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93 6 Skepticism and Faith in Hamann and Kierkegaard Stephen Cole Leach Kierkegaard is popularly supposed to be indebted in some way to Hamann —but in all of Kierkegaard’s many published works, Hamann’s name appears but briefly. Aside from an epigraph taken from one of Hamann’s letters (probably borrowed in fact by Kierkegaard from a quotation by Lessing and an allusion to another letter),1 nothing in Fear and Trembling or Repetition clearly bespeaks Hamann’s influence. Two contiguous passages in Philosophical Fragments are attributed to Hamann, but these are admitted by the author to be “stolen goods.” (Although Stephen Dunning can fairly claim that Philosophical Fragments “may be the work by Kierkegaard which most clearly shows Hamann’s influence,”2 this is only after much sifting; the influence is not readily apparent.) Hamann ’s name also appears again in the peritext of The Concept of Anxiety; he is described as an “eccentric” in the epigraph3 and in a footnote on its last page as a “holy hypochondriac.” Stages on Life’s Way makes multiple uses of Hamann’s name4 but only as an authority when it comes to dismissing arguments with a disdainful “Bah!” There is little indication on the surface, then, that Hamann had a profound effect on Kierkegaard, despite conventional wisdom’s assertion to the contrary. It is only when one turns to Kierkegaard’s journals that one finds the unmistakable evidence that Hamann really mattered to him, and in a most personal way. There, one reads that “Hamann is the greatest humorist in Christianity (meaning the greatest humorist in the view of life which itself is the most humorous view of life in worldhistory —therefore the greatest humorist in the world).”5 Moreover, Hamann ’s humor is “authentic” and he is “the genuinely humorous Robinson Crusoe, not on a desert island but in the noise of life; his humor is not an esthetic concept but life, not a hero in a controlled drama” ( JP 2:252). Hamann also touched obliquely on what must have been one of the most important personal events in Kierkegaard’s own life: his engagement to, and eventual estrangement from, Regina Olsen. In a note from 94 S T E P H E N C O L E L E A C H 1847, Kierkegaard writes this: “Amazing! Yesterday I spoke with Jorgen Jorgensen, who has now become an avid reader of Hamann. In Hamann’s writings he has found evidence that Hamann was not married to his wife but lived with her out of wedlock, consequently as a concubine. And I, who have looked for this most eagerly, have not found it. And yet at one time this would have been of greatest importance to me . . . It would have given the matter a little different twist if I had known that Hamann had dared to do such a thing” ( JP 2:204). Thus, it is clear that where it mattered most to Kierkegaard, Hamann served as a sort of ethical touchstone. Hamann’s reputation as an inspiration for Kierkegaard is clearly merited, then. But what accounted for the hold this particular writer had on Kierkegaard? I believe their connection can broadly be understood as a general sympathy of outlook on philosophy and its place in religious belief, as well as a similarity of taste and style. But what I hope to show in this chapter is more specific. Namely, I want to address a parallel between the two authors involving the dialectic of skepticism and belief, and show where Kierkegaard and Hamann converge, and also where they diverge, concerning these crucial issues. Skepticism in the Service of Faith Hamann and Kierkegaard use very similar strategies as apologists (for apologists they are, notwithstanding Kierkegaard’s stated intention of making the task of becoming a Christian more difficult). Parallels between the two authors can be seen in the way both subtly co-opt traditional skeptical arguments, and in the importance they each placed on the figure of Socrates. Both used artful literary treatments of Socrates to combat the prevailing philosophic views of their respective ages, and both used these treatments to point out the limitations of even Socratic philosophizing when applied to the Christianity they each embraced. Rather than meet the philosophic orthodoxy head-on, they both attack indirectly, and by means of what Kierkegaard calls “indirect communication .”6 Hamann signs his Socratic Memorabilia as by “a Lover of Boredom,” and cites Hume’s testimony, likening it to “Balaam’s...

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