MUSIC] In the 21st century, we live in a complex

and fast-changing world. The experience of each new generation

differs radically from that of the previous one. For example, in the generation
of my
parents, nobody had a computer or a cell phone, but today
virtually everyone has these things. Ask yourself how many things you use
your
computer and your cell phone for, and how much time you
spend with them. You'll get some insight into how different
your life is from that of the earlier
generation. In the past radical changes of this sort
took place over centuries. Now they occur in only a few years. These constant
changes over time make
people feel uneasy or insecure. Certain practices or traditional things
that people have done all their lives suddenly become
obsolete. This leads to an experience of disorientation and alienation with
modern
life. Everything stable seems to slip away and
there seems to be nothing fixed to hold on to. This is the situation that we face
in the
21st-century. The Danish philosopher and religious
thinker Soren Kierkegaard saw these changes taking place in the 19th century
and he gave a
brilliant analysis of them. While Kierkegaard never heard of the
internet, the iPad or the digital camera, none the less, he had
great insight into modernity. Today we can read his works and they can help
us to understand the world
around us and our place in it. Hello and welcome. Wherever you may be,
around the world. In Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the
Americas, or Europe. Welcome to the course, Soren Kierkegaard, Subjectivity,
Irony, and the Crisis of
Modernity. My name is Jon Stewart, and I'm a scholar
at the Soren Kierkegaard Research Center at the Faculty of Theology at the
University of
Copenhagen. In this course, we'll examine the thought
of Soren Kierkegaard, a unique figure who has inspired, provoked, fascinated
and
irritated people ever since he walked the streets of
Copenhagen. We'll follow in Kierkegaard's footsteps
and see the actual places where he lived and wrote his famous
works. Today, scholars argue about. Whether Kierkegaard was a philosopher, a
theologian, an inspirational writer, a
literary author, a psychologist, or something else
altogether. In the end, he was a little bit of all
these things. And his highly creative form of writing
makes it difficult to say exactly what genre he was
using. Or what academic field he belonged to. This feature of his writing is
reflected
in the complex history of the reception of
his thought. His works have been enormously influential
for a number of different fields. For example, philosophy, theology, religious
studies, literary
theory, aesthetics and psychology. That a single thinker can appeal to people
in so many different disciplines is
interesting in itself. But the truly odd thing about this
reception is that he's had an appeal to people who radically
disagree among each other. And thus represent conflicting positions. He's been
seen as an advocate of both progressive political views and
reactionary ones. He's been celebrated as both an existentialist and an
essentialist. He's been hailed as both a critic of
German idealism and a follower of it. One explanation for this odd aspect of
his
reception is that there's something undetermined or
open ended about Kierkegaard's writings. That allows him in a sense to speak
to
everyone. And in his works, rich and diverse as they
are, one can always seem to find something special that gives one special
insight into one's own life and
situation. I hope that all of you around the world
will find this to be true, as you begin to read the texts
for this course. I hope that you will find in his texts
something that speaks to you personally. In this class, we'll explore how
Kierkegaard deals with the problems associated with
relativism, the lack of meaning, and the crisis of religious faith that are typical
of modern
life. In his famous work The Concept of Irony,
from 1841. Kierkegaard examines different forms of
subjectivism and relativism as they're conceived as criticisms of
traditional culture. What do we mean by these terms,
subjectivism and relativism? We say, for example, that a certain law or custom
is merely relative in the sense that it is only accepted in one culture or
society but rejected in others. When we make statements of this sort,
they're usually critical and intended to undermine the validity of the
law or custom at issue. In other words if something is merely
relative, then it doesn't have absolute validity or authority, and therefore we
can choose to follow it or not. This is the way that we're used to talking about
things like
relativism and subjectivism. Kierkegaard refers to these different
tendencies under the heading, irony. Why does he use this term? Sometimes
when people today say that
something is ironic, they mean that it was an unfortunate or
fateful event. For example, in the sense that one might
say that when a bad thing happened to a bad person, this
is ironic. But this isn't what Kierkegaard means. Instead when we're ironic
about something
we say the opposite of what we really mean, and the context
alerts the listener to this. For example here in Copenhagen when we're
having bad weather with violent rain or heavy snow I might say it's
wonderful weather that we're having. Since the person addressed knows that
the
weather at the moment is, in fact, very poor, they immediately know that I
don't
literally mean what I'm saying, but rather, that I'm
being ironic. This is the way irony is commonly used. But irony can also be
used in a critical
manner. For example, in politics, if I disagree
with a specific policy or proposed law, I might
say. That's a great policy, that's a great law,
thereby meaning exactly the opposite. It's this critical sense of irony that is
the kind of thing that Kierkegaard has in mind when he associates it with
subjectivism and
relativism. With this kind of irony, one can criticize accepted
customs and practices and indeed absolutely
anything at all. In The Concept of Irony, Kierkegaard
compares irony in the form used by the ancient Greek philosopher Socrates
with modern irony,
which is represented by the German Romantics in his own day. In both cases,
an attempt is made to use
critical reflection to call into question
traditional beliefs and ways of thinking. While Kierkegaard is critical of the
Romantics.
He has great praise for Socrates. Indeed, he takes Socrates as his model in
his attempt to criticize his own Danish culture and its concept of
religion in the 19th Century. By contrast the Romantics were seen to
represent a typical modern kind of problem that we just mentioned,
subjectivism,
relativism, nihilism, alienation, lack of meaning and so forth. As the modern
movements of existentialism, post-structuralism and post-modernism
reveal, the issues that Kierkegaard addressed are still among the central
problems of
philosophy today. At the end of his life Kierkegaard looking
back on his work wrote that his task was a
Socratic task. Moreover he says I quote, "The only analogy I
have before me is Socrates." What did he mean by this? He seems to have
taken Socrates, or you
could say his own version of Socrates. As his personal model in his own life.
In his writings, he took himself to be
doing something like what Socrates was doing
with his philosophy, so in order to understand what Kierkegaard
meant by this, we first need to see how he
understood Socrates and what he took Socrates to
stand for. One we've identified the key elements of
Kierkegaard's understanding of character and philosophy
of Socrates, then we can try to see how he'd tried to make
use of these in his own work. The obvious place to start with this is with
Kierkegaard's book The
Concept of Irony which contains his most detailed explanation of
the figure of Socrates. In this first lecture we want to make a
start at this. Today we'll first look at Kierkegaard's
early life, his family background and his education at the School of Civic
Virtue here in Copenhagen. We'll then turn to the Concept of Irony
and try to understand its structure and argumentative strategy. Finally, we'll
have a look at a couple of
Plato's dialogues. The Euthyphro and The Apology. In which we'll see some of
the key elements of Socrates' philosophy
portrayed. Specifically, we'll have a look at the
following themes. Socrates' irony. Socrates' ability to reduce his dialogue
partner to what's called aporia or being at a loss.
Socrates' relation to the sophists. Socrates' self-understanding as the gadfly
of Athens. Socrates' daimon or personal spirit. And finally, Socrates' art of
midwifery
or maieutics. Our goal here is to understand these ideas in the original context
of Socrates'
thought. As portrayed by Plato.
Then we'll go on to see how Kierkegaard understands them and appropriates
them for his own
purposes. Soren Kierkegaard was born here in
Copenhagen on May the 5th, 1813. He came into the world in a house that
stood here on this square, called Nytorv, or
the new market. Unfortunately, the house was destroyed in
1908, but we can see it portrayed in pictures from the
period. The building stood next door to the
dominant structure on the square, the courthouse with the
large neoclassical columns. Kierkegaard lived during the rich period in Danish
cultural
life, that's usually referred to as the Danish
Golden Age. This was the period when people such as
the fairy tale author Hans Christian Andersen and the physicist Hans Christian
Orsted
flourished. Copenhagen was a relatively small town at
the time, and all these figures knew each other and mutually
enriched each other's work. For example, Kierkegaard's first book,
From the Papers of One Still Living, was published in 1838 and was a
criticism
of a novel by Hans Christian Andersen. Although this was a rich cultural
period
in Denmark with regard to economics, at the time of Kierkegaard's birth,
Copenhagen was a poor city in an impoverished country. In the year when he
was born, the Danish
state had gone bankrupt. There were only a few people who could preserve
their property in these
difficult times. Kierkegaard's father, a man named Michael Pedersen
Kierkegaard, was one of these
few. He bought a house on Nytorv in 1809, a couple of years before
Kierkegaard's
birth. Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard was born into
a very poor family. He came from Jutland to Copenhagen when he
was 12 years old. In Copenhagen he became an apprentice in a
wool business of his uncle's. And after about 10 years he became
independent and had his own business. He was extremely successful. And in
time became rich. Kierkegaard's mother, Ane Sorensdatter
Lund was the father's second wife. She was the maid servant in the father's
house and they married 13 months after the death of his
father's first wife. Kierkegaard's father was a profoundly
religious man and Kierkegaard was raised in the tradition of
Lutheran Christianity. That stamped the character of Kierkegaard
and his elder brother Peter Christian
Kierkegaard who went on to study theology and became a leading pastor and
later bishop in the Danish
church. When Kierkegaard was a boy, his nickname around the house was
The Fork. The reason for this was that one day when
he was asked what he wanted to be when he grew up, he
replied, a fork. When asked why a fork, he responded, then
I can spear anything I wanted on the dinner
table. When he was then asked, but what if we
were to come after you? He replied, then I'll spear you. The story evidences
the fact that the
young Kierkegaard was a provocative lad who enjoyed getting
the better of people. Soren Kierkegaard was the youngest of seven children.
All of Kierkegaard's brothers and sisters
died at a fairly young age with the sole exception of his elder
brother Peter Christian. The early deaths of his siblings caused a shadow of
melancholy to hover over the
Kierkegaard home. By 1834 when Kierkegaard was just 21 years
old only he, his brother Peter Christian and
his father remained. All of the others, five brothers and
sisters, and his mother, were dead. This is the school where Kierkegaard first
learned
Latin and Greek, and developed his interest in the
classics. The School of Civic Virtue was founded in
1789. As a school for the sons of wealthy
bourgeois families. Kierkegaard attended the school from 1821
to 1830 when he was admitted to the University of
Copenhagen. The school was an intensive one that
focused on classical education in Latin, Greek and
Hebrew. It was here that Kierkegaard learned
ancient Greek and developed a love for Greek culture and
literature. During his time at the school he studied
in Greek, Homer's Iliad and Odyssey and some of Herodotus'
Histories and some of the New Testament. Most importantly he also read some
of the dialogues of the Greek philosopher, Plato,
specifically the Euthyphro. The Apology and The Crito. He also read another
important source of
the life and teachings of Socrates namely
Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates. It was presumably here that
Kierkegaard
first made the acquaintance of the figure of Socrates who'd fascinate him for
the rest of his life. But looking back at his time at the school, Kierkegaard
probably didn't have
so many fond memories. By all accounts, he didn't have many
friends, which was probably due to the fact that he had a tendency to tease
and antagonize his fellow students. With his superior intellect. He enjoyed
demonstrating his cleverness by
soundly refuting the arguments of his classmates and making
them look silly. Unfortunately since he wasn't the largest
boy in the class his provocations had the
negative consequence that he occasionally was beaten by others
for the humiliation that they had suffered at
his hands. In any case, these negative experiences
didn't prevent him from returning to the school later in life to
teach Latin. Kierkegaard's book, The Concept of Irony,
is divided into two large parts. Part One is entitled The Position of
Socrates Viewed as Irony. In this part he compares the picture of Socrates
that's presented by the three
main ancient sources. Plato, Xenophon, and Aristophanes. As we know, Plato
and Xenophon were both
students of Socrates. And wrote dialogues in which they presented
their beloved teacher as the main speaker. By contrast, Aristophanes parodied
Socrates in a humorous manner in a comedy called The
Clouds. The view that Kierkegaard constantly urges
throughout his analysis is that Socrates doesn't have any
positive philosophical doctrine or theory, but rather he merely
contradicts or refutes what others say without
presenting anything positive. In his own name.
In this sense Socrates represents a negative, destructive force. Kierkegaard
doesn't mean that Socrates is
negative in the sense that we mean today when we talk of someone, for
example, having a negative disposition. That is someone who is a little bit
pessimistic. Rather, Socrates is negative in the sense
that he refuses to present a positive thesis or
doctrine. With concrete positive content. His undertaking is negative insofar as
it is designed to undermine the
position of others. In the first part of the work, Kierkegaard
wants to establish that this interpretation of Socrates is in fact well-grounded
in the ancient sources
themselves. This first part of the work is followed by an appendix called
Hegel's View of
Socrates. This refers to the treatment of Socrates by the German philosopher
Hegel in his
lectures. Hegel's interpretation of Socrates and his
role in the development of philosophy and culture was profoundly
influential at the time. Kierkegaard knew this and made a careful
study of Hegel's different accounts of Socrates which he critically built on
in The Concept of Irony. So in order to understand Kierkegaard's
picture of Socrates we also have to have some insight into Hegel's
interpretation and Kierkegaard's response
to it. This will be the subject of the second video lecture. Part Two of
Kierkegaard's work is simply
titled The Concept of Irony. It's here that Kierkegaard treats the
modern form of irony in the German Romantics. While Socratic irony was
given a generally
positive treatment, the Romantics are criticized as using irony in the
service of relativism or nihilism. Their goal is simply to undermine
bourgeois society, but there's no truth or deeper meaning that they wish to
propose to replace it. The final short section of the work is
entitled Irony as a Controlled Element, the Truth
of Irony. This section has been quite controversial
in the secondary literature. It seems to be Kierkegaard's presentation
of his own view of the proper and appropriate use of
irony. Clearly, it's impossible to go back to
ancient Athens and use irony in the same way that Socrates did, since
the historical and cultural background has changed so radically since his time.
Romantic irony is likewise no alternative
given Kierkegaard's criticism of that in the pages that precede this
section. So, instead, he suggests a limited form of
irony which he believes is the most appropriate in his
own day.