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7. The Figure of Socrates and the Downfall of Paradoxical Reason
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160 seven The Figure of Socrates and the Downfall of Paradoxical Reason Unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit. He that loveth his life shall lose it; and he that hateth his life in this world shall keep it unto life eternal. (John 12:24–25) Christ . . . willed his own downfall. (PC, 246) It is . . . the ultimate passion of the understanding to will the collision . . . that must become its downfall. (PF, 37) An eternal happiness is specifically rooted in the subjective individual’s diminishing self-esteem acquired through the utmost exertion. (CUP, 55) He who is by art a tragic poet is also a comic poet. (Socrates in Symposium, 223d) Virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. . . . What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves all. (Shakespeare, Hamlet) In the drama of Philosophical Fragments Socrates not only climbs the ladder of paradoxical reason, he also falls. We might suspect that his fall is a tragic climbing accident resulting from ill-advised overconfidence in his climacean capacity, or a divine punishment for impious and immod- Socrates & the Downfall of paradoxical reason · 161 erate ambition. In fact, it is a voluntary self-humbling: Socrates himself wills the downfall of his own understanding. Socrates wills this downfall because the synthesis of the infinite and the finite within human nature requires that a person embrace both climbing and falling. Being infinite, human beings are equipped to climb. But being finite, they are also destined to fall. Therefore, without aspiration and ascent, lowliness is cowardice, laziness, or complacent mediocrity masquerading as meekness; without humble acceptance of finitude, transcending is titanic and transgressive pride. Thus climbing and falling complement and correct one another. They are also components of one another. Socrates climbs and wills to fall by one and the same erotic “passion of thought,” or by “paradoxical and humble courage” (PF, 37; FT, 49). According to an analogy suggested by Climacus, just as one makes progress in walking by “a continuous falling” and rising, so one advances through the stages of subjectivity by energetic aspiration and dejected desperation (PF, 37). As the “angels of God” “ascend and descend” Christ, or on Jacob’s Ladder, so Socrates climbs up and down the ladder of paradoxical reason.1 Climacus himself hints at the balance in question when he writes the following: “In his existence-relation to the truth the existing person is just as negative as positive” (CUP, 80). Or, in the language of theology, to humble oneself before God in need and petition is to acknowledge one’s limits in order to transcend them. By his double movement Socrates both prophetically anticipates the unique Incarnation and represents a universal human possibility. In willing his own downfall, Socrates is a type or symbol of Christ’s passion and crucifixion; in climbing over and transcending human limits, he figures forth the resurrection and the ascension into heaven. And in doing these things, he shows what all human beings can do if only they will to do it. Socrates Wills the Downfall of His Understanding Climacus does not explicitly assert that Socrates wills the downfall of his own understanding. But he repeatedly suggests this in the third chapter of Philosophical Fragments, “The Absolute Paradox (A Metaphysical Caprice)” (PF, 37–48). 162 · The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard Climacus says that if one makes the assumption that one knows “what man is” and seeks to make “this wisdom . . . richer and more meaningful,” something curious happens: “But then the understanding stands still, as did Socrates, for now the understanding’s paradoxical passion that wills the collision awakens and, without really understanding itself, wills its own downfall” (PF, 38). By comparing Socrates’ coming to a standstill to the understanding’s willing its own downfall, Climacus suggests that Socrates is among those who will the demise of their own intellects. And by alluding to the famous episode of Socrates’ standing still from the Symposium,2 which is about eros, he suggests that it is Socrates’ eros that leads him to will the downfall (a curious thing, since it is also eros that motivates the climacean capacity). Climacus writes that it “seems to be a paradox” that “although Socrates did his very best . . . to know himself” and “has been eulogized for centuries as the person who certainly knew man best . . . he was still not...