by embodying both the infinite and the finite perfectly. We cannot resolve the paradox, so God had to solve it for us. In the Cross we can regard the paradox embodied, and through it, we can see ourselves, like in a mirror.

>> No.5652262

>>5652165
>>5652186
>>5652204
that was really interesting, thanks

>> No.5652319

>>5652262
Thank you for reading!

>> No.5652373

>>5652204
what is this? a quality post on /lit/?

>> No.5652389

>>5652186
>Why is Christianity special? I think it's because Jesus Christ really lived, as a historical person, in Rome.
jesus never went to rome.

>> No.5652416

>>5652389
I think the anon meant "The Roman Empire" instead

>> No.5652925

>>5652186
That was really insightful anon

>> No.5652928

>>5651980
Either/Or is 800 pages and the whole point of the book can be explained in 40 pages

>> No.5652969

>>5649226
Quality post made me laugh
Thanks OP

>> No.5653312

>>5651762
>she isn't even in the ethical stage yet
>she makes idiotic comments for her own aesthetic enjoyment
>she enjoys sinning unironically
>she takes her "job" very seriously
>she does it for free

>> No.5654947

Why are pretty much all later existentialists atheists when Kierkegaard's faith was the defining feature of his philosophy?

>> No.5655534

>>5654947
I would assume they understood the larger point in existentialism, but just totally rejected the idea of a god like most intellectuals. Maybe i'm not reading into it enough but it just seems pretty obvious.

>> No.5657001

Which translation of Either/Or should I get?
Inb4 Penguin classics

>> No.5657019

>>5654947
They accepted his problems as legitimate ones but rejected his solution.

>> No.5659874
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5659874

>>5651713
>not being an ubermensch

>> No.5660599
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5660599

>>5653312
>Support prostitution and capitalism: Thinks I'm unethical.
Oh that's rich.

>she makes idiotic comments for her own aesthetic enjoyment
Like an Epicurean Socrates. I'm only curious.
>she enjoys sinning unironically
"Sinning"? You must mean masturbation. How quaint.
>she takes her "job" very seriously
I do my job because I must in order to live in this prison. My "job" posting here? It's for amusement.