Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling
From The Inferno
Kierkegaard - Fear and Trembling
Contents |
[edit] Form of the Work
- Pseudonymic: Does not represent Kierkegaard’s own view.
- Johannes de Silentio: Johannes speaks from the silence, because his thoughts are ineffable. Johannes is someone outside faith.
- Quote in the beginning about Tarquin and the messenger: Johannes is the messenger, but the reader is supposed to get what is being said in the work.
[edit] Central Ideas
[edit] Three stages of life
Aesthetic --> Ethical/Universal --> Religious. In each stage, the previous stage is repeated and then found to be un-fruitful.
[edit] Teleological Suspension of the Ethical
Johannes is in the ethical/universal stage, trying to understand the religious stage. Therefore what the religious man does is seen by Johannes as a teleological suspension of the ethical. The ethical is the universal, and the teleological suspension of the ethical is legitimate because the individual is seen to be higher than the universal, and the end, i.e., absolute obedience to God, is seen as an end transcending the universal.
[edit] Knight of Faith vs. The Knight of Infinite Resignation vs. The Tragic Hero:
- The tragic hero suspends one ethical standard for the sake of another ethical standard, and only operates in the universal stage.
- The knight of infinite resignation suspends the ethical for another end, but is still operating in the ethical realm. Illustrating by the example of Abraham and Isaac, if Abraham were a knight of infinite resignation, then he would sacrifice Isaac, but he does not believe that he will get Isaac back and is resigned to this fact.
- The knight of faith suspends the ethical for another end, but has gone to the infinite and has come back to the finite. In the case of Abraham, he believes that he will get Isaac back, in this world, by virtue of the absurd.
===What is Kierkegaard’s answer to Socrates’ Question?=== I hold the view that God transcends the good, and that the term “good” in the ethical sense is no longer applicable in the religious stage. Some others may hold the view that what is good is what God likes, hence arbitrary. Even others may hold the view that God is Good. No one, however, will hold the view that Kierkegaard believes that what God likes is what is good.
