Kierkegaard and Truth as Subjectivity
Practical Philosophy July 2000 Volume 3.2 Pages 22-30
Stephen James Minton BSc. (Hons)., MSc. Couns. Psychol.,
A.M.N.A.P.C.P.
‘Why did Socrates compare himself to a gadfly? Because he wanted his
influence only to be ethical. He didn’t want to be an admired genius standing
apart from the rest, who therefore simply makes life easier for them,
for they say, ‘Yes, it’s all very well for him, he’s a genius.’ No, he
did only what everyone can do, understand only what everyone can understand.
That’s where the epigrammatic quality lies. He dug his teeth hard into
the individual, constantly compelling and teasing him with the commonplace.
It was thus he was a gadfly, causing irritation through the individual’s
own feelings, not letting him go on leisurely and weakly admiring, but
demanding of him his very self. If a person has ethical powers, people
will gladly make a genius out of him just to be rid of him, for his life
contains a demand.’ (Kierkegaard, 1996; from Søren Kierkegaards
Papirer; Entry 46 VII I A 74 (1846)).
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard: A Brief Sketch of His Life
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard – to whom much of the ‘epigrammatic quality’
he readily attributes to Socrates may, I would argue, be ascribed - was
born on May 5th, 1813, in Copenhagan, where, apart from a five
month-long residence in Berlin, he was to spend his entire life. Søren
Aabye was the youngest of the seven children his father Michael Pederson
Kierkegaard’s second wife (Michael’s first wife had died after two years
of a childless marriage), Ane Sørendatter Lund (who had entered
the Kierkegaard household as a servant), was to bear him. Though Michael
Pederson Kierkegaard was of humble origin (he had lived a rather impoverished
early life as a shepherd boy in a small Jutland village), he amassed considerable
wealth in the clothing and textile business, and was able to retire at
just forty years of age. Søren Aabye was to inherit a large part
of this fortune upon his father’s death in 1838, five of his siblings
and his mother having died before he was 21 years old.
Kierkegaard was educated at the School of Civic Virtue and the University
in Copenhagan (where he read theology, but also liberal arts and science).
In 1841, he was to break off his engagement to Regine Olsen, whose reputation
he attempted to salvage by attempting (unsuccessfully) to convince he
was a disreputable scoundrel. After this event, as his inheritance precluded
the necessity of his having to pursue a paid career, Kierkegaard was able
to devote himself to his writing. His output was prolific (his collected
works run to twenty volumes (see Drachman et al., Eds., 1901 – 1906),
with a further sixteen volumes of papers (see Heiberg et al, Eds., 1909
– 1948) and two volumes of letters and documents (see Thulstrup, Ed.,
1953)), including several philosophical essays and major works, religious
discourses and sermons; sometimes he published two or more books on the
same day. Seldom, though, was he read, and still less did he feel himself
understood:
‘…. it is an exhausting experience. I am convinced that not a single
person understands me. The most anyone, even an admirer, might concede
is that I endure all this nonsense with a certain poise.’ (Kierkegaard,
1996; from Søren Kierkegaards Papirer; Entry 46 VII I A
97 (1846)).
Kierkegaard collapsed in the street on October 2nd, 1855; by this time,
due to a prolonged feud with the Danish satirical newsletter, the Corsair,
and his increasingly virulent literary attacks upon the Danish Lutheran
State Church, he had become a figure of animosity and ridicule. His final
illness was to last just under six weeks; as he refused to see his brother
Peter Christian, his only regular attendant was his boyhood friend, Pastor
Emil Boesen. Kierkegaard died on November 11th, 1855, at forty-two
years of age, the tentative diagnosis (there was no autopsy) of ‘paralysis-(tubercul?)’
being made. It was his will that Regine inherited what was left of his
estate, as to him:
‘…. an engagement was and is just as binding as marriage, and therefore
my estate is her due exactly as if I had been married to her.’ (Kierkegaard,
1996; from ‘Brev och Akstykker’, Ed. Thulstrup (1953)).
Regine declined the inheritance, and in the end it was Peter Christian
Kierkegaard who became the
recipient. But although Kierkegaard’s works were practically ignored
during his lifetime and the immediate period thereafter, his works have
become, over the last century, increasingly cited as influential in theology
and philosophy; and, over the last forty years especially, psychology
and existential psychotherapy (see Hill and Chung, 1999). Perhaps there
is a certain prophecy in the following journal entry, which was no doubt
penned in a moment of self-consolation:
‘So it goes on, and once I’m dead, men’s eyes will be opened; they will
admire what I wanted to do.’ (Kierkegaard, 1996; from Soren Kierkegaards
Papirer; Entry 46 VII I A 98 (1846)).
Truth as Subjectivity
Although Kierkegaard’s works were practically ignored during his lifetime,
his works have become, over the last century, increasingly cited as influential
in theology and philosophy; and, over the last forty years especially,
psychology and existential psychotherapy. Amongst the first of the many
who would now claim to have had their ‘eyes opened’ by Kierkegaard were
philosophers who were later to be identified as being of the phenomenological
and existential schools. Mary Warnock (1970) counts Kierkegaard, along
with Nietzsche, as an ‘ethical predecessor’ of existential philosophy,
which in turn is characterised by the aim of its thinkers being not only
to explore the notion of human freedom – for much non-existential philosophy
has been devoted to this – but to show people that they are free,
via the attempt to ‘rescue’ readers from various ‘illusions’. For Kierkegaard,
this illusion was absolute objective certainty. Although Kierkegaard
did not seek to deny objective, propositional truth, he did attempt
to emphasise the importance of subjective truth over it, at least so far
as in the truths that are most influential in a person’s life (and hence
for Kierkegaard, in the sphere of religion). For instance, I can demonstrate
that two items plus two items will equal four items - this fact is objectively
true – but I can never be objectively certain as to whether
something of my consciousness will be preserved after my physical death.
Significantly, this second proposition is far more likely to concern me;
and my only possible means of absolute reconciliation here is faith:
a passionate commitment to a subjective truth held in the face of objective
uncertainty, which becomes ontologically primal for me, colouring all
subsequent truth judgements. To reformulate, using Kierkegaard’s own words:
"When subjectivity, inwardness is the truth, the truth becomes objectively
a paradox; and the fact that truth is objectively a paradox shows in its
turn that subjectivity is the truth…. The paradoxical character of the
truth is its objective uncertainty. This uncertainty is the expression
for passionate inwardness, and this passion is precisely the truth." (Kierkegaard,
1845a).
Kierkegaard’s focus on ‘truth as subjectivity’ – now all so familiar
to us from the realms of the later existentialist philosophy – was originally
arrived at in his attempts to stake out the Christian’s faith relationship
to God (Kierkegaard 1844, 1845a and 1845b). Hegel, like Kant before him,
had sought to understand religion within the framework of reason, but
Kierkegaard’s overall aim was to assert the primacy of faith over reason,
and thus to do away with the Hegelian notions of the ‘Absolute Spirit’
as a manifestation of rational human consciousness, and Christianity as
an expression of his philosophy of history (c.f. Kierkegaard, 1843a ,
1845a, 1996, Vardy, 1996). Be this through philosophical means, or through
political and theological scripts, it remained Kierkegaard’s life-long
aim to recover Christianity’s position from being, to use Hannay’s (1992)
words, "just one more item on the agenda of finitude".
Objective uncertainty was very much part of Kierkegaard’s early personal
life: between the childhood bereavements, his often strained relationships
with his father and brother, and especially his ill-fated affair with
Regine, little (other than his oft-quoted melancholia and his fervent
literary productivity) remained stable. For Kierkegaard, life (most of
all, his own, but also that of ‘the individual’ that he hoped would one
day understand him) was a process of becoming: for him, the central tenet,
personally as well as philosophically, was Christian faith. Kierkegaard’s
pseudonyms served not only a philosophical purpose; in most, aspects of
himself and his development were echoed therein. For example, in the 'young
man’ of Stages on Life’s Way, ‘A’, the aesthete of ‘Either-Or’
, ‘Johannes Climacus’, the ‘author’ of Philosophical Fragments
and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and 'Johannes de silentio’
(‘author’ of Fear and Trembling), we see the inwardness of the
student Kierkegaard - ever-questioning, ever-doubting, in transition from
his inherited (his father’s) version of faith to that of his own. In ‘Judge
Vilhelm’ (the ‘ethicist’ of ‘Either-Or’), we see some self-consolation,
or maybe self-torment, in the accounts of the ethically fulfilling married
life that had one time seemed open to him. In ‘Anti-Climacus’ (the
‘author’ of The Sickness Unto Death), we see a self-imposing of
a limit, perhaps, to the level of Christianity to which Kierkegaard could
aspire:
"….whereas Johannes Climacus places himself so low that he even says
that he himself is not a Christian, one seems to be able to detect in
Anti-Climacus that he considers himself to be a Christian on an extraordinarily
high level…. I would place myself higher than Johannes Climacus, lower
than Anti-Climacus." (from Søren Kierkegaard's Papirer;
in H.V. Hong and Edna H. Hong’s footnotes to Philosophical Fragments
(Kierkegaard, 1844)).
When Kierkegaard questioned life, after he exhausted the books of his
youthful studies, he returned to look within; when he questioned faith
(which Kierkegaard saw, as we have seen, as an absolute pre-requisite
of an ethically-fulfilling life) – after venting his spleen at Hegel –
he looked within also. On a personal level, Kierkegaard trusted his individual
subjective truth – in the matters of the most critical importance - and
encouraged his reader to do so.
One of the major challenges, though, of the notion of ‘truth as subjectivity’
(and, in a wider sense, existential philosophy in general) is its necessary
focus on the individual. Whilst this, to its adherents, might form
part of the aesthetic appeal of existential philosophy and literature,
and most people would accept that human beings are indeed individuals,
it is not easy (or, indeed, necessarily useful) to discard objectivity
entirely. For the fact is, that although we are capable of thinking our
own thoughts, feeling our own feelings, and living our own lives, very
often we disappear into the ‘mass’: we "identify ourselves with a group
or sect and think their thoughts and accept their standards" (Warnock,
1970). Here, Nietzsche would probably have chided us for succumbing to
the ‘herd mentality’; the early Sartre, too, would have been equally unforgiving,
dismissing our denial of our own individual freedom as ‘bad faith’ (c.f.
Sartre, 1943). In a way, though, it is refreshing to find that Kierkegaard
was never as uncompromising in his focus on the individual (or, indeed,
truth as subjectivity) as the existential philosophers who followed him.
To hold something passionately and deeply is not enough to make it true;
Vardy (1996) notes that if this were the case, there would be no way of
distinguishing someone who has faith from someone who has madness, and
that it is here that Kierkegaard finds a place for the objective approach
to truth:
"…. the objective way deems itself to have a security which the subjective
way does not have (and, of course, existence and existing cannot be thought
in combination with objective security); it thinks to escape a danger
which threatens the subjective way and this danger is at its maximum:
madness. In a merely subjective determination of the truth, madness and
truth become in the last analysis indistinguishable." (Kierkegaard, 1845a).
So, in order to avoid the pitfalls of nihilism and ethical insensibility
that spring from an overly individualistic or subjective focus, it may
well be beneficial to carefully consider Kierkegaard’s acknowledgement
of the sometime advantages of the objective approach to truth. One is,
of course, free (!) to follow the extremes of the individualistic / subjective
approach to truth, and the subsequent implications for freedom and authentic
human existence, in Sartre’s early work (see especially Being and Nothingness,
1943); but from a reading of Kierkegaard himself, we may gain a perspective
that demonstrates the importance of subjectivity in the personal truths
that affect us the most deeply – and not (apart from in matters of
religious faith) the inevitable primacy of subjectivity over objectivity.
At this point, and with a view towards a practical application
of the notion of ‘truth as subjectivity’, this seems to me to be quite
reasonable.
Truth as Subjectivity in the Psychotherapeutic Context
When questioned on the subject, psychotherapists of ‘phenomenological’
orientations (in the widest sense, i.e. inclusive of person-centred, gestalt
and existential therapists) will generally allow considerable importance
to their clients’ subjective truth. However, far from prematurely celebrating
this factor as a triumph of the hidden influence of the spirit of Kierkegaard,
I should like to contend that the person-centred therapist’s notions around
the importance of subjectivity in the psychotherapeutic encounter are
of a fundamentally different nature to Kierkegaard’s notion of truth as
subjectivity, which has not even proved to be a covert influence in the
person-centred approach. Consequently, due to the prevalence of the influence
of the person-centred approach, there exists an under-appreciation of
the possibilities of a Kierkegaardian understanding of the principle of
truth as subjectivity. In other words, although an application of this
principle seems to be apparent in much of ‘phenomenological’ psychotherapy,
especially in the value placed on subjectivity in the person-centred approach,
this is illusory: in reality, the influence and application of this principle
to date has been very restricted indeed. It is my suggestion, of course,
that this situation should be remedied; although, as we shall see, this
may not be achieved as readily as one might hope.
In person-centred therapy, the importance of the client’s subjective
truth seems to be two-fold. In the first place, in terms of therapeutic
practice, respect for the client’s individuality and subjectivity would
appear to be a pre-requisite of the therapist’s key attitudes of empathic
concern, unconditional positive regard and congruence (c.f. Rogers, 1951;
see also Graham, 1995; Mearns & Thorne, 1988), and general ‘non-directedness’
– what is traditionally, in this approach, known as ‘working from the
client’s personal framework’. Secondly, in terms of this approach’s overall
philosophy, person-centred therapy is inextricably bound to the rise and
influence of humanistic psychology in psychological research –
for after all, Rogers was an innovator in both (see Rogers, 1951, 1961).
Humanistic psychology rose, during the 1960s, to become a ‘third force’
in psychology, and championed the consideration of human wholeness and
potential in psychological research; consequently, at the outset at least,
it had to defend itself almost as a ‘protest movement’ in theoretical
psychology. Hence, the subjectivity it stood for was often cast (and,
more often still understood) as ‘non-objectivity’ – for only then
could the prevailing shackles of reductionistic experimentation as a basis
for human enquiry (as practised by the behaviourists) be broken. Indeed,
a frequent reproach of humanistic psychology and psychologists is that
such researchers speak up less often about what they contribute to the
understanding of human behaviour than what they reject in other approaches.
Hence, the value placed upon subjectivity in the person-centred approach
owes its origin to three sources: firstly, and perhaps most peripherally,
the reworking of ideas concerning human consciousness apparent in Husserlian
phenomenology; secondly, the need to express the tenets of humanistic
psychology against supposedly objective accounts of human nature and behaviour
(i.e. behaviourism); and finally, due to the need to position subjectivity
as a core-value ‘backdrop’ against the key attitudes deemed imperative
to successful work as a person-centred therapist (which emerged from Rogers’
own diligent research (see Rogers, 1951)).
So it is apparent, then, that although person-centred therapists have
one understanding of the value of subjectivity in the psychotherapeutic
encounter, it is not one that it is not in any way derived from Kierkegaard’s
account of truth as subjectivity. Their understanding of subjectivity
no doubt serves them well. But for me, as an existential therapist, what
is most important about the value of subjectivity in psychotherapy is
what is missing from the person-centred understanding - which coincides
exactly with what is apparent in Kierkegaard. As we have seen,
Kierkegaard’s understanding of truth was inwardness (or, the truth
that is true for me" (c.f. Storm, 2000)), uncertainty and passion
(Kierkegaard, 1845a). Now, although these factors may very well, in the
long run, spontaneously arise and be congruently accepted (undoubtedly,
with unconditional positive regard) by a person-centred therapist during
her or his empathic mode of being with her or his client, what strikes
the reader of Kierkegaard is these aspects of truth’s existence as
givens. It is this reading of Kierkegaard’s principle of truth
as subjectivity that I consider to be of critical importance – and to
which I believe we should actively attend.
Cameron: An Application of ‘Truth as Subjectivity’
in Psychotherapy
Cameron presented himself to counselling in the context of a training
analysis some years ago. Whilst he felt that he had already usefully engaged
himself in one year’s counselling, he decided to approach a new therapist
with the avowed intent of doing some deeper work on himself. Although
the initial sessions focussed around an extensive look at parental relationships,
a more immediately emotionally fraught issue, concerning the comparatively
recent break-up of a romantic relationship, became apparent. Having the
therapist listen to his story was not enough; what Cameron wanted, and
initially expected help in finding from the therapist, was answers; he
was deeply engaged in the almost perpetual mulling over of why
the break-up had occurred. Much of his low affect outside of the counselling
sessions was dominated by the persistent working and re-working over the
precise biographical details of the relationship, in order to pin-point
the causes of what he felt to be faulty communicative patterns
of the final few months of the relationship. His initial belief was that
should the causes be apparent, and provided that he could put himself
somehow outside of those causes, he could find his peace with the unhappy
ending of the relationship.
Cameron’s scientific training during undergraduate studies, and his
general love of science, had contributed significantly to this ‘fact-finding’
approach to his personal difficulties; of this, he was aware, and yet
was unable to give this pattern up. His therapist gently focussed his
efforts away from an adoption of the ‘mental health expert’ Cameron expected;
instead, he encouraged Cameron to explore his inner world of feelings
and values, more often than not in areas tangentially, but not directly
related to the relationship break-up. In this apparent ‘moving away’ from
the presenting issue, Cameron was able to identify, and become increasingly
aware of, what he first came to think of and refer to as ‘stable patterns
of behaviour’, but later as ‘ways of being’ with people through a broadly-defined
set of insight-orientated techniques such as role-play, psychodrama and
art.
With an increased contact with a known set of internally subjective
truths in place, Cameron’s therapist encouraged the expression of his
own heartfelt values and a degree of action planning on these same; his
capacity to make decisions without appeal to ‘objective’ sources or authority
was, without ever being ‘co-authored’, consistently encouraged. Cameron
was able to ‘let go’ of the relationship, including the previously unidentified
aspects of deeply felt loss and anger at his former partner. Subsequently,
or perhaps consequently, Cameron was then able to reapply himself to his
continued training as a therapist and long-term personal and career goals,
with no resurfacing of the anguish connected with the end of the relationship
that had formerly hampered his efforts to do so. On reflection on the
these therapeutic encounters, Cameron expressed the accrual of a long-term
gain. In addition to the relief from his short-term suffering, he now
felt more able to act more in accordance with what he knew to be true
for himself, and he considered this to be a life-long piece of
learning which had immense value.
Concluding Thoughts
A reservation that has troubled me, in terms of my recent attempts to
demonstrate Kierkegaard’s relevance in the fields of counselling and psychotherapy,
has been as to whether Kierkegaard’s process of generation and original
(and limited) scope of application of the notion of ‘truth as subjectivity’
precludes the reapplication of this theme in the psychotherapeutic context.
Kierkegaard was able, through his own ‘inwardness’ and ‘religiousness’
(c.f. Storm, 2000) to ‘find a truth which is true for me , to find the
idea for which I am willing to live or die’ (Kierkegaard, 1996; Storm,
2000): essentially, the leading of a passionate Christian life. One must
acknowledge that as Christian faith was Kierkegaard’s ‘starting point’,
and that as he was unable to find accordance with Kantian or Hegelian
notions of an objectively verifiable religiosity, his answers to questions
of faith must necessarily have been located in subjective truth.
But if we start from a different, non-religious subjective truth, for
which we are willing to ‘live or die’ – should we even be successful in
ever locating such a truth in our post-religious modern society – how
necessary is it that such a truth must be upheld in the face of
objective uncertainty? Are there not truths of deep, personal significance
of which we may become objectively certain? Such problems – and, one must
concede, these are of a fairly serious philosophical nature - seem to
appear in multitudes, without immediately apparent modes of resolution,
when we try to generalise Kierkegaard’s highly individualistic philosophy
beyond its primary purpose of the exploration of Christian faith.
Psychotherapeutically, in any event, I feel that the passionate
and inward aspects of the client’s subjective truth are evidenced
when the client undertakes critical decisions: as illustrated above in
Cameron’s ‘letting go’, and as I have commented elsewhere (Minton, 2000).
It must be remembered, of course, that the psychotherapist is in a somewhat
rare position in contemporary society of being privy to the individual
human being’s most passionate and inward aspects, whilst very obviously
(by the nature of the relationship) being faced with a considerable amount
of the client’s uncertainty. If therapy or counselling is to be,
as is often argued in this journal, cast along similar lines as philosophical
enquiry – namely, that through discourse, a search for (personal) truth
is conducted, by which our love for (personal) wisdom is satisfied, the
outcome of which should be (personally) meaningful – then a valid application,
even given my reservations, of Kierkegaard’s principle of truth as subjectivity
would seem to be a re-focus on the practising therapist’s active facilitation
of client’s decision-making in the psychotherapeutic process. Through
this, the individual can be assisted towards the realisation of her or
his own truth, wisdom and meaning, the facilitation of which is surely
a noble cause to devote oneself to in the practise of either philosophy
or psychotherapy.
Recommended further reading
Kierkegaard, S. (1843a / 1992). Either / Or: A Fragment of Life.
Transl. A. Hannay. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics.
Now published in one lightly annotated volume, Kierkegaard brings together
an astonishing variety of material – including the legendary ‘Seducer’s
Diary’ – through the presentation of the ‘papers’ of an ethicist
(‘Judge Vilhelm’) and an aesthete (the ‘young friend’ of
‘Judge Vilhelm’, known only to the reader as ‘A’)
under the pseudonumous ‘editorship’ of ‘Victor Eremita’.
Kierkegaard shows us both of these ways of life; as Hegelian synthesis
is rendered unattainable, we are forced into a position of radical choice.
The ‘explosive either-or’ is thus revealed.
Kierkegaard, S. (1843b / 1985). Fear and Trembling Transl. A.
Hannay. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics.
Written under the pseudonym of ‘Johannes de silentio’; for the main
part, a consideration of the Biblical story of Abraham’s willingness to
sacrifice his son, Isaac, to Yahweh God (Genesis, 22:1-19). According
to the Hegelian notion of universal ethics that prevailed at the time,
such Abraham’s action would be indefensible; it may only be understood
via the ‘teleological suspension of the ethical’: when the individual
makes a choice ‘on the strength of the absurd’, in accordance with the
telos of God’s will.
Kierkegaard, S. (1844 / 1985). Philosophical Fragments. Transl.
D. Swenson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Written under the pseudonym of ‘Johannes Climacus’, whose central focus
is doubt, the book contrasts firstly Greek, and then modern philosophy
with the paradoxes of Christian thought (see footnote 2). Faith, and not
‘the system’, Kierkegaard felt, could conquer doubt; but as all ‘Johannes
Climacus’ had was philosophy, the result of his efforts could only be
despair.
Kierkegaard, S. (1845a / 1992). Concluding Unscientific Postscript
to the Philosophical Fragments. . Transl. W. Lowrie & D.
Swenson. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
The sequel to Philosophical Fragments; in this lengthy tome,
Kierkegaard (again, as ‘Johannes Climacus’) further develops the
ideas of the subjective approach to truth, and the resolution of the ‘Absolute
Paradox’ through faith
Kierkegaard, S. (1845b / 1985). Stages On Life’s Way. Transl.
H. & E. Hong. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
A sequel to Either-Or; a full development of three spheres of
existence: the aesthetic, ethical and religious stages. Three previous
pseudonyms appear (including ‘Victor Eremita’ and ‘Johannes
the Seducer’ (the author of The Seducer’s Diary),from Either-Or)
collected by (of all pseudonyms) ‘Hilarius Bogbinder’. For an excellent
and applied commentary, see Hill and Chung (1999).
Kierkegaard, S. (1996). Papers and Journals: A Selection. Translated
and edited by Alistair Hannay. Harmondsworth: Penguin Classics.
A selection of journal entries in one volume, linking Hannay's biographical
text.
Storm, D.A. (2000). D. Anthony Storm’s Web Site on Kierkegaard.
Available on the World Wide Web: http://www.2extreme.net/dstorm/sk/sk.htm.
A superb website, including a commentary on Kierkegaard’s major works,
two essays on his writing method, a primer on Kierkegaardian motifs, a
biography, a gallery of images and a very useful links section.
Vardy, P. (1996). Kierkegaard. London: Harper Collins Publishers.
An excellent brief introduction (98 pp) to Kierkegaard’s life and philosophy,
firmly underlining Kierkegaard’s continued relevance as a Christian writer.
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