Volume 6, Tome II: Kierkegaard and His German Contemporaries - Theology

Jon Stewart

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• Print ISBN: 9781138273627
• eBook ISBN: 9781351874458
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy History & Theory

This volume explores in detail Kierkegaard's various relations to his German contemporaries. Kierkegaard read German fluently and made extensive use of the writings of German-speaking authors. Apart from his contemporary Danish sources, the German sources were probably the most important in the development of his thought generally. This volume represents source-work research dedicated to tracing Kierkegaard's readings and use of the various German-speaking authors in the different fields in a way that is as clearly documented as possible. The volume has been divided into three tomes reflecting Kierkegaard's main areas of interest with regard to the German-speaking sources, namely, philosophy, theology and a more loosely conceived category, which has here been designated "literature and aesthetics." This second tome of the present volume is dedicated to Kierkegaard's main theological influences. In theology the German and the Danish traditions had long been closely connected via their common source: Luther. In Kierkegaard's time the main influence on theology was probably German philosophy and specifically Hegelianism. Most of the German theologians were in some way in a critical dialogue with this movement. Another important influence was Schleiermacher, who visited Copenhagen in 1833 and was important for several Golden Age thinkers. From his student days Kierkegaard kept abreast of the German theological literature, from which he drew much inspiration.

Rosenkranz:
Traces of Hegelian Psychology and Theology in Kierkegaard

Heiko Schulz

I.

Johann Karl (sometimes Carl) Friedrich Rosenkranz was born in Magdeburg on 23 April 1805, as the son of a tax official. He studied theology, philosophy and German philology in Berlin, Halle and Heidelberg, where he came under the influence of Karl Daub (1765–1836) and where he later received his doctorate. In 1828, he was appointed Privatdozent in Halle, where he had submitted a thesis on Spinoza; soon afterwards he became professor “extraordinarius.” Although initially unimpressed by Hegel—occasionally attending his lectures in Berlin—he began reading his works more intensively in Halle and from 1831 participated actively in the Hegelian circle there. Having received a professorship in Berlin, he became friends with Hegel himself and even attended his birthday celebration a few weeks before Hegel’s death. In 1833 Rosenkranz became professor “ordinarius” of philosophy at the University of Königsberg (then Prussia) as the successor of Johann Friedrich Herbart (1776–1841). Apart from a brief political career in Berlin during the revolutionary crisis of 1848–49, he remained in Königsberg, where he died on 14 June 1879.

Rosenkranz’s vast opus comprises over 40 monographs in addition to countless articles. These works make substantial contributions to a variety of fields, such as logic, metaphysics, aesthetics, psychology, theology, pedagogy, biography, literary history, political and social theory.¹ With very few exceptions, however, none of his major works has enjoyed an extensive reception. Nor have they been reprinted—most of them simply fell into oblivion after the heyday of Hegelianism in the second half of the nineteenth century.²

That things were quite different in Kierkegaard’s day, is plain to see. Although occasionally accused of being a mere epigone, Rosenkranz was at the time considered and respected generally as one of the more original, in any case one of the most productive and stylistically accessible, Hegel-adepts among contemporary German philosophers. Ever striving to mediate between the more extreme claims of the right Hegelians (for example, Erdmann, Gabler, Marheineke, Michelet) and the left Hegelians (for example, Feuerbach, Strauss, Vatke, Ruge), he was, according to the Straussian label, considered the main representative of the “center”³—trying as such to do justice both to Hegel’s own views and to their apparently contradictory applications within the two opposing groups of the master’s followers.⁴ Even in retrospect Strauss’ judgment seems essentially correct: not only with regard to the contemporary theological debate (where the compatibility of Hegel’s thought with Christianity was the main point at issue), but also with respect to Rosenkranz’s efforts to compromise in philosophy (where he tried to reconcile central views of Kant and Hegel⁵) and in politics (where he advocated a constitutional monarchy, while at the same time defending the freedom of the press and vigorously attacking the repressive policies of the Prussian administration⁶).

II.

Kierkegaard did not read or know many of Rosenkranz’s books or articles.⁷ The ones that he actually worked with, however, left (at least in part) a lasting impression on him, as will soon become clear. The first time that he stumbled upon the latter’s name may have been in May 1837, as a journal entry witnesses.⁸ Kierkegaard had obviously just received or read the first number of the second volume of Bruno Bauer’s Zeitschrift für spekulative Theologie, which contains a long article by Rosenkranz—an article that will eventually turn out to be of crucial importance for Kierkegaard’s view of the relation between Pagan, Jewish and Christian religion.⁹ Before hearing his name again in Martensen’s lectures on speculative dogmatics,¹⁰ Kierkegaard had presumably already purchased Rosenkranz’s Encyklopädie der theologischen Wissenschaft (ASKB 35), for he quotes the book in a notebook entry from summer 1837.¹¹ During his first stay in Berlin, he then bought the Kritische Erläuterungen (ASKB 745) and used it while working on Either/Or, Part Two.¹² In April 1843 Kierkegaard acquired Rosenkranz’s Schelling study (ASKB 766)¹³—a book that would prove to be of major importance for a number of passages in The Concept of Anxiety. In addition to these, there are two further works by Rosenkranz—both from 1837—that were part of Kierkegaard’s library;¹⁴ however, we do not know, when he acquired them.¹⁵

On a surface level it seems quite unproblematic to assess the extent and significance of Kierkegaard’s reception of Rosenkranz—which is a non-reciprocal reception, anyway.¹⁶ For, on the one hand, not only the direct and explicit, but also (at least some of) the direct and implicit references to the latter’s work are relatively easy to identify within the Kierkegaardian corpus.¹⁷ And, on the other hand, these references are not very numerous. However, if we dig a little deeper, there is, in my opinion, more to be said—both with respect to a number of formal and material reflections or repercussions of Rosenkranzian themes and ideas in Kierkegaard. Without, for the time being, differentiating between both levels of the history of reception, I will, in order preliminarily to orient the reader, give a schematical overview that comprises what I take to be (most of) all of the pertinent references:

	explicit	implicit
direct	1. Pseudonymous Works: SKS 1, 134 / CI, 75 (source unknown; maybe Rosenkranz’s review of Schleiermacher’s Glaubenslehre, in: Jahrbücher für wissenschaftliche Kritik 2, 1831, p. 949) SKS 4, 337 / CA, 30 (allusion to Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, p. 332 or Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, pp. xxiii–xxx, and 179–82) SKS 4, 447f. / CA, 147ff. (on Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, pp. 320ff., pp. 209ff., and pp. 157–62)	1. Pseudonymous Works: SKS 4, 235–8 / PF, 29–32 (probably a reflection of “Eine Parallele zur Religionsphilosophie,” especially p. 1) SKS 4, 322 / CA, 14 (maybe a reflection of Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, pp. 11f.) SKS 4, 331 / CA, 23 (probably allusion to the title of Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist) SKS 4, 356 / CA, 51 (a reflection of Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, p. 133)* SV1 11, 235 / SUD, 126 (maybe a reflection of “Eine Parallele zur Religionsphilosophie,” especially p. 1)
direct	2. Journals and Notebooks: SKS 17, 213, DD :1 / JP 2, 2211 (on “Eine Parallele zur Religionsphilosophie,” especially p. 1) SKS 17, 219–20, DD:10 / JP 5, 5222 (paraphrase of “Eine Parallele zur Religionsphilosophie,” pp. 1–31) SKS 17, 234, DD:36 (quotation from Encyklopädie der theologischen Wissenschaften, p. 73) SKS 18, 343–52, KK:4–KK:4.k / JP 3, 2747 [abbreviated] (numerous excerpts from E) Pap. III B 41.9 (on Kritische Erläuterungen des Hegel’schen Systems, pp. 308f.) SKS 18, 172, JJ:102 / JP 1, 899 (on Erinnerungen an Karl Daub, pp. 24f) SKS 19, 406, Not13:41 / JP 2, 1596 (reference to Rosenkranz’s edition of Hegel’s Philosophische Propädeutik, Berlin 1840, p. 93) Pap. V B 53.2 (maybe allusion to Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, p. 332) Pap. V B 53.18 (on Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, pp. 303f. and pp. 308ff.) Pap. V B 67 and V B 69 / JP 3, 3795 (on Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, pp. 320ff. and pp. 157–62)	2. Journals and Notebooks: SKS 18, 200, JJ:187 / JP 2, 1604 (maybe allusion to Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, p. 187) Pap. V B 14, p. 71 (maybe allusion to Kritische Erläuterungen des Hegel’schen Systems, p. 11 or pp. 155ff.) Pap. V B 53.9 / JP 3, 3557 (allusion to Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, p. 96 and p. 331) Pap. V B 55.17 (maybe a reflection of Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, pp. 259f.) Pap. V B 60, p. 134 (allusion to Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, p. 334) Pap. V B 72.10 (a reflection of Schelling. Vorlesungen, gehalten im Sommer 1842 an der Universität zu Königsberg, p. 303) Pap. V B 150.25 (allusion to Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s Leben, pp. 296ff. and pp. 315ff.)
indirect	1. Pseudonymous Works	[irrelevant]
	2. Journals and Notebooks: SKS 19, 126–7, Not4:4 (a Martensen reference to Rosenkranz; source unknown)	[irrelevant]

* That Kierkegaard freely draws on Rosenkranz here has hitherto gone unnoticed (see SKS K4, 418). However, it seems that the latter’s own report refers to yet another (still unidentified) source; see Psychologie oder die Wissenschaft vom subjectiven Geist, p. 133: “Wenn man seinen Namen vergißt, wie jener Hofrath, d...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• Bruno Bauer: Biblical Narrative, Freedom and Anxiety
• F.C. Baur: On the Similarity and Dissimilarity between Jesus and Socrates
• Bretschneider: The Tangled Legacy of Rational Supernaturalism
• Daub: Kierkegaard’s Paradoxical Appropriation of a Hegelian Sentry
• Erdmann: Appropriation and Criticism, Error and Understanding
• Günther: Kierkegaard’s Use of an Austrian Catholic Theologian
• Marheineke: The Volatilization of Christian Doctrine
• Julius Müller: Parallels in the Doctrines of Sin and Freedom in Kierkegaard and Müller
• Rosenkranz: Traces of Hegelian Psychology and Theology in Kierkegaard
• Schleiermacher: Revisiting Kierkegaard’s Relationship to Him
• D.F. Strauss: Kierkegaard and Radical Demythologization
• Index of Persons
• Subject Index