Example research essay topic: Normative Ethics Literary Critic - 3,365 words

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... s of good and evil of our actions have a truth-value; the necessity of choosing what one is actually doing, rather than just responding to a situation; actions are to be in accordance with rules; and these rules are universally applicable to moral agents. The choice of meta ethics, however, is non cognitive. There is no adequate proof of the truth of meta ethics. The choice of normative ethics is motivated, but in a non cognitive way.

The Judge seeks to motivate the choice of his normative ethics through the avoidance of despair. Here despair (Fortvivlelse) is to let one's life depend on conditions outside one's control (and later, more radically, despair is the very possibility of despair in this first sense). For Judge Wilhelm, the choice of normative ethics is a non cognitive choice of cognitivism, and thereby an acceptance of the applicability of the conceptual distinction between good and evil. From Kierkegaard's religious perspective, however, the conceptual distinction between good and evil is ultimately dependent not on social norms but on God.

Therefore it is possible, as Johannes de Silentio argues was the case for Abraham (the father of faith), that God demand a suspension of the ethical (in the sense of the socially prescribed norms). This is still ethical in the second sense, since ultimately God's definition of the distinction between good and evil outranks any human society's definition. The requirement of communicability and clear decision procedures can also be suspended by God's fiat. This renders cases such as Abraham's extremely problematic, since we have no recourse to public reason to decide whether he is legitimately obeying God's command or whether he is a deluded would-be murderer. Since public reason cannot decide the issue for us, we must decide for ourselves as a matter of religious faith. Kierkegaard styled himself above all as a religious poet.

The religion to which he sought to relate his readers is Christianity. The type of Christianity that underlies his writings is a very serious strain of Lutheran pietism informed by the dour values of sin, guilt, suffering, and individual responsibility. Kierkegaard was immersed in these values in the family home through his father, whose own childhood was lived in the shadow of the severe Indre Mission (Inner Mission) - a pietistic cult from Jutland. Kierkegaard's father subsequently became a member of the Moravian Brethren congregation in Copenhagen. For Kierkegaard Christian faith is not a matter of regurgitating church dogma. It is a matter of individual subjective passion, which cannot be mediated by the clergy or by human artefacts.

Faith is the most important task to be achieved by a human being, because only on the basis of faith does an individual have a chance to become a true self. This self is the life-work which God judges for eternity. The individual is thereby subject to an enormous burden of responsibility, for upon h / er existential choices hangs h / er eternal salvation or damnation. Anxiety or dread (Angest) is the presentiment of this terrible responsibility when the individual stands at the threshold of momentous existential choice.

Anxiety is a two-sided emotion: on one side is the dread burden of choosing for eternity; on the other side is the exhilaration of freedom in choosing oneself. Choice occurs in the instant (jeblikket), which is the point at which time and eternity intersect - for the individual creates through temporal choice a self which will be judged for eternity. But the choice of faith is not made once and for all. It is essential that faith be constantly renewed by means of repeated avowals of faith. One's very selfhood depends upon this repetition, for according to Anti-Climacus, the self "is a relation which relates itself to itself" (The Sickness Unto Death). But unless this self acknowledges a "power which constituted it, " it falls into a despair which undoes its selfhood.

Therefore, in order to maintain itself as a relation which relates itself to itself, the self must constantly renew its faith in "the power which posited it. " There is no mediation between the individual self and God by priest or by logical system (contra Catholicism and Hegelianism respectively). There is only the individual's own repetition of faith. This repetition of faith is the way the self relates itself to itself and to the power which constituted it, i. e. the repetition of faith is the self.

Christian dogma, according to Kierkegaard, embodies paradoxes which are offensive to reason. The central paradox is the assertion that the eternal, infinite, transcendent God simultaneously became incarnated as a temporal, finite, human being (Jesus). There are two possible attitudes we can adopt to this assertion, viz. we can have faith, or we can take offense. What we cannot do, according to Kierkegaard, is believe by virtue of reason. If we choose faith we must suspend our reason in order to believe in something higher than reason.

In fact we must believe by virtue of the absurd. Much of Kierkegaard's authorship explores the notion of the absurd: Job gets everything back again by virtue of the absurd (Repetition); Abraham gets a reprieve from having to sacrifice Isaac, by virtue of the absurd (Fear and Trembling); Kierkegaard hoped to get Regine back again after breaking off their engagement, by virtue of the absurd (Journals); Climacus hopes to deceive readers into the truth of Christianity by virtue of an absurd representation of Christianity's ineffability; the Christian God is represented as absolutely transcendent of human categories yet is absurdly presented as a personal God with the human capacities to love, judge, forgive, teach, etc. Kierkegaard's notion of the absurd subsequently became an important category for twentieth century existentialists, though usually devoid of its religious associations. According to Johannes Climacus, faith is a miracle, a gift from God whereby eternal truth enters time in the instant. This Christian conception of the relation between (eternal) truth and time is distinct from the Socratic notion that (eternal) truth is always already within us - it just needs to be recovered by means of recollection (anamnesis). The condition for realizing (eternal) truth for the Christian is a gift (Gave) from God, but its realization is a task (Opgave) which must be repeatedly performed by the individual believer.

Whereas Socratic recollection is a recuperation of the past, Christian repetition is a "recollection forwards" - so that the eternal (future) truth is captured in time. Crucial to the miracle of Christian faith is the realization that over against God we are always in the wrong. That is, we must realize that we are always in sin. This is the condition for faith, and must be given by God. The idea of sin cannot evolve from purely human origins. Rather, it must have been introduced into the world from a transcendent source.

Once we understand that we are in sin, we can understand that there is some being over against which we are always in the wrong. On this basis we can have faith that, by virtue of the absurd, we can ultimately be atoned with this being. Kierkegaard is sometimes regarded as an apolitical thinker, but in fact he intervened stridently in church politics, cultural politics, and in the turbulent social changes of his time. His earliest published essay, for example, was a polemic against women's liberation. It is a reactionary apologetic for the prevailing patriarchal values, and was motivated largely by Kierkegaard's desire to ingratiate himself with factions within Copenhagen's intellectual circles. This latter desire gradually left him, but his relation to women remained highly questionable.

One of Kierkegaard's main interventions in cultural politics was his sustained attack on Hegelianism. Hegel's philosophy had been introduced into Denmark with religious zeal by J. L. Heiberg, and was taken up enthusiastically within the theology faculty of Copenhagen University and by Copenhagen's literati.

Kierkegaard, too, was induced to make a serious study of Hegel's work. While Kierkegaard greatly admired Hegel, he had grave reservations about Hegelianism and its bombastic promises. Hegel would have been the greatest thinker who ever lived, said Kierkegaard, if only he had regarded his system as a thought-experiment. Instead he took himself seriously to have reached the truth, and so rendered himself comical. Kierkegaard's tactic in undermining Hegelianism was to produce an elaborate parody of Hegel's entire system.

The pseudonymous authorship, from Either-Or to Concluding Unscientific Postscript, presents an inverted Hegelian dialectic which is designed to lead readers away from knowledge rather than towards it. This authorship simultaneously snipes at German romanticism and contemporary Danish literati (with J. L. Heiberg receiving much acerbic comment). This intriguing pseudonymous authorship received little popular attention, aimed as it was at the literary elite. So it had little immediate effect as discursive action.

Kierkegaard sought to remedy this by provoking an attack on himself in the popular satirical review The Corsair. Kierkegaard succeeded in having himself mercilessly lampooned in this publication, largely on personal grounds rather than in terms of the substance of his writings. The suffering incurred by these attacks sparked Kierkegaard into another highly productive phase of authorship, but this time his focus was the creation of positive Christian discourses rather than satire or parody. Eventually Kierkegaard became more and more worried about the direction taken by the Danish People's Church, especially after the death of the Bishop Primate J. P. Mynster.

He realized he could no longer indulge himself in the painstakingly erudite and poetically meticulous writing he had practised hitherto. He had to intervene decisively in a popular medium, so he published his own pamphlet under the title The Instant. This addressed church politics directly and increasingly shrilly. There were two main foci of Kierkegaard's concern in church politics.

One was the influence of Hegel, largely through the teachings of H. L. Martensen; the other was the popularity of N. F. S. Grundtvig, a theologian, educator and poet who composed most of the pieces in the Danish hymn book.

Grundtvig's theology was diametrically opposed to Kierkegaard's in tone. Grundtvig emphasized the light, joyous, celebratory and communal aspects of Christianity, whereas Kierkegaard emphasized seriousness, suffering, sin, guilt, and individual isolation. Kierkegaard's intervention failed miserably with respect to the Danish People's Church, which became predominantly Grundtvigian. His intervention with respect to Hegelianism also failed, with Martensen succeeding Mynster as Bishop Primate.

Hegelianism in the church went on to die of natural causes. Kierkegaard also provided critical commentary on social change. He was an untiring champion of "the single individual" as opposed to "the crowd." He feared that the opportunity of achieving genuine selfhood was diminished by the social production of stereotypes. He lived in an age when mass society was emerging from a highly stratified feudal order and was contemptuous of the mediocrity the new social order generated. One symptom of the change was that mass society substitutes detached reflection for engaged passionate commitment. Yet the latter is crucial for Christian faith and for authentic selfhood according to Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard's real value as a social and political thinker was not realized until after his death. His pamphleteer ing achieved little immediate impact, but his substantial philosophical, literary, psychological and theological writings have had a lasting effect. Much of Heidegger's very influential work, Being And Time, is indebted to Kierkegaard's writings (though this goes unacknowledged by Heidegger). Kierkegaard's social realism, his deep psychological and philosophical analyses of contemporary problems, and his concern to address "the present age" were taken up by fellow Scandinavians Henrik Ibsen and August Strindberg.

Ibsen and Strindberg, together with Friedrich Nietzsche, became central icons of the modernism movement in Berlin in the 1890 s. The Danish literary critic Georg Brandes was instrumental in conjoining these intellectual figures: he had given the first university lectures on Kierkegaard and on Nietzsche; he had promoted Kierkegaard's work to Nietzsche and to Strindberg; and he had put Strindberg in correspondence with Nietzsche. Taking his cue from Brandes, the Swedish literary critic Ola Hansson subsequently promoted this conjunction of writers in Berlin itself. Berlin modernism self-consciously sought to use art as a means of political and social change. It continued Kierkegaard's concern to use discursive action for social transformation. Chronology of Kierkegaard's Life and Works 1813 born May 5 in Copenhagen (Denmark) 1830 matriculated to the university of Copenhagen - From the Papers of One Still Living.

Published against his Will by S. Kierkegaard (Af en end Legends Paper - Udgivet mod hans Village af S. Kierkegaard) 1840 passed final theological examination - proposed to Regine Olsen, who accepted him 1841 broke off his engagement to Regine Olsen - defended his dissertation On the Concept of Irony with constant reference to Socrates (Om Begrebet Irony med stadium Henry til Socrates) - trip to Berlin, where he attended lectures by Schelling 1843 Either-Or: A Fragment of Life edited by Victor Eremita (Enter-Eller. Et Liv's-Fragment, udgivet af Victor Eremita) - Two Edifying Discourses by S. Kierkegaard (To opbyggelige Taler) - Fear and Trembling: A Dialectical Lyric by Johannes de Silentio (Front og Be.

Dialektisk Lyrik af Johannes de Silentio) - Repetition: A Venture in Experimenting Psychology by Constantin Constantius (Gjentagelsen. Et For i den experimenter ende Psychology af Constantin Constantius) (published the same day as Fear and Trembling) - Three Edifying Discourses by S. Kierkegaard (Tre opbyggelige Taler) - Four Edifying Discourses by S. Kierkegaard (Fire opbyggelige Taler) 1844 Two Edifying Discourses by S. Kierkegaard (To opbyggelige Taler) - Three Edifying Discourses by S.

Kierkegaard (Tre opbyggelige Taler) - Philosophical Fragments or a Fragment of Philosophy by Johannes Climacus, published by S. Kierkegaard (Philosophiske Smuler eller En Smuler Philosophie. Af Johannes Climacus. Udgivet af S. Kierkegaard) - The Concept of Anxiety: A Simple Psychologically-Oriented Reflection on the Dogmatic Problem of Original Sin by Vigilius Haufniensis (Begrebet Angest. En simple psychologist-paapegende Overveielse i Rating of det dogmatism Problem om Arvesynden af Vigilius Haufniensis) - Prefaces: Light Reading for Certain Classes as the Occasion may Require by Nicolaus Notabene (Food.

Morskabslsning for entente Studier efter Tid og Lejlighed, af Nicolaus Notabene) (published on the same day as The Concept of Anxiety) - Four Edifying Discourses by S. Kierkegaard (Fire opbyggelige Taler) 1845 Three Addresses on Imagined Occasions by S. Kierkegaard (Tre Taler ved take Leiligheder) - Stages On Life's Way: Studies by Various Persons, compiled, forwarded to the press, and published by Hilarious Bookbinder (Studier paa Lives View. Studier af Forskjellige.

Sammenbragte, befordrede til Trykken og udgivet af Hilarious Bogbinder) - Eighteen Edifying Discourses by S. Kierkegaard (a collection of the remaindered Edifying Discourses from 1843 and 1844) - in an article in Fdrelandet Frater Taciturn us (a character from Stages on Life's Way) asked to be lambasted in The Corsair 1846 Kierkegaard lampooned in The Corsair - Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments: A Mimetic-Pathetic-Dialectic Compilation, An Existential Plea, by Johannes Climacus, published by S. Kierkegaard (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de philosophie Smuler. - Mimisk-pathetic-dialektik Sammenskrift, Existentielt Index, af Johannes Climacus. Udgivet af S. Kierkegaard) - A Literary Review: "Two Ages" - novella by the author of "An Everyday Story" - reviewed by S.

Kierkegaard (En literacy Anmeldelse af S. Kierkegaard) 1847 Edifying Discourses in Different Spirits by S. Kierkegaard (Opbyggelige Taler i forskjellig Aand af S. Kierkegaard) - Works of Love: Some Christian Reflections in the Form of Discourses by S. Kierkegaard (Kjerlighedens Gjerninger. Note christlike Overveielser i Taler's Form, af S.

Kierkegaard) 1848 Christian Discourses by S. Kierkegaard (Christelige Taler, af S. Kierkegaard) - The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress by Inter et Inter (Kristen og en Kiss i en Skuespillerindes Liv af Inter et Inter) - The Point of View for my Work as an Author: A Direct Communication, A Report to History (Synspunktet for min Forfatter-Virksomhed. En ligefrem Meddelelse, Rapport til Histories, af S. Kierkegaard) (unpublished) - The Lilies of the Field and the Birds of the Air: Three devotional discourses by S. Kierkegaard (Listen paa Marken og Fallen under Hidden.

Tre guideline Taler af S. Kierkegaard) - Two Ethics-Religious Treatises by H. H. (Trends ethics-religieuse Small-Afhandlinger. Af H. H. ) - The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian psychological exposition for edification and awakening by Anti-Climacus, edited by S. Kierkegaard (Sygdommen til En.

En christening psychologist Udvikling til Opvkkelse. Af Anticlimacus. Udgivet af S. Kierkegaard) - "The High Priest" - "The Publican" - and "The Woman taken in Sin": three addresses at Holy Communion on Fridays by S. Kierkegaard (, , Yppersteprsten" -, , Tolderen" -, , Synderinden", tre Taler ved Altergangen om Fredagen. Af S.

Kierkegaard) 1850 Training in Christianity by Anti-Climacus, Nos. I, II, III, edited by S. Kierkegaard (Indvelse i Christendom. Af Anti-Climacus - Udgivet af S. Kierkegaard) - An Edifying Discourse by S. Kierkegaard (En opbyggelig Tale.

Af S. Kierkegaard) 1851 On My Activity As A Writer by S. Kierkegaard (Om min Forfatter-Virksomhed. Af S.

Kierkegaard) - Two Discourses at Holy Communion on Fridays by S. Kierkegaard (To Taler ved Altergangen om Fredagen) - For Self-Examination: Recommended to the Contemporary Age by S. Kierkegaard (Til Selvprvelse, Samtiden anbefalet. Af S.

Kierkegaard) - Judge For Yourselves! Recommended to the present time for Self-Examination. Second series, by S. Kierkegaard (Der Selv! Til Selvprvelse Samtiden anbefalet. And Re, af S.

Kierkegaard) (published posthumously 1876) - "Was Bishop Mynster 'a witness to the truth, ' one of 'the true witnesses to the truth' - is this the truth?" by S. Kierkegaard in Fdrelandet (, , Var Bishop Mynster et "Sandhedsvidne", et af "de rate Sandhedsvidner", er dette Sandhed?" Af S. Kierkegaard) (the first of 21 articles in Fdrelandet) 1855 This Must Be Said, So Let It Be Said, by S. Kierkegaard (Dette skal sige's; saa vre det da said. Af S. Kierkegaard) - The Instant by S.

Kierkegaard (jeblikket. Af S. Kierkegaard) - Christ's Judgement on Official Christianity by S. Kierkegaard (Had Christus der om officiel Christendom.

Af S. Kierkegaard) - God's Unchangeability: A Discourse by S. Kierkegaard (Guds Uforanderlighed. En Tale - Af S. Kierkegaard) Adorno, Theordor W. , Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic, trans. Robert Hello-Kent, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1989.

Agacinski, Sylviane, Apart: Conceptions and Deaths of Sren Kierkegaard, trans. Kevin Newmark, Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1988. Bigelow, Pat, Kierkegaard & The Problem Of Writing, Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1987. Billeskov Jansen, F.

J. , Studier i Sren Kierkegaard's litter Kunst, Copenhagen: Rosenkilde & Bagger, 1951. Brandes, Georg, Sren Kierkegaard. En kritik Fremstilling i Grundrids, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1877. Derrida, Jacques, The Gift of Death, trans.

David Wills, Chicago & London: University of Chicago Press, 1995. Ferguson, Harvie, Melancholy and the Critique of Modernity: Sren Kierkegaard's Religious Psychology, London & New York: Routledge, 1995. Ferreira, M. Jamie, Transforming Vision: Imagination and Will in Kierkegaardian Faith, Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991. Gary, Joachim, Den sense: Kierkegaard lst statist / biografia , Copenhagen: C.

A. Reitzels Forlag, 1995. Hall, Ronald L. , Word and Spirit: A Kierkegaardian Critique of the Modern Age, Bloomington: Indiana State University Press, 1993. Hannay, Alastair, Kierkegaard, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1982. Henriksen, Are, Kierkegaard's Romance, Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1954. Kirmmse, Bruce H. , Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark, Bloomington: Indiana State University Press, 1990.

Lowrie, Walter, Kierkegaard, 2 volumes, New York: Harper & Brothers, 1962. Mackey, Louis, Points of View: Readings of Kierkegaard, Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1986. Malantschuk, Gregor, Friend og Eksistens. Studier i Sren Kierkegaard's taking, Copenhagen: C.

A. Reitzels Forlag, 1980. Mature, Martin J. , Post national Identity: Critical Theory and Existential Philosophy in Habermas, Kierkegaard, and Havel, New York & London: The Guilford Press, 1993. Nordentoft, Kristen, Kierkegaard's Psychology, trans.

Bruce H. Kirmmse, Pittsburgh, Pa. : Duquesne University Press, 1978. Pattison, George, Kierkegaard: The Aesthetic and the Religious, London: Macmillan, 1992. Pojman, Louis, The Logic of Subjectivity, University of Alabama Press, 1984.

Roos, Carl, Kierkegaard og Goethe, Copenhagen: Gads Forlag, 1955. Schleifer, Ronald & Markley, Robert (eds), Kierkegaard and Literature: Irony, Repetition, and Criticism, Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1984. Taylor, Mark C. , Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel & Kierkegaard, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1980. Viallaneix, Nelly, could, Kierkegaard: Essai sur la communication de la parole, 2 volumes, Paris: ditions du Cerf, 1979.

Walsh, Sylvia, Living Poetically: Kierkegaard's Existential Aesthetics, University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1994. Bibliography:

Research essay sample on Normative Ethics Literary Critic