Kierkegaard as Phenomenologist: An Experiment

Self-Givenness and Self-Understanding: Kierkegaard and the Question of Phenomenology

79 Self-Givenness and Self-Understanding: Kierkegaard and the Question of Phenomenology Arne Grøn Phenomenology? How to make sense of the question: Kierkegaard and phenomenology? What is it about? It is, of course, about reading Kierkegaard, but it is also about asking the question: what is phenomenology? Instead of taking our point of departure in some established idea of phenomenology, we should look at the motive in calling what one is doing phenomenology. This approach is in line with how phenomenology begins or establishes itself. Positions labeling themselves phenomenological are in search for the meaning of phenomenology. Therefore, to be discussed in the following is: Kierkegaard and the question of phenomenology. Where to begin then? Following a phenomenological approach, let us begin by reflecting on the phenomenological project and the problem of beginning. If we do so, we are likely to stumble over the strange, nonnatural character of this project. If we define phenomenology as the attempt to go back to the phenomena, we must ask ourselves: What is the point of going back to that which shows itself? Isn’t it too obvious that we should begin with the phenomena? Does this require a move on its own? Making a method out of this move (going back to the phenomena) only makes sense if something has come in between, so that we are not simply dealing with the phenomena. But what comes in between? It cannot just be something interfering from outside. Rather, it must have to do with our own ways of approaching the phenomena. We are not just dealing with the phenomena, but are doing so in the form of traditions, opinions, or fossilized interpretations and ideas about what the phenom- 80 A R N E G R Ø N ena in question are. This means that the question about what the phenomena are is not really a question to us. Phenomenology is not just “reading off” the phenomena. Rather, as logos, phenomenology is a countermove, directed against that which comes in between. But this leaves a phenomenological approach with the problem: how to account for what comes in between? Let us call this the problem of negativity. If phenomenology claims to show that we are already “out there,” in contact with that which shows itself to us, why are we in need of phenomenology as a countermove? Let us first look at the reflective method of going back to that which is already given to us. The project of phenomenology is radical. It is a search for the beginning. This is odd, inasmuch as we have already begun, taking part in traditions that have begun before us. That which is given to us is already interpreted, and we have already begun interpreting it without really being aware of what we are doing. The only way to begin again, then, is to ask the question of beginning. The claim of phenomenology to be a radical, that is, philosophical method lies in reclaiming the idea that philosophy begins in questioning. It is reflective in questioning our preconceived interpretations, and this is only possible by going back to die Sachen selbst (“the things themselves”). But this reflective move itself is provoked by the problem of negativity. Phenomenology as a radical quest is made possible because we do not simply deal with the phenomena. In order to understand for ourselves the motive of phenomenology we must therefore make a double claim: phenomenology is the search for the beginning in going back to die Sachen selbst, but we cannot simply or directly begin with die Sachen selbst because we have already begun. What comes in between is not only traditions already operative in our ways of seeing, established opinions, or unquestioned interpretations. There is not only something we do not see and something still to be seen, but also the tendency to overlook, ignore, or forget that which we see or know. The second part of the claim constitutes the difficulty that phenomenology itself faces. Can we reach the beginning except through that which has come in between, that is, by questioning our own interpretations ? In a first move phenomenology appears to be antihermeneutical . It is “against interpretation” in pointing out that we are not just caught up in traditions. In a second move, however, phenomenology itself must become hermeneutical. In order for us to come to ask the questions where philosophy begins, we have to critically appropriate traditions that both disclose and close these questions. [3.138.204.208] Project...