Kierkegaards Verständnis der Existenz (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 275 used the traditional works of Paley and Lord Kames, but he subjected them to independent "analysis" for conceiving a new moral philosophy in the spirit of "natural philosophy." The influence of his reforms and idea of "redemptive wisdom" inspired several leading reformers in the new universities. It also laid the foundations for the philosophical "innovations" of his successor L. P. Hickok. HERBERT W. SCHNEIDER Claremont, California Kierkegaards Verstiindnis der Existenz. By Frank-Eberhard Wilde. (Copenhagen: Rosenkilde and Bagger, 1969. Pp. 170) In this scholarly study there is a concern with tracing the "polyphonic" development of Kierkegaard's understanding of existence from his earliest journal entries to the references to existence in selected works after the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Although the author promises to approach the question of the meaning of Existents by virtue of a historisch-kritischen comprehension of Kierkegaard's understanding of existence, he focuses most of his attention on the Papirer and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Wilde traces Kierkegaard's tentative questions about existence, his search for the means by which to distinguish human existence from other modes of being as well as from conceptual existence, through a variety of journal entries. There is a brief discussion of the insufficiency of poetic existence which is accurate as far it goes, but which does not take into consideration Kierkegaard's phenomenological critique of aestheticism in Either~Or, his attempt to show the psychological insufficiency of an aesthetic mode of being and its implicit nihilism. Allied with this is an account of the criticism of abstract existence in the Concept of Irony. Although Wilde is aware of the importance of Kierkegaard's phenomenology, of Socrates' existence for Kierkegaard 's thought, of the importance of "mastered irony" (beherrschte lronie) as eine Bestimmtheit der Person, he is not faithful to his historical approach to Kierkegaard 's notion of existence since he rarely mentions the importance of irony for the ethical sphere of existence. After a brief discussion of Kierkegaard's criticism of logic in terms of its incapacity to deal with becoming and historical development (pp. 45-48), an attempt is made to delineate the central features of the ethical sphere of existence. What is conspicuously lacking in Wilde's account of the features of an ethical existence is any extended discussion of the "dialectic of choice." Even when the author does mention significant aspects of an ethical existence (e.g., he refers to Kierkegaard's view that repetition is the seriousness of existence), he does not relate them to other aspects of this mode of existence (e.g., the intimate relationship between resoluteness and repetition is ignored). Again, although it is mentioned that in der radikalen Innerlichkeit Freiheit gewinnt (p. 70), no attempt is made to relate Kierkegaard's conception of freedom to his emphasis upon existential possibility, to what Kierkegaard regarded as man's primordial potentiality-for or kunnen. Although the meaning of Existents for Kierkegaard is made clearer in his description of ethical existence than elsewhere, Wilde's account of this Existenzsphiire is disappointing. This is especially the case in regard to his somewhat superficial references to what is most significant in Kierkegaard's account of man's self-becoming: that is, the concept of Mulighed or "possibility". 276 HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY Although there is passing reference made to the relationship between Kierkegaard's and Heidegger's conception of existence, Wilde gives no indication of the pervasive influence which Kierkegaard's existentielle analyses had on Heidegger's thought (not to speak of the striking relationship between Kierkegaard's Existenzkategorien-concern , anxiety, possibility, choice, etc.--and Heidegger's existentialia. In a specific instance he fails to note a case of direct influence. Thus, he refers to Kierkegaard's statement in Concluding Unscientific Postscript that man alone exists, that God is, but does not exist (Gud existierer ikke, han er evig. Mennesket taenker og existerer.... ), without being aware of Heidegger's verbatim appropriation of this assertion in his The Way Back into the Ground o[ Metaphysics. That such analogies between Kierkegaard 's notion of Existents and Heidegger's concept of Existenz are not seized upon indicates, to my mind, the frailty of the author's grasp of Kierkegaard's...