Repetition (Kierkegaard)
Encyclopedia
Kierkegaard said "Seneca
has said that when a person has reached his thirtieth year he ought to know his constitution so well that he can be his own physician
; I likewise believe that when a person has reached a certain age he ought to be able to be his own pastor
. Not as if I would in any way minimize participation in public worship and the guidance given there, but I do think one ought to have one’s view settled with regard to the most important relationships, which, furthermore, one seldom hears preached about in the stricter sense. To devotional books and printed sermons, I have an idiosyncratic aversion, that is why I resort to Scripture
when I cannot go to church." In Repetition he followed his own advice and became his own psychologist
.
He used the pseudonym
Constantin Constantius in this book. Constantin is currently conducting experiments into whether repetition is possible. The book includes his experiments and his relation to a nameless patient known only as the Young Man. Every patient must have a problem
.
The Young Man has fallen in love with a girl, proposed marriage, the proposal has been accepted, but now he has changed his mind. Constantin becomes the young man's confidant. Coincidentally, the problem that the Young Man had is the same problem Kierkegaard had with Regine Olsen
. He had proposed to her, she had accepted but he had changed his mind. Kierkegaard was accused of "experimenting with the affections of his fiancée".
Charles K. Bellinger says Either/Or, Fear and Trembling and Repetition are works of fiction, ""novelistic" in character; they focus on the boundaries between different spheres of existence, such as the aesthetic and the ethical, and the ethical and the religious; they often focus on the subject of marriage
; they can be traced back to Kierkegaard's relationship with Regine." There is much in this work that is autobiographical in nature. How much is left up to the reader. Kierkegaard explores the conscious choices this Young Man makes.
Kierkegaard published Fear and Trembling
, Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 and Repetition all on the same date, October 16, 1843. Abraham
was the main character in Fear and Trembling and the Three Upbuilding Discourses were about love. Repetition presents a noticeable contrast between the other two books that is almost comical.
and Hereaclitus
. "Mediation” is a foreign word; “repetition” is a good Danish word according to him.
He reports that he has met a melancholy young man and has decided to become his confidant. He says, "an observer fulfills his duties well, he is to be regarded as a secret agent in a higher service, for the observer’s art is to expose what is hidden". During his conversation with the Young Man he comes to understand that he is in love but he talks about his love as though it were just a memory. He says, the Young Man "was deeply and fervently in love, that was clear, and yet a few days later he was able to recollect his love. He was essentially through with the entire relationship."
His observations lead him to conclude that the young man really isn't in love, but that the girl, he never calls her a woman in the whole book, is "the occasionthat awakened the poetic in him and made him a poet
." He calls him the "sorrowful knight of recollection’s only happy love." He has had his first love but that's not anywhere near the experience of marriage. Kierkegaard says the following in Either/Or, "The question, namely, is this: Can this love be actualized? After having conceded everything up to this point, you perhaps will say: Well, it is just as difficult to actualize marriage as to actualize first love. To that I must respond: No, for in marriage there is a law of motion. First love
remains an unreal in itself that never acquires inner substance because it moves only in the external medium. In the ethical and religious intention, marital love
has the possibility of an inner history and is as different from first love as the historical is from the unhistorical. This love is strong, stronger than the whole world, but the moment it doubts it is annihilated; it is like a sleepwalker who is able to walk the most dangerous places with the complete security but plunges down when someone call his name. Marital love is armed, for in the intention not only is attentiveness directed to the surrounding world but the will is directed toward itself, toward the inner world." The Young Man, like Byron, "declares that love is heaven and marriage hell."
Constantin, "the aesthetic schemer", tells the Young Man he should become a deceiver. He says, "Be inconstant, nonsensical; do one thing one day and another the next, but without passion
, in an utterly careless way that does not, however, degenerate into inattention, because, on the contrary, the external attentiveness must be just as great as ever but altered to a formal function lacking all inwardness
.
He then goes to Berlin
, because he had been there once before and he wants to see if he can repeat the same experience he had the first time. He goes to the same place he stayed on his first journey and finds that his landlord is now married. “The landlord went on to prove the esthetic validity of marriage. He succeeded marvelously, just as well as he had the last time in proving the perfection of bachelorhood.”. He tries to find repetition at the theater but it eludes him, he tries the coffee shop and finally says, "I had discovered that there simply is no repetition and had verified it by having it repeated in every possible way". Stuart Dalton from The University of Hartford regards Repetition essentially as a comedy and there is humor in much of the book. Kierkegaard wrote humorously about the idea of repetition in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments
, he said,
theoretical
interest
in people, in everyone for whom the idea is in motion! At one time, I tried to assist the idea in him; now I am reaping the harvest, namely, I am supposed to be and also not to be both being and nothing, entirely as he so pleases, and not to receive the slightest appreciation for being able to be that and thereby to help him out of the contradiction." He continues to diagnose him.
The Young Man tells him he will be going to Job
for help and will write his reports to Constantin.
Did he use the method endorsed by Constantin and become a deceiver?The letters from the Young Man are either written in relation to Regine or they are a passionate cry for freedom. He wanted to find a truth to live and die for. The letters describe his inner struggle against the social norms of his time. Must he keep his pledge
because the social order demands that he does it?
First he blames his psychologist but he still needs him. Existential philosophy calls this Ressentiment
.
Then he blames the girl.
Then he appeals to Job.
Then he questions his own existence and the concept of guilt. Existential philosophers call this an Existential crisis
.
Then he demands his rights. Kierkegaard is developing his concept of individuality. The Young Man wants to stand out from the crowd and make his own decisions about his own life.
His question is never what is love, but how do I know I'm in love, how do you know you're in love? Too many people want to read about love in order to find out what love is. Kierkegaard says one must act, not just think about acting. His letter dated January 13 states he is now married and doing his best to be a husband.
Contrasting
Abraham in Fear and Trembling with the Young Man creates an excellent comedy
when taken together. Abraham wasn't anxious about the social order, he just followed God but the Young Man is overflowing with anxiety about what his friends will say about him, and he followed Job. Kierkegaard wrote in Fear and Trembling: "It would be altogether desirable if esthetics
would sometime attempt to begin where for so many years it has ended-in the illusion of magnanimity. As soon as it did this, it would be working hand in hand with the religious, for this is the only power that can rescue the esthetic from its battle with the ethical
." Kierkegaard says, "I perceived that he was a poet-if for no other reason I saw it in the fact that a situation that would have been taken easily in stride by a lesser mortal expanded into a world event for him." On December 6, 1843 Kierkegaard published his Four Upbuilding Discourses, he explains this Young Man's relation to Job in the following way,
The Young Man writes once more, on May 31st, to let Constantin know that the "girl" is married. Kierkegaard-The Young Man says,
Kierkegaard as well as the other two characters in the story belong to the idea of what a marriage is but not to the actuality of a real marriage. Kierkegaard calls the Young Man's behaviour criminal.
Lev Shestov
was a philosopher who wondered how Russia had missed Kierkegaard. He understood Repetition in the following way.
Kierkegaard wrote,
Kierkegaard was influential in Martin Buber's Philosophy
and Martin Heidegger's development of the "new philosophical category" Dasein
.
Rollo May
wrote an excellent history of Existentialism from the psychological point of view. He said,
Kierkegaard was very concerned about his relationship with God. C. Stephen Evans
, says that
Clare Carlisle described the internal and external struggle that every existing individual has to go through. "The struggle between philosophy and existence (often a struggle internal to the individual, especially to the intellectual and perhaps academic individual who is this text’s likely reader) is essential to Kierkegaard’s dramatization of his conflict with Hegel
. Throughout Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authorship the ‘abstract thinker’, the ‘pitiful professorial figure is criticized from the perspective of the existing individual. Challenging the Hegelian view that the Concept expresses the highest form of truth, texts such as Repetition constitute ‘a polemic against the truth as knowledge’ and suggest instead that truth must be grasped in terms of ‘subjectivity’ or ‘inwardness’."
Both Constantin and the Young Man had the power to act as single individuals instead of trying to become world historically famous or worrying about the crowd but neither of them used the power. They both just pursued the idea. Kierkegaard says of them,
Niels Nymann Eriksen has written about Kierkegaard's category of repetition. This book explores "the Other" and "Becoming" as well as "Recollection" and "Repetition."
Seneca the Elder
Lucius or Marcus Annaeus Seneca, known as Seneca the Elder and Seneca the Rhetorician , was a Roman rhetorician and writer, born of a wealthy equestrian family of Cordoba, Hispania...
has said that when a person has reached his thirtieth year he ought to know his constitution so well that he can be his own physician
Physician
A physician is a health care provider who practices the profession of medicine, which is concerned with promoting, maintaining or restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of disease, injury and other physical and mental impairments...
; I likewise believe that when a person has reached a certain age he ought to be able to be his own pastor
Pastor
The word pastor usually refers to an ordained leader of a Christian congregation. When used as an ecclesiastical styling or title, this role may be abbreviated to "Pr." or often "Ps"....
. Not as if I would in any way minimize participation in public worship and the guidance given there, but I do think one ought to have one’s view settled with regard to the most important relationships, which, furthermore, one seldom hears preached about in the stricter sense. To devotional books and printed sermons, I have an idiosyncratic aversion, that is why I resort to Scripture
Bible
The Bible refers to any one of the collections of the primary religious texts of Judaism and Christianity. There is no common version of the Bible, as the individual books , their contents and their order vary among denominations...
when I cannot go to church." In Repetition he followed his own advice and became his own psychologist
Psychologist
Psychologist is a professional or academic title used by individuals who are either:* Clinical professionals who work with patients in a variety of therapeutic contexts .* Scientists conducting psychological research or teaching psychology in a college...
.
Pseudonym
A pseudonym is a name that a person assumes for a particular purpose and that differs from his or her original orthonym...
Constantin Constantius in this book. Constantin is currently conducting experiments into whether repetition is possible. The book includes his experiments and his relation to a nameless patient known only as the Young Man. Every patient must have a problem
Double-mindedness
Double-mindedness is a concept used in the philosophy and theology of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard.Elaborating the concept in several of his edifying discourses, Kierkegaard asserts that double-mindedness is a moral category that comes about by a failure of willing authentically...
.
The Young Man has fallen in love with a girl, proposed marriage, the proposal has been accepted, but now he has changed his mind. Constantin becomes the young man's confidant. Coincidentally, the problem that the Young Man had is the same problem Kierkegaard had with Regine Olsen
Regine Olsen
Regine Schlegel née Olsen was a Danish woman who was engaged to the philosopher and theologian Søren Kierkegaard from September 1840 to October 1841...
. He had proposed to her, she had accepted but he had changed his mind. Kierkegaard was accused of "experimenting with the affections of his fiancée".
Charles K. Bellinger says Either/Or, Fear and Trembling and Repetition are works of fiction, ""novelistic" in character; they focus on the boundaries between different spheres of existence, such as the aesthetic and the ethical, and the ethical and the religious; they often focus on the subject of marriage
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
; they can be traced back to Kierkegaard's relationship with Regine." There is much in this work that is autobiographical in nature. How much is left up to the reader. Kierkegaard explores the conscious choices this Young Man makes.
Kierkegaard published Fear and Trembling
Fear and Trembling
Fear and Trembling is an influential philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard, published in 1843 under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio...
, Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 and Repetition all on the same date, October 16, 1843. Abraham
Abraham
Abraham , whose birth name was Abram, is the eponym of the Abrahamic religions, among which are Judaism, Christianity and Islam...
was the main character in Fear and Trembling and the Three Upbuilding Discourses were about love. Repetition presents a noticeable contrast between the other two books that is almost comical.
Structure
- Part One: Report by Constantin Constantius
- Part Two: Repetition
- Letters from the Young Man, August 15 - January 13
- Incidental Observations by Constantin Constantius
- Letter From The Young Man, May 31
- Concluding Letter By Constantin Constanius, Copenhagen, August 1843
Report by Constantin Constantius
Constantin believes that "repetition and recollection are the same movement, except in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been, is repeated backward." An individual can remember some past event or emotional experience with intensity. That individual might try to "repeat pleasure continuously and eternalize the pleasure in the temporal". This is what Constantin is trying to accomplish. He hopes that Repetition will become a new philosophical category. That it will trump Hegel and explain the relation between the EleaticsEleatics
The Eleatics were a school of pre-Socratic philosophers at Elea , a Greek colony in Campania, Italy. The group was founded in the early fifth century BCE by Parmenides. Other members of the school included Zeno of Elea and Melissus of Samos...
and Hereaclitus
Heraclitus
Heraclitus of Ephesus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher, a native of the Greek city Ephesus, Ionia, on the coast of Asia Minor. He was of distinguished parentage. Little is known about his early life and education, but he regarded himself as self-taught and a pioneer of wisdom...
. "Mediation” is a foreign word; “repetition” is a good Danish word according to him.
He reports that he has met a melancholy young man and has decided to become his confidant. He says, "an observer fulfills his duties well, he is to be regarded as a secret agent in a higher service, for the observer’s art is to expose what is hidden". During his conversation with the Young Man he comes to understand that he is in love but he talks about his love as though it were just a memory. He says, the Young Man "was deeply and fervently in love, that was clear, and yet a few days later he was able to recollect his love. He was essentially through with the entire relationship."
His observations lead him to conclude that the young man really isn't in love, but that the girl, he never calls her a woman in the whole book, is "the occasionthat awakened the poetic in him and made him a poet
Poet
A poet is a person who writes poetry. A poet's work can be literal, meaning that his work is derived from a specific event, or metaphorical, meaning that his work can take on many meanings and forms. Poets have existed since antiquity, in nearly all languages, and have produced works that vary...
." He calls him the "sorrowful knight of recollection’s only happy love." He has had his first love but that's not anywhere near the experience of marriage. Kierkegaard says the following in Either/Or, "The question, namely, is this: Can this love be actualized? After having conceded everything up to this point, you perhaps will say: Well, it is just as difficult to actualize marriage as to actualize first love. To that I must respond: No, for in marriage there is a law of motion. First love
Infatuation
Infatuation is the state of being completely carried away by unreasoned passion or love: 'expresses the headlong libidinal attraction' of addictive love...
remains an unreal in itself that never acquires inner substance because it moves only in the external medium. In the ethical and religious intention, marital love
Marriage
Marriage is a social union or legal contract between people that creates kinship. It is an institution in which interpersonal relationships, usually intimate and sexual, are acknowledged in a variety of ways, depending on the culture or subculture in which it is found...
has the possibility of an inner history and is as different from first love as the historical is from the unhistorical. This love is strong, stronger than the whole world, but the moment it doubts it is annihilated; it is like a sleepwalker who is able to walk the most dangerous places with the complete security but plunges down when someone call his name. Marital love is armed, for in the intention not only is attentiveness directed to the surrounding world but the will is directed toward itself, toward the inner world." The Young Man, like Byron, "declares that love is heaven and marriage hell."
Constantin, "the aesthetic schemer", tells the Young Man he should become a deceiver. He says, "Be inconstant, nonsensical; do one thing one day and another the next, but without passion
Passion (emotion)
Passion is a term applied to a very strong feeling about a person or thing. Passion is an intense emotion compelling feeling, enthusiasm, or desire for something....
, in an utterly careless way that does not, however, degenerate into inattention, because, on the contrary, the external attentiveness must be just as great as ever but altered to a formal function lacking all inwardness
Either/Or
Published in two volumes in 1843, Either/Or is an influential book written by the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard, exploring the aesthetic and ethical "phases" or "stages" of existence....
.
He then goes to Berlin
Berlin
Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...
, because he had been there once before and he wants to see if he can repeat the same experience he had the first time. He goes to the same place he stayed on his first journey and finds that his landlord is now married. “The landlord went on to prove the esthetic validity of marriage. He succeeded marvelously, just as well as he had the last time in proving the perfection of bachelorhood.”. He tries to find repetition at the theater but it eludes him, he tries the coffee shop and finally says, "I had discovered that there simply is no repetition and had verified it by having it repeated in every possible way". Stuart Dalton from The University of Hartford regards Repetition essentially as a comedy and there is humor in much of the book. Kierkegaard wrote humorously about the idea of repetition in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments
Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments
Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments is a major work by Søren Kierkegaard. The work is a poignant attack against Hegelianism, the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. The work is also famous for its dictum, Subjectivity is Truth...
, he said,
Repetition
Constantin is still pursuing repetition. Now he's seeking a "sameness that has a far more anesthetic power than the most whimsical amusements" when he gets a letter from the Young Man demanding that he keep "unbroken silence" about the whole affair he was speaking to him about and that he will not be seeing him anymore. He will correspond by mail only. Constantin says, "This, then, is the thanks one gets for having trained oneself every day for years to have only an objectiveObjectivity (philosophy)
Objectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.- Objectivism...
theoretical
Theory
The English word theory was derived from a technical term in Ancient Greek philosophy. The word theoria, , meant "a looking at, viewing, beholding", and referring to contemplation or speculation, as opposed to action...
interest
Interest (emotion)
Interest is a feeling or emotion that causes attention to focus on an object or an event or a process. In contemporary psychology of interest, the term is used as a general concept that may encompass other more specific psychological terms, such as curiosity and to a much lesser degree surprise.The...
in people, in everyone for whom the idea is in motion! At one time, I tried to assist the idea in him; now I am reaping the harvest, namely, I am supposed to be and also not to be both being and nothing, entirely as he so pleases, and not to receive the slightest appreciation for being able to be that and thereby to help him out of the contradiction." He continues to diagnose him.
The Young Man tells him he will be going to Job
Job (Biblical figure)
Job is the central character of the Book of Job in the Hebrew Bible. Job is listed as a prophet of God in the Qur'an.- Book of Job :The Book of Job begins with an introduction to Job's character — he is described as a blessed man who lives righteously...
for help and will write his reports to Constantin.
Letters from the Young Man, August 15 - May 31
"Two years after the death of his father, in the year 1840, Soren Kierkegaard entered into an engagement of marriage with a young girl living in Copenhagen, whose name was Regine Olsen. However, he was very soon brought to the insight that no marriage was possible for him. He sought to break the engagement, but succeeded only in stirring the heart of his fiancé to a passionate outburst, in which she begged him not to leave her. Moved profoundly by the ardor of her love he sought to emancipate her and himself through the adoption of a very involved and curious method." Journal entries seem to indicate that Kierkegaard was wary of marriage as early as 1838 and that he had a definite reason for breaking off the engagement.Did he use the method endorsed by Constantin and become a deceiver?The letters from the Young Man are either written in relation to Regine or they are a passionate cry for freedom. He wanted to find a truth to live and die for. The letters describe his inner struggle against the social norms of his time. Must he keep his pledge
Oath
An oath is either a statement of fact or a promise calling upon something or someone that the oath maker considers sacred, usually God, as a witness to the binding nature of the promise or the truth of the statement of fact. To swear is to take an oath, to make a solemn vow...
because the social order demands that he does it?
First he blames his psychologist but he still needs him. Existential philosophy calls this Ressentiment
Ressentiment
Ressentiment , in philosophy and psychology, is a particular form of resentment or hostility. It is the French word for "resentment" . Ressentiment is a sense of hostility directed at that which one identifies as the cause of one's frustration, that is, an assignment of blame for one's frustration...
.
Then he blames the girl.
Then he appeals to Job.
Then he questions his own existence and the concept of guilt. Existential philosophers call this an Existential crisis
Existential crisis
An existential crisis is a stage of development at which an individual questions the very foundations of his or her life: whether his or her life has any meaning, purpose or value...
.
Then he demands his rights. Kierkegaard is developing his concept of individuality. The Young Man wants to stand out from the crowd and make his own decisions about his own life.
His question is never what is love, but how do I know I'm in love, how do you know you're in love? Too many people want to read about love in order to find out what love is. Kierkegaard says one must act, not just think about acting. His letter dated January 13 states he is now married and doing his best to be a husband.
Contrasting
Contrast (literary)
In literature, an author writes contrast when he or she describes the difference between two or more entities. For example, in the first four lines of William Shakespeare's Sonnet 130, Shakespeare contrasts a mistress to the sun, coral, snow, and wire....
Abraham in Fear and Trembling with the Young Man creates an excellent comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
when taken together. Abraham wasn't anxious about the social order, he just followed God but the Young Man is overflowing with anxiety about what his friends will say about him, and he followed Job. Kierkegaard wrote in Fear and Trembling: "It would be altogether desirable if esthetics
Aesthetics
Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy dealing with the nature of beauty, art, and taste, and with the creation and appreciation of beauty. It is more scientifically defined as the study of sensory or sensori-emotional values, sometimes called judgments of sentiment and taste...
would sometime attempt to begin where for so many years it has ended-in the illusion of magnanimity. As soon as it did this, it would be working hand in hand with the religious, for this is the only power that can rescue the esthetic from its battle with the ethical
Ethics
Ethics, also known as moral philosophy, is a branch of philosophy that addresses questions about morality—that is, concepts such as good and evil, right and wrong, virtue and vice, justice and crime, etc.Major branches of ethics include:...
." Kierkegaard says, "I perceived that he was a poet-if for no other reason I saw it in the fact that a situation that would have been taken easily in stride by a lesser mortal expanded into a world event for him." On December 6, 1843 Kierkegaard published his Four Upbuilding Discourses, he explains this Young Man's relation to Job in the following way,
In tempestuous times, when the foundation of existence is tottering, when the moment shivers in anxious expectancy of what may come, when every explanation falls silent at the spectacle of the wild tumult, when a person’s innermost being groans in despair and in “bitterness of soul” cries to heaven, then Job still walks along, at the generation’s side and guarantees that there is a victory, guarantees that even if the single individual loses in the struggle, there is still a God who, just as he proportions every temptation humanly, even though the person did not withstand the temptation, will still make a way out such as he can bear it – yes, even more gloriously than any human expectancy. Only the defiant person could wish that Job did not exist, that he could completely divest his soul of the last love still present in the wail of despair, that he could whine about life, indeed curse life in such a way that there would not be even an echo of faith and trust and humility in his words, that in his defianceDefiance- Film and theatre :* Defiance , a film starring Jan-Michael Vincent* Defiance , a film starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber* Defiance , a play by John Patrick Shanley- Games :...
he could stifle the scream in order not to create the impression that there was anyone whom it provoked. Only a soft person could wish that Job did not exist, that he could instead leave off thinking, the sooner the better, could give up all movement in the most disgusting powerlessness, could blot himself out in the most wretched and miserable forgetfulness. Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Four Upbuilding Discourses, The Lord Gave, And The Lord Took Away; Blessed Be The Name Of The Lord. (Job 1:20-21) p. 111
Incidental Observations by Constantin Constantius
Constantin has renounced all theorizing but still thinks about the Young Man and the girl. As far as he's concerned the Young Man is a poet. He says, "A poet seems to be born to be a fool for the girls. If a girl made a fool of him to his face, he would think of it generous of her."The Young Man writes once more, on May 31st, to let Constantin know that the "girl" is married. Kierkegaard-The Young Man says,
"I belong to the idea. When it beckons me, I will follow; when it makes an appointment, I wait for it day and night; no one calls me to dinner, no one expects me for supper. When the idea calls, I abandon everything, or, more correctly, I have nothing to abandon. I defraud no one, I sadden no one by being loyal to it; my spirit is not saddened by my having to make another sad. When I come home, no one reads my face, no one questions my demeanor. No one coaxes out of my being an explanation that not even I myself can give to another, whether I am beatific in joy or dejected in desolation, whether I have won life or lost it." Repetition p. 221
Kierkegaard as well as the other two characters in the story belong to the idea of what a marriage is but not to the actuality of a real marriage. Kierkegaard calls the Young Man's behaviour criminal.
Concluding Letter By Constantin Constanius, Copenhagen, August 1843
Constantin addresses his readers He says,Criticism
The Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics, 1915, had a short article about Soren Kierkegaard. They wrote,In Gjentagelsen (' Repetition,' Oct. 1843), Kierkegaard sketches an abortive transition to the religious sphere. 'Repetition' is one of his characteristic ideas; it signifies persistence in, and faithfulness to, a chosen course of life, and is thus opposed to the (esthetic standpoint, with constancy only in change. But Kierkegaard also gives the word a more special meaning—that rather of 'resumption' (Gjentagelse, 'taking again')—implying that each higher stage of life carries with it the lower in a transfigured form. Gjentagelsen tells of a young man who seeks to pass from the (esthetic to the religious sphere, but for want of a true penitence becomes merely a romanticist; i.e., he simply resumes his old self; and his case is contrasted with that of Job, who humbled himself utterly before God, and at last regained all that he had lost, and more—the true ' repetition."
Lev Shestov
Lev Shestov
Lev Isaakovich Shestov , born Yehuda Leyb Schwarzmann , was a Ukrainian/Russian existentialist philosopher. Born in Kiev on , he emigrated to France in 1921, fleeing from the aftermath of the October Revolution. He lived in Paris until his death on November 19, 1938.- Life :Shestov was born Lev...
was a philosopher who wondered how Russia had missed Kierkegaard. He understood Repetition in the following way.
"Here is how Kierkegaard tells of this in his Repetition: "The greatness of Job is therefore not that he said, 'The Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away, blessed be the name of the Lord' - what he indeed said at first and did not later repeat... The greatness of Job lies in the fact that the passion of freedom is not choked or calmed in him by any false expression... Job demonstrates the compass of his world view through the firmness with which he knows how to eschew all crafty ethical evasions and cunning wiles." Everything that Kierkegaard says of Job can also be said of himself. And here is the closing passage in which Kierkegaard says, "Job is blessed and received everything back again double. This is what people call a repetition... Thus there is a repetition. When does it come? When did it come for Job? When all conceivable human certainty and probability was on the side of impossibility." And, according to Kierkegaard's deep conviction, this repetition will "obtain a very important role in the newer philosophy," for "the new philosophy will teach that all of life is a repetition." Kierkegaard As A Religious Philosopher, by Lev Shestov, 1938
Kierkegaard wrote,
What kind of power is it that wants to deprive me of my honor and my pride and do it in such a meaningless way! Am I inevitably guilty, a deceiver, whatever I do, even if I do nothing? Or have I perhaps gone mad? Then the best thing to do would be to lock me up, for people cravenly fear particularly the utterances of the insane and the dying. What does it mean: mad? What must I do to enjoy civic esteem, to be regarded as sensible? Why does no one answer? I offer a reasonable reward to anyone who invents a new world! I have set forth the alternatives. Is there anyone so clever that he knows more than two? But if he does not know more, then it certainly is nonsense that I am mad, unfaithful, and a deceiver, while the girl is faithful and reasonable and esteemed by the people. Repetition p. 202
Kierkegaard was influential in Martin Buber's Philosophy
I and Thou
Ich und Du, usually translated as I and Thou, is a book by Martin Buber, published in 1923, and first translated to English in 1937.-Premise:Buber's main proposition is that we may address existence in two ways:...
and Martin Heidegger's development of the "new philosophical category" Dasein
Dasein
Dasein is a German word famously used by Martin Heidegger in his magnum opus Being and Time, which generally translates to being in its ontological and philosophical sense Dasein is a German word famously used by Martin Heidegger in his magnum opus Being and Time, which generally translates to...
.
Rollo May
Rollo May
Rollo May was an American existential psychologist. He authored the influential book Love and Will during 1969. He is often associated with both humanistic psychology and existentialist philosophy. May was a close friend of the theologian Paul Tillich...
wrote an excellent history of Existentialism from the psychological point of view. He said,
Kierkegaard was very concerned about his relationship with God. C. Stephen Evans
C. Stephen Evans
C. Stephen Evans is an American historian and philosopher, he is one of the United States' leading experts on Søren Kierkegaard having published six books on Kierkegaard over 25 years. He is currently Distinguished Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University. He holds a B.A. with...
, says that
"Kierkegaard regarded himself as a psychologist. Three of his books, The Concept of Anxiety, Repetition, and The Sickness Unto DeathThe Sickness Unto DeathThe Sickness Unto Death is a book written by Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard in 1849 under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus...
, are designated as psychological by their subtitles, and he frequently called himself a psychologist in his journal. … Imagine a naïve Christian who knows nothing about psychology as a science-let’s call him “Kirk”-engaged in conversation with a knowledgeable psychologist-“Dr. John.” Dr. John tells Kirk that psychology models itself after the natural sciences and attempts to gain a scientific understanding of human behavior and mental processes. Kirk asks Dr. John what psychologists think about God and God’s relationship to human beingsHumanHumans are the only living species in the Homo genus...
. Dr. John replies that individual psychologists have different beliefs about God. He himself is a Christian, he tells Kirk, and of course, for him any ultimate understanding of human beings requires a theological perspective too. But, he hastens to add, his personal religious beliefs do not enter into psychology as a scientific discipline because scienceScienceScience is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
restricts itself to the natural realm, which can be studied by empirical methods.
Dr. John’s answer leaves Kirk dissatisfied. He has a lot of lingering misgivings. Kirk can understand that science may have to limit itself to the empirically observable, but he questions the value, or even the truthfulness, of the knowledge gained by such a science. After all, he thinks, isn’t the most important thing about human beings their relationship to God? Can anyone hope to understand them without understanding them in this light?" Soren Kierkegaard's Christian Psychology: Insight for Counseling and Pastoral Care By C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard as a Psychologist, p. 25-26
Clare Carlisle described the internal and external struggle that every existing individual has to go through. "The struggle between philosophy and existence (often a struggle internal to the individual, especially to the intellectual and perhaps academic individual who is this text’s likely reader) is essential to Kierkegaard’s dramatization of his conflict with Hegel
Young Hegelians
The Young Hegelians, or Left Hegelians, were a group of Prussian intellectuals who in the decade or so after the death of Hegel in 1831, wrote and responded to his ambiguous legacy...
. Throughout Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authorship the ‘abstract thinker’, the ‘pitiful professorial figure is criticized from the perspective of the existing individual. Challenging the Hegelian view that the Concept expresses the highest form of truth, texts such as Repetition constitute ‘a polemic against the truth as knowledge’ and suggest instead that truth must be grasped in terms of ‘subjectivity’ or ‘inwardness’."
Both Constantin and the Young Man had the power to act as single individuals instead of trying to become world historically famous or worrying about the crowd but neither of them used the power. They both just pursued the idea. Kierkegaard says of them,
Niels Nymann Eriksen has written about Kierkegaard's category of repetition. This book explores "the Other" and "Becoming" as well as "Recollection" and "Repetition."
Primary Sources
- Either/Or Part I Edited by Victor Eremita, February 20, 1843, translated by David F. Swenson and Lillian Marvin Swenson Princeton University Press 1971
- Either/Or Part II. Translated by Howard and Edna Hong. Princeton, 1988, ISBN 978-0-691-02041-9
- Repetition, A Venture in Experimental Psychology, by Constantin Constantius, October 16, 1843, by Soren Kierkegaard, Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, 1983, Princeton University Press
- Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, Soren Kierkegaard 1843-1844 Copyright 1990 by Howard V. Hong Princeton University Press
- Stages on Life’s Way, Soren Kierkegaard, April 30, 1845, Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong 1988, Princeton University Press
- Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments Volume I, by Johannes Climacus, edited by Soren Kierkegaard, Copyright 1846 – Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong 1992 Princeton University Press
- Søren Kierkegaard's Journals & Papers
Secondary Sources
- Soren Kierkegaard Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, edited by James Hastings, 1908 p. 696-700
- Kierkegaard , by David F. Swenson, Scandinavian studies and notes, Volume 6 No. 7 August 1921 Editor George T Flom University of Illinois Published in Menasha, Wisconsin
- Lectures on the Religious Thought of Soren Kierkegaard, Eduard Geismar, Augsburg Publishing Co 1937
- Kierkegaard As A Religious Philosopher, by Lev Shestov, 1938
- A Very Short Life of Kierkegaard, by Charles K. Bellinger
- The Discovery of Being, By Rollo May, 1983, W. W. Norton & Company, 1994
- Soren Kierkegaard's Christian Psychology: Insight for Counseling and Pastoral Care By C. Stephen Evans, Regent College Publishing, 1995
- Kierkegaard's Repetition as a Comedy in Two Acts, by Stuart Dalton, University of Hartford
- Kierkegaard's category of repetition: a reconstruction, By Niels Nymann Eriksen, Published by, Walter de Gruyter, 2000
- Dan Anthony Storm on Repetition