The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard

1. A Pretense of Irrationalism

1 one A Pretense of Irrationalism Be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks you a reason for the hope that is in you. (1 Peter 3:15) The noble lie [is] useful to human beings as a sort of remedy. (Republic 414c, 389b) What I have wanted has been to contribute . . . to bringing, if possible, into these incomplete lives as we lead them a little more truth. (PV, 17) The truth must never become an object of pity; serve it as long as you can, to the best of your ability with unconditioned recklessness; squander everything in its service. (PV, 211) Temporarily suppressing something precisely in order that the true can become more true . . . is a plain duty to the truth and is part and parcel of a person’s responsibility to God for the reflection [thinking capacity, reason] granted to him. (PV, 89) [Sometimes the wise teacher] thinks it most appropriate to say that he does not understand something that he really does understand. (PV, 49) One can deceive a person out of what is true, and—to recall old Socrates—one can deceive a person into what is true. (PV, 53) This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof. (Shakespeare, Hamlet) 2 · The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard Søren Kierkegaard often seems to reject reason, but in fact he affirms it.1 There are two principal causes of his appearance of irrationalism. First, his conception and use of reason, which he calls subjectivity, is so differ­ ent from conventional versions of rationality that it often seems irratio­ nal, especially at first sight.2 Second, and more importantly, Kierkegaard does not attempt to correct his misleading appearance of irrationalism, but instead deliberately cultivates it, precisely because he thinks that he needs such deception in order to assist his readers to become more rational. Thus it might be said that Kierkegaard pretends to be irrational in order to communicate rationality.3 In his own colorful words, he is a spy “in the service of the truth” with the absurd or irrational as his incognito (CUP, 467; PV, 72; FT, 34; CUP, 500). Kierkegaard’s strategy of feigning irrationality in the service of rea­ son has both divine and human models and is grounded in both faith and reason. The divine prototype is the incarnation of God in the man Jesus Christ. As God humbled himself to become an individual human being so that individual human beings might become divine, so Kier­ kegaard humbles himself to appear irrational so that his readers might become (more) rational. Whereas the incarnation is the “absolute para­ dox,” because it transcends reason and therefore cannot be explained, comprehended, or demonstrated, Kierkegaard’s serving reason by seem­ ing unreasonable is only a “relative paradox,” because it initially seems absurd, but can be explained, understood, and justified.4 The human model for Kierkegaard’s incognito of irrationalism is Socrates. If Socrates ironically feigned ignorance in the service of knowl­ edge, Kierkegaard “goes further” and ironically feigns irrationality in the service of reason. Rarely has any thinker conceded so much with an argumentum ex concessis. Just as Kierkegaard’s pretense of irrationalism is derived in part from Socrates’ profession of ignorance, so, more generally, his indirect mode of communication is derived in part from Socratic midwifery. Even more generally, Kierkegaard’s whole conception and use of reason—which in­ cludes his “indirect communication”—is modeled on Socratic rationality. Like Kierkegaardian communication, Kierkegaardian rationality is paradoxical. What I am calling paradoxical rationality, Kierkegaard himself calls subjectivity. Subjectivity is paradoxical in that it strategi­ cally expresses itself in ways that make it seem irrational, at least ini­ A Pretense of Irrationalism · 3 tially, and in that it is an imitation by the finite, temporal, particular, and conditioned human being of an infinite, eternal, universal, and ab­ solute ideal. Subjectivity is rational in that it uses the human mind to discover these opposites within human nature and strives to live and act consistently with this discovery. Thus subjectivity, like all rationality, is consistency. But, unlike some versions of rationality, it is a consistency not just of thought with thought, but of the whole person. More fully, it is an “existence­attempt” at “infinite self­consistency,” an uncompromising striving to integrate in one project all the elements of the self, including thinking, feeling, willing, acting, and communicating (CUP, 318; SUD, 107). Insofar as subjectivity is an attempt to apply one’s...