Kierkegaard as Educator (review)

398 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Ronald J. Manheimer. Kierkegaard as Educator. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1977. Pp. ix 4- 233. $L 1.5o. In this lucidly written essay Manheimer deftly elucidates the "dialectic of education" as shown primarily in The Concept of Irony, Either~Or, and Works of Love. Aside from the clarity and simplicity of this insightful essay,-the author offers a number of original observations on the thought and method of communication of Kierkegaard that are integrated into an original interpretation of his thought from the perspective of Kierkegaard's task as educator. Given his obvious familiarity with original sources, Manheimer offers unique accounts of Kierkegaard's language and style of communication that show a deep understanding of a philosophical and religious writer who was as self-conscious in his use of the Danish language as James Joyce was in his use of English. What this study lacks in comprehensiveness and philosophical analysis of central concepts, it makes up for in attention to detail and sensitivity to Kierkegaard's intentions as an author who uses language to lead us to an awareness of the quality of our lives and to change our existence. Beginning with a brief, but incisive analysis of the being of Socrates in The Concept of Irony, Manheimer discerns three aspects of Socrates: through a lived irony he "hovers" in a negativity that deprived others of confidence and conventional assurance . The aim of this "negative irony" is to intensify a sense of subjectivity in others in the first stage of their "education." The second "moment" of Socratic existence is the emphasis upon the paradoxical nature of human subjectivity and the need to stimulate passion in order to generate a true "becoming" in the individual. Along the way, Manheimer offers a viable interpretation of the often misunderstood formula, "truth is subjectivity." He contends that this means that in order for a knower to be sure that something is true in his existential situation it must be subjectively appropriated . It is further claimed that the subjective individual posits a "power" that he needs so that he is the synthesis formed by joining the truth of existence to "immutable truth" (p. 29). Despite the ingenuity of this account, there seems to be a crucial point missing. That is, that the "passion" that is correctly said to be generated by the individual's attempt to relate himself to "eternal truth" is also stimulated by the "objective uncertainty," the unknowability of the "truth" that is postulated as possible. Kierkegaard suggests that the individual is led back to his own "inwardness" by virtue of the tension between passionate subjectivity and objective uncertainty, that Socrates leaps back into himself because he cannot make a "leap" to an "eternal truth." To be sure, Manheimer does a fine job of defending his own view and has many insightful things to say about Kierkegaard's portrait of Socrates. In the third educative stance that Socrates is said to express it is said that the maieutic art of Socrates is a form of "witnessing." In his encounters with the Sophists in the Platonic dialogues Socrates is said to be trying to produce a "solitary witness to the truth" in others. This doubtful depiction of Socrates' role as an educator is somewhat murky because of Kierkegaard 's occasional attempts to see Socrates as a proto-Christian. Manheimer follows this lead up to a point, then points to distinctions between Socratic "witnessing" and the Christian version, and then adds to the confusion by alluding to Kierkegaard's BOOK REVIEWS 399 intention to draw the "single individual" out of the crowd. In this discussion the author's facility for condensing and simply stating complex relationships or conceptions seems to work against him. Developing the "allegory of the educator" in a series of interrelated chapters, the author presents a subtle and interesting interpretation not only of some of the content of Either~Or, but of its form and structure as well. The task of Either~Or is to "evoke subjectivity" in the reader by stimulating his sense of the possible in life (p. 62). The role and function of the characters in this work are carefully described...