2 - Kierkegaard's Socratic pseudonym: A profile of Johannes Climacus

Summary

The subject of this report is a fictional character and so-called pseudonymous author, one Johannes Climacus, a self-described “humorist” who is “thirty years old” and was “born in Copenhagen” (CUP 520). Only known relative, father, deceased (CUP 135). Possible physical features: “medium in height, with black hair and brown eyes.” Pastimes: “loafing and thinking”; “subjective author” of two books, Philosophical Crumbs (or Fragments) and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, both edited by S. Kierkegaard (CUP 156, 158). Philosophically notable characteristics: has an “ardent enthusiasm” for Socrates (KW 7: 111); seems to endorse the view he attributes to Socrates that being a philosophical “midwife … is the highest relationship a human being can have with another” person; has claimed with respect to his own development and philosophical undertakings that the “only one who consoles [him] is Socrates”; may himself be a Socratic figure, perhaps representing Kierkegaard's “idealization of the Socratic within the context of nineteenth-century Danish Christendom.”

Obtaining an understanding of Climacus has proved difficult; he remains under surveillance. The following (provisional) report includes an overview of Climacus' two works and the two therapeutic, experimental stances he adopts in relation to his readers (together with a few orienting observations about Climacus); a brief examination of Kierkegaard's unfinished manuscript Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est; and a more detailed account of Climacus' diagnosis of what he thinks has gone wrong in Christendom and how this relates to his decision to become an author.