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Kierkegaard on ‘Truth is Subjectivity’ and ‘The Leap of Faith’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2020

Richard Schacht
Richard Schacht*
Affiliation:
University of Illinois
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Extract

One of the things for which Kierkegaard is both best known to English and American philosophers and most criticized by them, is his contention that “truth is subjectivity.” His discussion of “truth” and “subjectivity” occupies a considerable part of his most important philosophical work, Concluding Unscientific Postscript; and his contention that “truth is subjectivity” is the pivotal claim around which virtually the entire work revolves. Yet few of Kierkegaard's claims have been more frequently misunderstood; and a misunderstanding of this claim has led many philosophers wrongly to dismiss him as unworthy of serious consideration.

Type
Research Article
Information
Canadian Journal of Philosophy , Volume 2 , Issue 3 , March 1973 , pp. 297 - 313
Copyright
Copyright © The Authors 1973

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References

1 Translated by David F. Swenson and Walter Lowrie. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1941.

2 E.g., Postscript, p. 223.

3 Postscript, p. 100. Hegel, it should be noted, would not accept the “either-or” proposed by Kierkegaard in this passage. For him, man's nature is to be conceived both in terms of universality and in terms of individuality, neither of which (he holds) completely excludes the other. He writes: “Spirit is the nature of human beings generally, and their nature is therefore twofold: on the one hand, explicit individuality of consciousness and will; and on the other, universality which knows and wills what is substantive.” (Philosophy of Right, tr. T. M. Knox. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1942. s. 264. I have slightly modified Knox's translation.)

Again: “The will's activity consists in annulling the contradiction between subjectivity and objectivity and giving its aims an objective instead of a subjective character, while at the same time remaining by itself [i.e., subjective] even in its objectivity.” (Philosophy of Right, s. 28.)

4 Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 185.

5 Postscript, p. 184.

6 Postscript, p. 217.

7 Postscript, p. 146.

8 Postscript, p. 178n.

9 Postscript, p. 185.

10 Postscript, p. 175.

11 Postscript, p. 117.

12 Postscript, p. 117.

13 G. W. F. Hegel, Science of Logic, tr. W. H. Johnston and L. G. Struthers. New York: Macmillan, 1929. Vol. I. p. 55.

14 Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind. tr. J. B. Baillie. Second edition (revised). New York: Macmillan, 1949, pp. 98–99.

15 Hegel, The Logic of Hegel, tr. William Wallace. Second edition (revised). Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 51–52.

16 Logic of Hegel, pp. 354, 352.

17 Logic of Hegel, p. 354.

18 Philosophy of Right, s. 23.

19 Logic of Hegel, p. 52.

20 Logic of Hegel, p. 354.

21 Philosophy of Right, s. 25.

22 Philosophy of Right, s. 29. It is of some interest to observe that this passage continues as follows: “Once this principle [of the supremacy of subjectivity] is adopted, of course, the rational can come on the scene only as a restriction of the type of freedom which this principle involves. . . . This view is devoid of any speculative thinking, and is repudiated by the Philosophic concept. And the phenomena which it has produced in men's heads and in the world are of a frightfulness parallel only to the superficiality of the thoughts on which they are based.”

23 Kierkegaard. Postscript p. 134.

24 Hegel, Phenomenology of Mind, p. 80.

25 Logic of Hegel, p. 352.

26 Science of Logic, p. 60, Hegel's emphasis.

27 Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 188.

28 Postscript, p. 180.

29 Postscript, p. 187.

30 Hegel, Logic of Hegel, p. 3.

31 Science of Logic, p. 60. Hegel's emphasis.

32 Phenomenology of Mind, pp. 98–99.

33 Science of Logic, p. 69.

34 Phenomenology oi Mimi, p. 74.

35 Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 222.

36 Postscript, p. 176.

37 Postscript, p. 182.

38 Postscript, p. 176.

39 Postscript, p. 194.

40 Postscript, p. 195.

41 Cf. Spinoza, in the first pages of his On the Improvement of the Understanding.

42 Kierkegaard, Postscript, p. 146.

43 Postscript, p. 178.

44 Postscript, p. 176.

45 Postscript, p. 118.

46 Postscript, p. 182.

47 Postscript, p. 206.

48 Postscript, p. 191.

49 Postscript, p. 194.

50 Walter Kaufmann offers a similar counter-example (Nero) in a similar criticism of Kierkegaard in his From Shakespeare to Existentialism (New York: Doubleday, 1959), p. 198.

51 I would like to thank my colleagues, Professors Hugh S. Chandler, Philip G. Hugly, and Louis Werner, for their comments and suggestions.