Existentialism discussion

Discussion for
Either/Or - Part One
Diapsalmata

I believe that "Diapsalmata" anticipates the aphoristic style of Nietzsche, Kafka and Cioran and one can wonder if the fragments are pre-existentialist or pre-nihilist (probably being a combintion of these two rival directions).

@John:
Are the Confessions by Augustine pre-existentialist?
-- I believe so
For instance, William Barrett said that Pascal is not only pre-existentialist, he is the first existentialist
Also Augustine is very important for Heidegger and for the religious part of existentialist (for Kierkegaard, Unamuno, Marcel)
However I believe that this distinction between atheist and Christian existentialism is not very coherent, because anti-religious thinkers like Nietzsche or Cioran construct a prose full of religious implications -- they are not atheist in the modern sense or in the fashion of French Enlightenment authors, who fanatically believe in reason
I think that works like Confessions or Pensées are essential for both religious and agnostic/atheist existentialism (reading Augustine, Pascal or even Luther could only make clearer Kierkegaard's point of view about the religious sphere)

Alastair Hannay writes that the "motivation" for Either/Or was "probably a combination of two things:" 1. breaking off with Regine Olsen and 2. his confrontation with Schelling's philosophy. I'm fascinated by the whole breakup story. I've long tried to figure out why he did it. I think it was Francis Bacon who said something like "He who has a wife and children has given hostages to fortune." Or maybe it was Kevin Bacon. In any case, I think Soren made the choice to write and he did not want anything to stand in his way. Even his love for this young woman.

As a poet myself, I was fascinated by the story in the first paragraph of this chapter. He compares poets to the "unfortunates" who are being "slowly tortured by a gentle fire in Phalaris's bull." To the tyrant, "they sounded like sweet music." So with the poet. He needs to suffer to write. The words may be beautiful, but they are a product of suffering.

Is he devoting his life to God? To writing? To suffering? To _________? Maybe all of the above. The titles of his books alone are pretty depressing.

@ John
Kierkegaard wasn't asked to give up his child, but he listened to his calling
-- He was Isaac

@ Jimmy
Or maybe it was Kevin Bacon.
:):)
I'm fascinated by the whole breakup story.
-- I'm not being structuralist here, but I wouldn't explain Kierkegaard strictly through biography
To quote Merold Westphal who writes on Fear and Trembling: "It has been rumoured that Abraham will shortly receive an Oscar nomination for his supporting role in the greates love story since Abélard and Héloïse, that of Søren and Regina … Reading this version of the Abraham story as a piece of spiritual autobiography may serve to increase its lyrical intensity but not to illuminate its dialectical intrigue."

@ Jimmy:

So with the poet. He needs to suffer to write.

-- "You know I need you/ Like the poet needs the pain" writes Jon Bon Jovi. And I guess he's right. To make a trivial particular argument, I've finished my second poetry book in 2 weeks, writing among 25 poems, after I broke my leg at basketball.
To go a little further, we can use Nietzsche's anti-hedonistic POV: we aren't looking for pleasure but for power. Maybe it hurts a little, but we overcome ourselves and if we are lucky we become something spectacular.
"Without pain, without sacrifice we would have nothing." (Palahniuk)

@ John:
I always thought of him as a type of Abraham.
-- you can see it both ways
For instance in the Gospel of Suffering, Abarham can be seen as a sacrificial figure like Jesus (contrary to the official comparison between Isaac and Jesus)
To see K. as Isaac, however, we have to recourse to biography again (something I'm not very fond of) and to Fear and Trembling
The curse of K.'s father (who damned God in his youth in despair) and who most likely traumatized K. in his childhood with an intense and radical religious education makes Isaac a role model for K.
Moreover, if you read the introduction to Fear and Trembling (the alternative narratives to Abraham's tale), Isaac seems to be a lead figure in childhood trauma: if your father tried to kill you, you could lose your faith in any Father - you could become an atheist of even an anti-theist -- a sort of Nietzsche + Lars von Trier + Palahniuk type radical nihilist

I haven't studied Augustine yet: I only read the fragments that I needed in university and for my PhD thesis on existentialism -- I know, however, that Augustine influenced enormously Heidegger on time, and more importantly for me, on the falling and the they-self (das Man) -- his attack on curiosity, which he calls a "disease" is very influential in Pascal, Kierkegaard, Cioran and Heidegger and was attacked by Adorno, who basically said that without curiosity we would be immobile and intelectually frozen

"A refuses to become aware of, and keeps existence away by the most subtle of all deceptions, by thinking; he has thought everything possible, and yet he has not existed at all. The consequence of this is that only the Diapsalmata are pure lyrical effusions; the rest has abundant thought-content, which may easily deceive, as if having thought something were identical with existing."
----Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard

John wrote: "Here is what the Wikipedia page says:

"If one were to read these as written they would show a constant movement from the outer poetic experience to the inner experience of humor. The movement from..."

I agree with this. I'm reading every line in this chapter like it's a joke. I feel like I am reading a Woody Allen script. Which is great, Woody is my favorite human. I wasn't expecting my first encounter with Kierkeggard to be so hilarious and random - very much like reading diary.

I love the lines where Kierkegaard repeats "I can't be bothered" about opposite things. So he can't be bothered to ride and he can't be bothered to walk. He makes the point elsewhere as well that no matter what we do we will regret it. So there is no solution here on earth except suffering.

He calls sorrow his life's "castle." The way others refer to their homes.

I also love his famous image about the tile falling from a roof and hitting someone on the head. What's the point in making plans when you could walk out the door and get hit on the head by a falling tile and die.

I think these lines are the beginning of existentialism:

"No one comes back from the dead, no one has entered the world without crying; no one is asked when he wishes to enter life, nor when he wishes to leave."

As an aside: Jimmy's comment reminded me of the Flitcraft scene in the novel The Maltese Falcon, and it is a philosophical novel, so perhaps Hammett knew of this "famous image" - the Flitcraft story involves the chance of a falling object, personal identity, and changing one's life. Here is a link to a recent article in Philosophy Now, about Hammett and Existentialism - perhaps somewhat related to K's themes of chance/identity/morality/ethics, and K's apparent choice of leaving his lover? http://www.philosophynow.org/issues/7...

Excellent reference Reid. I've often found that there is a strong connection between existential ideas and early American noir.

I have mixed feelings about Diapsalmata. There were some parts I like, but other parts I felt like I was reading a whiny teenage girl's diary. "My soul is like a dead sea, over which no bird can fly; when it gets halfway, it sinks down spent to its death and destruction".

One part I am still trying to understand was the part about regret. "If you hang yourself, you will regret it; if you do not hang yourself, you will regret it; if you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both; whether you hang yourself or you do not hang yourself, you will regret both." If you're dead, how can you feel regret? Since Kierkegaard is religious maybe he believes in the afterlife. I can't help but feeling I'm missing the entire point of that spiel, however.

I did really like the bit about the clown and the end of the world.

Isn't he just saying you will regret everything you do. There's always the possibility that you could have had a better life if you only just made another decision and did something else. I don't think it's necessary to read much more into it. One man who survived jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge in the great documentary The Bridge spoke of how on the way down he regretted jumping.

http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-br...

The clown story was great.

Here's another great comment on the end of the world:

Between the desire, And the spasm
Between the potency, And the existence
Between the essence, And the descent
Falls the Shadow
For Thine is the Kingdom

For Thine is, Life is, For Thine is the

This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.

—T.S. Eliot, "The Hollow Men" (1925)

Marcus wrote: "Excellent reference Reid. I've often found that there is a strong connection between existential ideas and early American noir."

Thx Marcus, I'll have to read more of both, noir and existentialism.

Unrelated.. but Jimmy, I just read that poem and really like it! Especially the first and last stanzas.

Sorry, I've been away for a bit.

Here's a quote from Diapsalmata I find interesting:

http://nosubjects.tumblr.com/post/419...

Kierkegaard's answer to the meaninglessness of life though is to become a passionate Christian. Seems to me that only makes it more meaningless.

Kierkegaard speaks of winning an essay contest at age 15 about the proof of the existence of the soul. Now at age 25, he cannot think of a single proof of the soul. This will all lead to the leap of faith. Forget proof, just believe.

"Who would believe, after such a solid and very promising start, that in my 25th year I should have reached the point where I cannot produce a single proof of the immortality of the soul."

At least for this section, I'm guessing 25.