In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

Reviewed by:
  • Kierkegaard and Socrates: A Study in Philosophy and Faith
  • Jamie Turnbull
Jacob Howland . Kierkegaard and Socrates: A Study in Philosophy and Faith. Cambridge-New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Pp. xi + 231. Cloth, $80.00..

The subject of Jacob Howland's stimulating and insightful book is Kierkegaard's ambivalent relationship to Socrates, as manifest in Kierkegaard's short but important work Philosophical Fragments. Howland's book is the first full length study of Socrates' role in Philosophical Fragments, and thereby in Kierkegaard's thought as a whole. The aim of this work is to establish the critical importance of Socrates to Kierkegaard's understanding of faith and philosophy. Howland argues that close attention to the figure of Socrates can serve to clarify the nature of Kierkegaard's project. This in turn, Howland hopes, may further serve to illuminate the Socrates of the Platonic dialogues (7).

Kierkegaard was notoriously well-versed in the texts of ancient philosophy, and Howland brings his expertise as a classicist to bear on Philosophical Fragments with revealing consequences. In particular, it is Kierkegaard's understanding of Socrates—which, Howland believes, is rivaled only by that of Plato and Xenophon (1)—that Howland thinks can help us grasp hitherto unappreciated aspects of Kierkegaard's thought. Specifically, examining the figure of Socrates, Howland claims, undermines a straightforward interpretation of Fragments as playing philosophy and faith off against each other. Kierkegaard and Socrates is essentially a guide to Philosophical Fragments. Howland devotes a chapter of his book to each of the chapters that make up Philosophical Fragments, whilst pointing out the significance that Climacus's treatment of Socrates has to the wider issues of the text along the way.

As readers of Philosophical Fragments will be aware, Socrates is presented by Climacus as advancing the claim that the truth for human beings lies imminently within our nature. This claim is embodied in the recollection thesis, viz. that all knowledge is but recollection, as discussed in Plato's Meno. In terms of the recollection thesis, Climacus claims that the role of a teacher becomes accidental to human knowing. For, given that truth is implicit within me, I can, in principle, equally well come to know by being reminded by one person as opposed to another. This is contrasted by Climacus with the non-Socratic hypothesis, viz. that the truth for human beings is brought to them by means of a revelation from God. In terms of this second hypothesis, Climacus holds that the teacher will not be accidental to what is taught, but inseparable from it. Prima facie, Philosophical Fragments plays these two hypotheses off against one another in order to demonstrate their incompatibility. Set up in this fashion, the role of Socrates in Fragments might fairly be said to be one of standing for philosophy against faith.

According to Howland, the project of Fragments, so presented, cannot bear a detailed examination of the figure of Socrates. Howland argues that a consideration of Socrates' own conception of philosophy and relation to divinity undermines Climacus's distinction between the Socratic and non-Socratic hypotheses. To this end, Howland calls upon Socrates' defense speech in the Apology, drawing attention to the ambiguity in Socrates' presentation of himself as undertaking his philosophical role in service of both himself and the God (62). Additionally, Howland points out that Socrates' own philosophical quest is prompted by his attempt to make sense of the pronouncements of the Delphic Oracle, and is itself thereby premised on an engagement with, and understanding of, divinity (67). Furthermore, Socrates claims he is moved to philosophy by eros, while understanding eros [End Page 503] to be daimonic—which is to say, partaking of what is both human and divine (73). For Howland, Socrates' equivocal relationship with divinity and Kierkegaard's presentation of Climacus as a Socratic figure prohibit any straightforward attempt to view Socrates' role in Fragments as representative of philosophy.

On this basis, Howland argues that Socrates actually plays a far more complicated role in Fragments than would first appear. For Howland holds that, in contrast to the predominantly Hegelian philosophy of Kierkegaard's contemporaries, Climacus advances an alternative conception of philosophy, in which the figure of Socrates...

pdf

Share