Kierkegaard's Philosophy of Becoming: Movements and Positions

Introduction: The Place and the Path

Introduction
The Place and the Path M ovements and Positions first began, and now begins again, with questions about inwardness. This is an essential category for Kierkegaard: “in inwardness” qualifies many of his descriptions of personal, existential truth or authenticity, and applies specifically to the sphere of religious faith. “In a spiritual sense, the place and the path are within a man, and just as the place is the blessed state of the striving soul, so the path is the striving soul’s continual transformation.”1 From the perspective of “the task of becoming a Christian” invoked by Kierkegaard’s writing, inwardness is, it seems, the most important part of a human being. So I started to wonder, what is inwardness? What kind of place is it, and where does its path lead to? What exactly happens there, and how? If we could ‘get inside’ and explore inwardness, what would it look like? These are not easy questions, because one of the most important features of Kierkegaardian inwardness is its privacy—its secrecy, its incommunicability , its solitude. “True inwardness demands absolutely no outward sign.”2 Inwardness is where the individual relates to God; it is the hidden inner sanctum of the self where the truth of Christianity is appropriated. For Kierkegaard, this religious idea of inwardness also has profound philosophical significance, as opposing Hegel’s claim that truth involves a process of externalization—as opposing, in short, the theory of mediation. Does the very notion of inwardness imply that we can understand it only negatively—as distinct from all external things; as inaccessible through 1 sensation, reflection or language; as inarticulate subjectivity? If so, there seems to be a danger that at the heart of Kierkegaard’s interpretation of human existence lies a kind of philosophical black hole, empty of meaning and unyielding to our enquiries about the ‘how’ of Christian faith. It is certainly true that Kierkegaard places inwardness in some sense beyond reason —and many readers do, indeed, dismiss him on the grounds of his “irrationalism .” As it turns out, what follows is an attempt to illuminate inwardness; to uncover the processes of its articulation through Kierkegaard ’s writing; and to find form or structure—or even logic—in this expression . I have discovered that inwardness is a kind of movement: a movement that opposes philosophical thinking, but which, nevertheless, has its own coherence and integrity. I first came to the question of movement when I was trying to make sense of Kierkegaard’s opposition to Hegel’s account of the relationship between “the internal” and “the external.” While considering the reasons for Kierkegaard’s vehement and sustained attack on Hegel, I was drawn to one particularly intriguing criticism: the suggestion that there is no movement in Hegel’s philosophy.3 What, I wondered, could Kierkegaard mean by this? What kind of movement might be expected of a philosophy—and why is this important? Reading Kierkegaard’s Repetition with these questions in mind, I soon began to see movements everywhere. Repetition starts with a reference to a debate among ancient Greek philosophers about the possibility of motion and then introduces the idea of repetition as a movement that opposes the Platonic doctrine of recollection. In this text, movement is not only a subject for philosophical discussion (a discussion that includes explicit criticism of Hegelian mediation), but is also employed in a more literary way to describe different forms of consciousness and the transitions between them. In Fear and Trembling, again, Kierkegaard speaks of faith as a “leap,” and tells the story of Abraham’s journey to illustrate the “double movement ” of resignation and faith. What, then, is the connection between these metaphors of movement and the suggestion that there is no movement in Hegel’s philosophy? What does movement signify for Kierkegaard, and where—and how—do his movements take place? Strangely enough, these questions lead back to my enquiry about the meaning of inwardness: Kierkegaardian movement expresses intensification, and this dynamic intensity turns out to be synonymous with inwardness. Man’s inner place is “the blessed state of the striving soul,” and his path is this soul’s “continual transformation.” If inwardness is not really a “place” at all (since it is opposed precisely to anything extended), but a movement, then exploring the 2 Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Becoming theme of movement will reveal something of the hidden interiority that constitutes, for Kierkegaard, the sphere...