KIERKEGAARD S FEAR AND TREMBLING

Transcription

1 KIERKEGAARD S FEAR AND TREMBLING Written by an international team of contributors, this book offers a fresh set of interpretations of Fear and Trembling, which remains Kierkegaard s most influential and popular book. The chapters provide incisive accounts of the psychological and epistemological presuppositions of Fear and Trembling; of religious experience and the existential dimension of faith; of Kierkegaard s understanding of the relationship between faith and knowledge; of the purported and real conflicts between ethics and religion; of Kierkegaard s interpretation of the value of hope, trust, love, and other virtues; of Kierkegaard s debts to German idealism and Protestant theology; and of his seminal contributions to the fields of psychology, existential phenomenology, and literary theory. This volume will be of great interest to scholars and upper-level students of Kierkegaard studies, the history of philosophy, theology, and religious studies. daniel conway is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Texas A&M University. He is the author of many books including Nietzsche s Dangerous Game (Cambridge, 1997), Nietzsche and the Political (1997), and Nietzsche s On the Genealogy of Morals: A Reader s Guide (2008). He has also edited and co-edited several volumes including Søren Kierkegaard: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers (2002) and The History of Continental Philosophy, Volume II (with Alan D. Schrift, 2010).

2 cambridge critical guides Titles published in this series: Hegel s Phenomenology Of Spirit edited by dean moyar and michael quante Mill s On Liberty edited by c. l. ten Kant s Idea For A Universal History With A Cosmopolitan Aim edited by amélie oksenberg rorty and james schmidt Kant s Groundwork Of The Metaphysics Of Morals edited by jens timmermann Kant s Critique Of Practical Reason edited by andrews reath and jens timmermann Wittgenstein s Philosophical Investigations edited by arif ahmed Kierkegaard s Concluding Unscientific Postscript edited by rick anthony furtak Plato s Republic edited by mark l. mcpherran Plato s Laws edited by christopher bobonich Spinoza s Theological-Political Treatise edited by yitzhak y. melamed and michael a. rosenthal Aristotle s Nicomachean Ethics edited by jon miller Kant s Metaphysics Of Morals edited by lara denis Nietzsche s On The Genealogy Of Morality edited by simon may Kant s Observations And Remarks edited by richard velkley and susan shell Augustine s City Of God edited by james wetzel Descartes Meditations edited by karen detlefsen Kant s Religion Within The Boundaries Of Mere Reason edited by gordon michalson Kant s Lectures On Anthropology edited by alix cohen Kierkegaard s Fear And Trembling edited by daniel conway

3 KIERKEGAARD S FEAR AND TREMBLING A Critical Guide edited by DANIEL CONWAY

4 University Printing House, Cambridge cb2 8bs, United Kingdom Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning and research at the highest international levels of excellence. Information on this title: / Cambridge University Press 2015 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2015 Printed in the United Kingdom by Clays, St Ives plc A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Kierkegaard s Fear and trembling : a critical guide / edited by Daniel Conway, Texas A&M University. pages cm (Cambridge critical guides) ISBN (Hardback) 1. Kierkegaard, Søren, Frygt og bæven. 2. Christianity Philosophy. 3. Sin Christianity. I. Conway, Daniel W. B4373.F793K dc ISBN Hardback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate.

5 Contents List of contributors Acknowledgments List of abbreviations page vii xi xii Introduction 1 Daniel Conway 1 Homing in on Fear and Trembling 6 Alastair Hannay 2 Fear and Trembling s Attunement as midrash 26 Jacob Howland 3 Johannes de silentio s dilemma 44 Clare Carlisle 4 Can an admirer of silentio s Abraham consistently believe that child sacrifice is forbidden? 61 C. Stephen Evans 5 Eschatological faith and repetition: Kierkegaard s Abraham and Job 79 John Davenport 6 The existential dimension of faith 106 Sharon Krishek 7 Learning to hope: the role of hope in Fear and Trembling 122 John Lippitt 8 On being moved and hearing voices: passion and religious experience in Fear and Trembling 142 Rick Anthony Furtak v

6 vi Contents 9 Birth, love, and hybridity: Fear and Trembling and the Symposium 166 Edward F. Mooney and Dana Lloyd 10 Narrative unity and the moment of crisis in Fear and Trembling 188 Anthony Rudd 11 Particularity and ethical attunement: situating Problema III 205 Daniel Conway 12 He speaks in tongues : hearing the truth of Abraham s words of faith 229 Jeffrey Hanson 13 Why Moriah?: weaning and the trauma of transcendence in Kierkegaard s Fear and Trembling 247 Vanessa Rumble Bibliography 263 Index 273

7 Contributors clare carlisle is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy of Religion at King s College London, where she is also Director of the AKC Programme. Her books include Kierkegaard s Philosophy of Becoming (2005), Kierkegaard s Fear and Trembling (2010), and On Habit (2014). daniel conway is Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Texas A&M University. He is the author of Nietzsche s Dangerous Game (1997), Nietzsche and the Political (1997), and Reader s Guide to Nietzsche s On the Genealogy of Morals (2008). He is the editor of the four-volume series Nietzsche: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers (1998) and the four-volume series Søren Kierkegaard: Critical Assessments of Leading Philosophers (2002). He is also the co-editor of The History of Continental Philosophy, Volume II (2010). john davenport is Professor of Philosophy at Fordham University. He has published widely on Kierkegaard, topics in moral psychology, existentialism, and philosophy of religion. With Anthony Rudd, he co-edited Kierkegaard After MacIntyre (2001), which defended the relevance of Kierkegaard s ideas for contemporary debates about virtue and teleological conceptions of selfhood. In addition to published articles on Either/Or, the Concept of Anxiety and Stages on Life s Way, he has recently published three essays on Fear and Trembling, faith in the Postscript, and Levinas and Derrida s responses to Kierkegaard s account of Abraham. His new monograph, Narrative Identity, Autonomy, and Mortality: From MacIntyre and Frankfurt to Kierkegaard (2012), defends MacIntyre s narrative approach to practical identity and the stronger conception of narrative selfhood found in Kierkegaard s Purity of Heart. c. stephen evans is University Professor of Philosophy and Humanities at Baylor University and a Professorial Fellow at Australian Catholic University. His most recent books include God and Moral vii

8 viii Contributors Obligation (2013), Natural Signs and Knowledge of God (2010), Kierkegaard: An Introduction (2009), and Kierkegaard on Faith and the Self (2006). Evans co-edited (with Sylvia Walsh) the Cambridge University Press edition of Kierkegaard s Fear and Trembling. He is a past president of the Kierkegaard Society of North America and of the Society of Christian Philosophers. rick anthony furtak is Associate Professor and Chairperson in the Philosophy Department at Colorado College. His published works include Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (2005) and Rilke s Sonnets to Orpheus: A New English Version (2007), and he recently edited Kierkegaard s Concluding Unscientific Postscript: A Critical Guide (2010). Most of his writings deal with issues in moral psychology, existential thought, and the project of literary philosophy. He also finds inspiration in ancient Greek and early American philosophers. Currently he is completing a series of poems on mortality and illness, as well as a book about truthfulness in affective experience. During 2014 and 2015, he will be the President of the North American Søren Kierkegaard Society. alastair hannay is Emeritus Professor of Philosophy at the University of Oslo. He was for many years editor of Inquiry and is author of Mental Images A Defence (1971, 2002), Kierkegaard: The Arguments of the Philosophers (1982, 1999), Human Consciousness (1990), Kierkegaard: A Biography (2001), Kierkegaard and Philosophy: Selected Essays (2003), and On the Public (2005). He has translated several of Kierkegaard s works for Penguin Classics and more recently for Cambridge University Press (Concluding Unscientific Postscript) and Liveright/W.W. Norton (The Concept of Anxiety). He is also engaged in the ongoing Princeton critical edition of Kierkegaard s Journals and Notebooks. jeffrey hanson is Research Fellow in Philosophy at Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. He is the editor of Kierkegaard as Phenomenologist: An Experiment (2010) and co-editor with Michael R. Kelly of Michel Henry: The Affects of Thought (2012). jacob howland is McFarlin Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tulsa. He is the author of Plato and the Talmud (2011), Kierkegaard and Socrates: A Study in Philosophy and Faith (2006), The Paradox of Political Philosophy: Socrates Philosophic Trial (1998), and The Republic: The Odyssey of Philosophy (1993). He is currently writing a book entitled Plato s Republic and the Voyage of the Soul.

9 Contributors sharon krishek is Assistant Professor at the Philosophy Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. She is the author of Kierkegaard on Faith and Love (2009) and Kierkegaard s Philosophy of Love (in Hebrew, 2011), and has published papers on Kierkegaard in journals such as the Journal of Religious Ethics, Faith and Philosophy, and the International Journal for Philosophy of Religion. john lippitt is Professor of Ethics and Philosophy of Religion at the University of Hertfordshire and Honorary Professor of Philosophy at Deakin University. His publications include Humour and Irony in Kierkegaard s Thought (2000) and the Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling (2003; second edition under contract). He is editor of Nietzsche s Futures (1999) and co-editor of Nietzsche and the Divine (with Jim Urpeth, 2000), The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard (with George Pattison, 2013), and Narrative, Identity and the Kierkegaardian Self (with Patrick Stokes, forthcoming 2015). His other interests include the virtues; the relationship between philosophy and theology; and the relevance of philosophy to psychotherapy. His most recent book is Kierkegaard and the Problem of Self-Love (2013). dana lloyd is a doctoral student in Religion at Syracuse University. She holds a BA and MA in philosophy, and a degree in Law, from Tel Aviv University. edward f. mooney is retired from the Departments of Religion and Philosophy, Syracuse University, and is Visiting Professor at Tel Aviv University and Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His most recent books are Excursions with Kierkegaard: Others, Goods, Death, and Final Faith (2012), and Lost Intimacy in American Thought: Personal Philosophy from Thoreau to Cavell (2009). Earlier books include Selves in Discord and Resolve: Kierkegaard s MoralReligious Psychology (1996) andknights of Faith and Resignation: Reading Fear and Trembling (1991). anthony rudd is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at St. Olaf College, Minnesota. He is the author of Self, Value and Narrative: a Kierkegaardian Approach (2012), Expressing the World: Skepticism, Wittgenstein and Heidegger (2003), and Kierkegaard and the Limits of the Ethical (1993). vanessa rumble is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Boston College, where she is founder and director of the Psychoanalytic Studies ix

10 x Contributors Program. She serves on the editorial board of the new English language critical edition of Kierkegaard s Journals and Notebooks published by Princeton University Press. She has published articles on Kierkegaard and Scandinavian culture and is writing a book on Kierkegaard and his German predecessors.

11 Acknowledgments I gratefully acknowledge the generous support provided by the College of Liberal Arts and the Melbern G. Glasscock Center for Humanities Research at Texas A&M University. I also wish to acknowledge the hospitality of the faculty, staff, and administration of Amherst College, where this project first took shape. I also wish to thank Desirae Embree for her editorial assistance. I gratefully acknowledge the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre for granting me permission to reprint pp in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter vol. 4. Finally, I am pleased to thank Hilary Gaskin and Rosemary Crawley at Cambridge University Press for guiding this manuscript into print. This book is dedicated with love and gratitude to my three ethical authorities: Claire, Olivia, and Evie. xi

12 Abbreviations Standard abbreviations are employed throughout this volume for the following Kierkegaardian texts. For other editions cited, and for works by other authors, see the bibliography and the footnotes to individual chapters. In English CD Christian Discourses and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1997). Cited by page number. CUP Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, 2 vols. (Princeton University Press, 1992). Cited by page number. EUD Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1992). Cited by page number. FT Fear and Trembling, ed. C. Stephen Evans and Sylvia Walsh, trans. Sylvia Walsh (Cambridge University Press, 2006). Cited by page number.fear and Trembling, trans. Alastair Hannay (London: Penguin Books, 1985). Fear and Trembling, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, in Fear and Trembling/Repetition, in the series Kierkegaard s Writings (KW, see below), Volume 6 (Princeton University Press, 1983). JP Søren Kierkegaard s Journals and Papers, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, assisted by Gregor Malantschuk, 7 vols. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, ). Cited by volume number and entry number. xii

13 KJN KW PC PF R SUD UDVS WL PAP SKS Abbreviations Kierkegaard s Journal and Notebooks, ed. Bruce H. Kirmmse and K. Brian Söderquist, trans. Alastair Hannay et al., projected 11 vols. (Princeton University Press, 2007 ). Cited by volume and entry number, and (in some cases) by page number. Kierkegaard s Writings, ed. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong, trans. Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong, and Julia Watkin et al., 26 vols. (Princeton University Press, ). Cited by volume and page number. Practice in Christianity, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1991). Cited by page number. Philosophical Fragments, and Johannes Climacus, in Philosophical Fragments, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1985). Cited by page number. Repetition, infear and Trembling/Repetition, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1985). Cited by page number. The Sickness Unto Death, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1980). Cited by page number. Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1993). Cited by page number. Works of Love, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton University Press, 1995). Cited by page number. In Danish Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, ed. P.A. Heiberg et al., 16 vols. (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, ). Cited by entry number. Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, ed. Niels Jorgen Cappelørn et al., projected 55 vols. (Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1997 ). Cited by volume and page number, and (in some cases) by entry number. No attempt has been made in this volume to standardize the contributors references to Johannes de silentio, the pseudonymous author and presumed narrator of Fear and Trembling. Some contributors prefer his full name (or formal title), while others favor informal, shorthand xiii

14 xiv Abbreviations references, such as Johannes, silentio, Silentio, or de silentio. It is the editor s judgment that the resulting variety of references is a natural (and perhaps intended) consequence of Kierkegaard s decision to publish Fear and Trembling as a pseudonymous work.