From my reading of TSUD, Dreyfus is completely wrong when he says that Kierkegaard(SK) is not positing a personal God. When SK, says a "self rest transparently in the power that established it" he is using abstract language to mean a personal God. Later in the book, he says, "The self...whose task is to become itself, which can be done only through relationship to God." Why Dreyfus refuses to hear this, is beyond me, maybe he wishes SK was not Christian. Anyone have any thoughts?
You nailed it. One can read someone's work, disagree, and provide their opinion; but one shouldn't obfuscate what an author has plainly stated and pretend that the obfuscation is the true intent. That said, there are some helpful insights in the lecture.
I think you're right on the first point. But Dreyfus isn't so much wishing SK wasn't Christian as trying to salvage TSUD's relevance for a postmodern audience. I happen to think SK's continuing value remains in the symptoms he diagnosed, not by re-purposing his proposed remedies. That said, I could even then see value in psycho-analyzing K's solutions. Much could be said about why K felt compelled toward the kind of self-abnegating worship his Danish Christian contemporaries found unnecessary.
TSUD's relevance in a postmodern world is its foundation in Christianity and not materialism. Kierkegaard like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky cannot be separated from Christianity and it is not a self-abnegating Christianity either. Its the opposite, the despair comes from not being able to deny the self for an ideology. Not being able to deny the rapes of Kavanagh because you have a right wing ideology, not being able to deny the rapes of Assange because you have a left wing ideology. He is in the desert with Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky because he refuses to deny the self and its relationship to truth that we are forced to do in group think, it is group think he rejects, group dogma as does the others. Dostoyevsky defends Russian Orthodox religion not the Church, The inquisition is an accusation against all churches but NOT Christianity, it validifies Christianity. Tolstoy like Kierkegaard knows that you can either be a Christian or a church goer because the Church corrupts Christianity doesn't. That is found in Jacques Ellul Christian Anarchists can't be members of Anarchist groups, Christian Anarchists can't be members of any group.
Well said. I think one would be very hard pressed to demonstrate that K is self-abnegating. If one has a shallow reading of him--ie his reputation as "The Moody Dane" and so on--then one may say he was a flaggelant; but reading K and his unique perspective of Christian life shows that these allegations are nonsense in the strickest application of the term.
You are saying that SK and Buber both are trying to get at the relationship aspect of God as the pivot point? If so, I agree, it seems like they understand that God or religous thought cannot be defended outright, but that if it is anything it looks more like a person to person relationship. Am I hearing the similarity you are hearing?
Hubert: "What was that...that thing?...oh, darn...(snaps fingers) that thing where the people wanted a thing?....anybody?.....OH, civil rights, that's the one." (headdesk)
Even if Dreyfus sees the existential-diagnosis as more important then the religious-treatment, is it not his job--as it would be any of our jobs as readers--to say that he disagrees with SK on certain points? What is the point of re-purposing an author? Can't ideas stand alone? Dreyfus claims to find the idea of a "defining commitment" in SK's writing, but it seems to be Dreyfus's idea--and it very well may be a good one. Why does he feel compelled to find it in SK? It puzzles me. Thoughts?
Yeah, the Self that posits the relation of self-to-self is much less abstract than I think he portrays it. But I suppose he could argue that, given the ubiquity of Regine in K and K's assertion that she made him a poet, there is room for another self giving this commitment to a self in the way he uses Beatrice as an example.
But one should go back to Either/Or II, Fear and Trembling, and Postscript to understand what's going on. It seems the definition of faith here is not consistent with K's overall thought, let alone as dipicted in Sickness Unto Death
But even reading Regine as an example of there being multiple options for a something that gives meaningful commitment probably doesn't work, come to think of it. Either/Or II and Stages on Life's Way and various Upbuilding Discourses would eliminate that possibility. The attempt at the qualatative leap would be self-thwarted.
K doesn't understand grief? Please explain. I mean, you talk about Fear and Trembling, but that isn't K not understanding the situation but Johnannes. This statement is the most perplexing of yours in the lecture.
SK is focused on the subjective, the importance of the individual dealing with ultimate anxiety or dread. Earnest Becker makes the case that religion provides the context to deal with the dread of death. SK would say, religion is good, spiritual joining with God is better, and that religion can block that transition. Buber, a good jewish thinker I think, says, finding the spiritual God is seeing God in others - I thou. I find that empowering.
I would disagree that "there is no way to love the God that Kierkegaard is talking about [a God of infinite possibilities]". I would argue that if we open our heart's to our own specific possibility of understanding Him and let God's Mind [replying], and not own own, be the way we understand Him [after affirming His existence and our Self...I AM] then when we pray and meditate on what His mind is telling us to do.. and do it... if that not loving HIm, then He didn't make us after all.
From my reading of TSUD, Dreyfus is completely wrong when he says that Kierkegaard(SK) is not positing a personal God. When SK, says a "self rest transparently in the power that established it" he is using abstract language to mean a personal God. Later in the book, he says, "The self...whose task is to become itself, which can be done only through relationship to God." Why Dreyfus refuses to hear this, is beyond me, maybe he wishes SK was not Christian. Anyone have any thoughts?
You nailed it. One can read someone's work, disagree, and provide their opinion; but one shouldn't obfuscate what an author has plainly stated and pretend that the obfuscation is the true intent. That said, there are some helpful insights in the lecture.
I think you are on the mark. The SK thought is identical with the Buber concept of I-it versus I-thou. It's relationship to how one views the world.
I think you're right on the first point. But Dreyfus isn't so much wishing SK wasn't Christian as trying to salvage TSUD's relevance for a postmodern audience. I happen to think SK's continuing value remains in the symptoms he diagnosed, not by re-purposing his proposed remedies. That said, I could even then see value in psycho-analyzing K's solutions. Much could be said about why K felt compelled toward the kind of self-abnegating worship his Danish Christian contemporaries found unnecessary.
TSUD's relevance in a postmodern world is its foundation in Christianity and not materialism. Kierkegaard like Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky cannot be separated from Christianity and it is not a self-abnegating Christianity either. Its the opposite, the despair comes from not being able to deny the self for an ideology. Not being able to deny the rapes of Kavanagh because you have a right wing ideology, not being able to deny the rapes of Assange because you have a left wing ideology. He is in the desert with Abraham, Moses, Jesus, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky because he refuses to deny the self and its relationship to truth that we are forced to do in group think, it is group think he rejects, group dogma as does the others. Dostoyevsky defends Russian Orthodox religion not the Church, The inquisition is an accusation against all churches but NOT Christianity, it validifies Christianity. Tolstoy like Kierkegaard knows that you can either be a Christian or a church goer because the Church corrupts Christianity doesn't. That is found in Jacques Ellul Christian Anarchists can't be members of Anarchist groups, Christian Anarchists can't be members of any group.
Well said. I think one would be very hard pressed to demonstrate that K is self-abnegating. If one has a shallow reading of him--ie his reputation as "The Moody Dane" and so on--then one may say he was a flaggelant; but reading K and his unique perspective of Christian life shows that these allegations are nonsense in the strickest application of the term.
You are saying that SK and Buber both are trying to get at the relationship aspect of God as the pivot point? If so, I agree, it seems like they understand that God or religous thought cannot be defended outright, but that if it is anything it looks more like a person to person relationship. Am I hearing the similarity you are hearing?
Hubert: "What was that...that thing?...oh, darn...(snaps fingers) that thing where the people wanted a thing?....anybody?.....OH, civil rights, that's the one."
(headdesk)
Even if Dreyfus sees the existential-diagnosis as more important then the religious-treatment, is it not his job--as it would be any of our jobs as readers--to say that he disagrees with SK on certain points? What is the point of re-purposing an author? Can't ideas stand alone? Dreyfus claims to find the idea of a "defining commitment" in SK's writing, but it seems to be Dreyfus's idea--and it very well may be a good one. Why does he feel compelled to find it in SK? It puzzles me. Thoughts?
Yeah, the Self that posits the relation of self-to-self is much less abstract than I think he portrays it. But I suppose he could argue that, given the ubiquity of Regine in K and K's assertion that she made him a poet, there is room for another self giving this commitment to a self in the way he uses Beatrice as an example.
But one should go back to Either/Or II, Fear and Trembling, and Postscript to understand what's going on. It seems the definition of faith here is not consistent with K's overall thought, let alone as dipicted in Sickness Unto Death
But even reading Regine as an example of there being multiple options for a something that gives meaningful commitment probably doesn't work, come to think of it. Either/Or II and Stages on Life's Way and various Upbuilding Discourses would eliminate that possibility. The attempt at the qualatative leap would be self-thwarted.
K doesn't understand grief? Please explain. I mean, you talk about Fear and Trembling, but that isn't K not understanding the situation but Johnannes. This statement is the most perplexing of yours in the lecture.
SK is focused on the subjective, the importance of the individual dealing with ultimate anxiety or dread. Earnest Becker makes the case that religion provides the context to deal with the dread of death. SK would say, religion is good, spiritual joining with God is better, and that religion can block that transition. Buber, a good jewish thinker I think, says, finding the spiritual God is seeing God in others - I thou. I find that empowering.
I would disagree that "there is no way to love the God that Kierkegaard is talking about [a God of infinite possibilities]". I would argue that if we open our heart's to our own specific possibility of understanding Him and let God's Mind [replying], and not own own, be the way we understand Him [after affirming His existence and our Self...I AM] then when we pray and meditate on what His mind is telling us to do.. and do it... if that not loving HIm, then He didn't make us after all.
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