{"id":239246,"date":"2025-03-15T13:56:58","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T18:56:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mindseyemag.com\/magazine\/?p=239246"},"modified":"2026-05-02T04:49:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-02T09:49:46","slug":"kierkegaard-against-the-ethical","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mindseyemag.com\/magazine\/kierkegaard-against-the-ethical\/","title":{"rendered":"Kierkegaard Against the Ethical"},"content":{"rendered":"

Image Source<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

Understanding S. K.\u2019s pseudonyms can be an interpretive minefield\u2014or, rather, some kind of interpretive dance that refuses to adhere to category or form. Sometimes, they seem to offer us valuable insights into the \u201cworldview\u201d we are meant to adopt in order to ascertain the proper meaning of a text; other times, they serve to confuse and undermine our preconceptions; other times yet again, consulting the journals uncover that we have been duped into overthinking, with the pseudonym being adopted seemingly at random (we might suggest that a spectral chuckle rises from a graveyard in Copenhagen, constantly amused and bemused by the \u201cassistant professorial\u201d desire to turn S. K. into a system-builder). For a thinker who intended to \u201cmake things difficult\u201d for the reader, we could only really applaud him on his success. Understanding the oeuvre is, indeed, a difficult thing to do.<\/p>\n

This, of course, has led to a wide variety of Kierkegaardian interpretations in a wide variety of fields: theologians, philosophers, physicists, literary theorists, poets, physicians, psychologists, etc. have all drawn upon S. K.\u2018s ideas to inform their work. And the teleological goals that those individuals have drawn S. K. towards have been equally as diverse: Hirsch appropriated the leap towards the ends of Lutheran nationalism, Schmitt again towards the ends of an absolute sovereign; Sartre drew the notion of possibility towards anti-colonialism and social liberation and Barth saw the importance of Christ\u00a0qua<\/em>\u00a0prototype in establishing social democracy, whilst Ellul and Eller both took the entire\u00a0oeuvre<\/em>\u00a0as the clarion call towards an anarchic Christianity against the state. At the very least, there are credible grounds for drawing upon S. K. in all of these approaches. This diversity, of course, is quite unsettling and is due in no small part to the pseudonymous misdirection and \u201cindirect communication\u201d present from the diapsalmata in\u00a0Either\/Or<\/em>\u00a0to the posthumously published\u00a0Judge For Yourselves!<\/em>\u00a0and the final issue of\u00a0The Instant<\/em>.<\/p>\n

This is why, my reader, I wanted to pause for a moment. To distinguish a \u201cKierkegaardian\u201d political theology from Kierkegaard\u2019s political theology is a difficult task, especially when he wrote such reflections as these:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cChristianity is political indifference; engrossed in higher things, it teaches submission to all public authorities.\u201d[1]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThat the state in a Christian sense is supposed to be what Hegel taught\u2014namely, that it has moral significance, that true virtue can appear only in the state\u2026 that the goal of the state is to improve men\u2014is obviously nonsense.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cOf all tyrannies a people\u2019s government is the most excruciating, the most spiritless, unconditionally the downfall of everything great and sublime…A people\u2019s government is the true picture of hell.\u201d[3]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

When our thinker is obstinate in the insistence that \u201cpolitics is egotism dressed up as love, is the most frightful egotism, is Satan himself in the form of an angel of light,\u201d[4]<\/a>\u00a0we might suppose that any political exegesis from the work is actually merely a reflection of the reader. S. K.\u2019s apparently anti-political mind could potentially be used to justify any politics\u2014largely due to the contradiction apparent in the text. However, what we can do is attempt to understand him in relation to the characters that best overlap with his approach to writing and the clear political insights that run through\u00a0A Literary Review<\/em>\u00a0and the\u00a0Attack Upon \u201cChistendom\u201d<\/em>\u00a0means that we must be more nuanced. The politics of indifference (which, to the uneducated eye, might seem like a\u00a0bourgeois<\/em>\u00a0ineffectuality\u2014the same ineffectuality that arises with the creation of \u201cthe public sphere\u201d and the simultaneous alienation therefrom for the average individual in liberal society[5]<\/a>) is held in dialectical tension with the contextual radicalism of Christian indifference. But, we can only diagnose this difference, this difference in indifference, when we can hold the pseudonyms and the variety of Kierkegaards in conversation with one another. When we have done this, we can identify the way in which his \u201canti-politics stance\u201d was against the prevalent political method, not an outright rejection of socio-political action.<\/p>\n

For this, we turn to McKinnon:<\/p>\n

\n

Following a latter hint of Kierkegaard, I propose to order the more interesting pseudonyms in relation to their creator. This should enable us to take account of Kierkegaard\u2019s warnings [not to read the pseudonymous works as if they were his own] and at the same time preserve the pseudonymous works as a source for the understanding of his thought.[6]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

By carrying out a systematic analysis to identify just how unique each pseudonym\u2019s \u201cthumbprint\u201d actually was, McKinnon drew interesting findings from the texts.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cOur method has two separate stages, each with its own role corresponding to the claims already men? tioned. The first stage has two parallel parts; a comparison of the vocabulary densities of the pseudonymous (PS) and acknowledged (SK) sets and, secondly, a comparison of their internal coherence or homogeneity by means of the vocabulary connectivity method. The purpose of these comparisons is to show that, both individually and collectively, the PS selections are significantly different from the SK. The second stage of the procedure is a pair-vocabularly test the purpose of which is to establish a hierarchy of the pseudonyms in relation to the acknowledged Kierkegaard.\u201d[7]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Ratio<\/em><\/td>\nPseudonym<\/em><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
1.0087<\/td>\nAnti-Climacus<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.8854<\/td>\nA<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.8682<\/td>\nJohannes Climacus (2)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.8426<\/td>\nB (Judge Wilhelm)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.8073<\/td>\nJohannes Climacus (1)<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.7546<\/td>\nJohannes de silentio<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.7134<\/td>\nVigilius Haufniensis<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
0.6047<\/td>\nConstantin Constantius[8]<\/a><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n

It is clear, despite the presumed similarity of Climacus to S. K.\u2019s own thought, that Anti-Climacus and A (the aesthetic character!) are closer together with S. K.\u2019s own philosophical groundings. The unity of the aesthetic and the ethical-religious is found in the \u201coutward\u201d nature of their values, their search for meaning in\u00a0becoming<\/em>\u00a0something else, and their joy to be within creation. Much like Sartre after him, S. K.\u2019s view that one\u2019s ethical outlook on life, as opposed to the more conventional philosophical perspective that we can impose abstract and normative rules onto reality, is that living morally requires us to live out our moral existence as a positive expression of what one wills. The ethical life cannot be reduced to \u201cthe ethical\u201d life of\u00a0die Sittlichkeit<\/em>\u2014no abstract collection of principles or methodologies can deliver us the free, transforming love of Christ. In the words of the Apostle: \u201cOwe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law\u201d (Romans 13:8<\/strong><\/em>)\u2014it is in love, the will to love the other, that we find genuine ethical behaviour.<\/p>\n

This does lead to a point about \u201cthe ethical\u201d, however.<\/p>\n

S. K. was quite sharp in noting that good and evil only make sense within particular \u201cworldviews\u201d. If you don\u2019t \u201cplay by the rules of the game\u201d then you do not recognise that rules are being broken or followed\u2014in fact, it doesn\u2019t make sense to suggest that they are. This is where \u201cthe aesthetic\u201d and \u201cthe ethical-religious\u201d overlap: they are expressions of a love for creation that are not hindered by\u00a0die Sittlichkeit<\/em>. The social order does not stop someone from acting as they believe. The Knight of Faith is\u00a0always<\/em>\u00a0breaking from all systems of intelligible ethics because they break from, rise above, and return to\u00a0die Sittlichkeit<\/em>\u00a0in their positive expression of freedom that loves God above any and all system of ethics. In Bellinger\u2019s words: \u201chuman action is always either directly ethical in the eyes of the actors, or it is a kind of \u201cteleological suspension of the ethical\u201d which amounts to the same thing.\u201d[9]<\/a><\/p>\n

When Abraham breaks from, rises above, and returns to the ethical order, he does so in the knowledge that there is no ethical system of thought which could encompass God\u2019s commandments\u2014he is, from the perspective of\u00a0die Sittlichkeit<\/em>, as unethical as the aesthete womanizer (e.g., \u201cThe Seducer\u2019s Diary\u201d) or the journalist. But to worry about that is to prioritise the worldly over God\u2026 which is what Christendom did, said S. K.! When someone understands God\u2019s will (and this faith is always \u201cthe objective uncertainty due to the repulsion of the absurd held fast by the passion of inwardness, which in this instance is intensified to the utmost degree\u201d[10]<\/a>), they undergo a \u201cturned-aroundness\u201d in their mental state which allows for the absurd (and, by extension, the paradox) to become clear to the individual. The ethical-religious thinker is internally consistent but incongruent with \u201cthe ethical thinker\u201d.<\/p>\n

In those fearsome words from the lips of Augustine: \u201clove, and do what you like.\u201d[11]<\/a>\u00a0That<\/em>\u00a0is a step towards the ethical-religious as much as the would-be adherents to zombie Christendom think that turning to Christ would mean instituting draconic slavishness of the mere reception of laws that excuse us for actually wanting to find the Kingdom. In short: for Kierkegaard, as for Christ, faith is a matter of expressing a \u201cpositive\u201d and passionate desire for the Lord and His \u201cyes!\u201d; for Kierkegaard, as for Christ, faith is not only a \u201cnegative\u201d self-restriction towards the Lord\u2019s \u201cno!\u201d. Here is the qualitative leap between Religiousness A and Religiousness B, the dialectical knot of Christian faith for the \u201cexisting individual\u201d\u2014Christianity is not slavish adherence to ritualism or academic pompousness over doctrinal minutiae,[12]<\/a>\u00a0but rather the freedom of faith to live as one will live in the service of the Lord. And that has potentially infinite possibilities: the rich man of God in Abraham, the man of war in Joshua, the faithful companion in Ruth, the expectant widow in Anna, the evangelist of wanderlust in Paul\u2014the truth seems to be that there is no \u201cessential Chrsitian life\u201d, no Christian concept of \u201cthe ethical\u201d, that endures. To reduce Christ\u2019s gift to humanity to an ethical theory or a particular way of life is absolute faithlessness.<\/p>\n

In this same way, there is no particular Christian approach to politics. To each Christian conservative who looks for the next bustling strongman to represent \u201ctraditional values\u201d, Christ calls us out of Egypt; to each \u201cChristian\u201d \u201cMarxist\u201d, Christ reminds us that not one iota can be added to God\u2019s plan for us; we make the decision (because these things always begin with a decision) to start our philosophical musings with Paul and not Plato\u2014in a moment of childlike naivety, we start from the basic presupposition that God has spoken to us, walked amongst us, and continues to act as mediator between and our neighbours. For the high-minded thinker, this refusal to begin with secular or \u201cpagan\u201d categories, inevitably just another attempt to keep up with the philosophical fashions of the day\u2014whether it is German Idealism, pragmatism, or postmodernist deconstruction adopted in the name of reinventing Christ for our purposes.<\/p>\n

In short, this is the Christian anarchism I have attempted to present to you, my reader: not a closed system of critique, ethics, or political agitation, but rather the openness that comes with the freedom of Christ\u2014as there is no one freer than the one willing to serve the unloveable object, \u201cthe neighbour\u201d, as one would a true love; as there is no one freer than the one willing to love the unseeable, unknowable Lord of the \u201cinfinite qualitative difference\u201d.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe cannot extract any system from God\u2019s revelation without twisting the texts and coming up with unwarranted conclusions because redemption is not a system…<\/p>\n

When we open the Bible we do not find a philosophy, a political statement, a metaphysic or even a religion. We find instead the promise of dialog, a personal word addressed to me, asking me what I am doing, hoping, fearing\u2014and especially what I am.\u201d[13]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A note on S. K.\u2019s hermeneutics to finish up\u2014the view of the Bible\u00a0qua<\/em>\u00a0love letter:<\/p>\n

\n

My hearer, how highly dost thou esteem God\u2019s Word? Do not say now that thou dost esteem it more highly than words can express; for one may speak so highly that one says nothing. Let us therefore, in order to get somewhere, take a simple human relationship. If thou dost esteem God\u2019s Word higher, so much the better.<\/p>\n

Think of a lover who has now received a letter from his beloved as precious as this letter is to the lover, just so precious to thee, I assume, is God\u2019s Word; in the way the lover reads this letter, just so, I assume, dost thou read God\u2019s Word and conceive that God\u2019s Word ought to be read. But perhaps thou wilt say, \u2018Yes, but the Holy Scripture is written in a foreign tongue.\u2019 It is indeed more properly the learned who have the obligation to read the Holy Scriptures in the original tongues; but if thou dost insist, if thou wouldst stick to it that thou must read the Holy Scriptures in the original tongues all right, we can very well retain the picture of the lover, only we add a little qualification to it.<\/p>\n

I assume then that this letter from the beloved was written in a language which the lover did not understand; and there is no one at hand who can translate it for him, and perhaps he did not even desire any aid of that sort, which would initiate a third person into his secrets. What does he do ? He takes a dictionary and sits down to spell out the letter, looking up every word so as to get at the translation. Let us suppose that while he is sitting employed in this labour there comes in an acquaintance of his. The friend knows that he has received this letter, and, looking at the table and seeing it lying there, exclaims, \u2018Oho! There you sit reading the letter you got from your lady-love.\u2019 What dost thou think the other will say ? He replies, Are you out of your senses? Is this what you call reading a letter from a lady-love? No, my friend, I sit here toiling and drudging to make a translation of it by the help of the dictionary; at times I am on the point of bursting with impatience, the blood rushes to my head so that I want to fling the dictionary down on the floor and that\u2019s what you call reading! You are mocking me. No, thank God, I shall soon be through with the translation, and then, ah, then I shall get to the point of reading the letter from my lady-love that is an entirely different thing. But to whom am I speaking\u2026 stupid man, get out of my sight, I don\u2019t want to look at you. Oh, that you could think of insulting my lady-love and me by speaking of this as reading her letter! Yet stay, stay, it is only a jest on my part; indeed I should be glad to have you stay, but honestly I have no time, there still remains something to translate, and I am so impatient to get to the point of reading therefore don\u2019t be angry, but go away so that I may finish.[14]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

[1]<\/a>\u00a0JP<\/em>\u00a0IV 4193<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a>\u00a0JP<\/em>\u00a0IV 4238<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a>\u00a0JP<\/em>\u00a0IV, 4144<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a>\u00a0JP<\/em>\u00a0I, 1004<\/p>\n

[5]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cKierkegaard in the Context of Neo-Pragmatism\u201d J. A. Simmons, from\u00a0Kierkegaard\u2019s Influence on Philosophy \u2014 Tome III: Anglophone Philosophy<\/em>, p. 194, ed. J. Stewart<\/p>\n

[6]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cKierkegaard\u2019s Pseudonyms: A New Hierarchy\u201d, A. McKinnon, from\u00a0American Philosophical Quarterly<\/em>, Apr., 1969, vol. 6, no. 2 , pp. 116<\/p>\n

[7]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid.<\/em>, p. 118<\/p>\n

[8]<\/a>\u00a0Ibid.<\/em>, p. 120<\/p>\n

[9]<\/a>\u00a0\u201cYoder\u2019s Christ and Girard\u2019s Culture: With Reference to Kierkegaard\u2019s Transformation of the Self\u201d, p. 10, C. Bellinger<\/p>\n

[10]<\/a>\u00a0Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments: A Mimic-Pathetic-Dialectic Composition \u2014 An Existential Contribution<\/em>, p. 504, [J. Climacus], tr. D. F. Swenson, ed. W. Lowrie<\/p>\n

[11]<\/a>\u00a0Homilies on the First Epistle of John<\/em>, Augustine<\/p>\n

[12]<\/a>\u00a0Note that Christ called the poor and the uneducated to His ministry\u2014how strange that we decided this was a bad decision and replaced that archetype with professorial historians and logicians.<\/p>\n

[13]<\/a>\u00a0Money & Power<\/em>, p. 25\u201326, J. Ellul<\/p>\n

[14]<\/a>\u00a0For Self-Examination and Judge For Yourselves! and Three Discourses (1851)<\/em>, p. 51\u201352, S. Kierkegaard<\/p>\n

Original Article<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Image Source Understanding S. K.\u2019s pseudonyms can be an interpretive minefield\u2014or, rather, some kind of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":239519,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1144],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[1100],"class_list":["post-239246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-philosophy"],"yoast_head":"\nKierkegaard Against the Ethical ~ Mind's Eye Mag<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"A quick note on McKinnon\u2019s 1969 essay\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, 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