Kierkegaard's Writings, II, Volume 2

The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates/Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures

Søren Kierkegaard, Howard V. Hong, Edna H. Hong

• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781400846924
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Philosophy of Religion

A work that "not only treats of irony but is irony, " wrote a contemporary reviewer of The Concept of Irony, with Continual Reference to Socrates. Presented here with Kierkegaard's notes of the celebrated Berlin lectures on "positive philosophy" by F.W.J. Schelling, the book is a seedbed of Kierkegaard's subsequent work, both stylistically and thematically. Part One concentrates on Socrates, the master ironist, as interpreted by Xenophon, Plato, and Aristophanes, with a word on Hegel and Hegelian categories. Part Two is a more synoptic discussion of the concept of irony in Kierkegaard's categories, with examples from other philosophers and with particular attention given to A. W. Schlegel's novel Lucinde as an epitome of romantic irony. The Concept of Irony and the Notes of Schelling's Berlin Lectures belong to the momentous year 1841, which included not only the completion of Kierkegaard's university work and his sojourn in Berlin, but also the end of his engagement to Regine Olsen and the initial writing of Either/Or.

Part One
THE POSITION OF SOCRATES VIEWED AS IRONY

INTRODUCTION [XIII 105]

⁸If there is anything that must be praised in modern philosophical endeavor in its magnificent manifestation, it certainly is the power of genius with which it seizes and holds on to the phenomenon. Now if it is fitting for the phenomenon, which as such is always foeminini generis [of the feminine gender], to surrender to the stronger on account of its feminine nature, then in all fairness one can also demand of the philosophical knight a deferential propriety and a profound enthusiasm, in place of which one sometimes hears too much the jingling of spurs and the voice of the master. The observer ought to be an amorist; he must not be indifferent to any feature, any factor. But on the other hand he ought to have a sense of his own predominance—but should use it only to help the phenomenon obtain its full disclosure. Therefore, even if the observer does bring the concept along with him, it is still of great importance that the phenomenon remain inviolate and that the concept be seen as coming into existence [tilblivende] through the phenomenon.⁹

Before I proceed to an exposition of the concept of irony, it is necessary to make sure that I have a reliable and authentic view of Socrates’ historical-actual, phenomenological existence with respect to the question of its possible relation to the transformed view that was his fate through enthusiastic or envious contemporaries. This becomes inescapably necessary, because the concept of irony makes its entry into the world through Socrates.¹⁰ Concepts, just like individuals, have their history and are no more able than they to resist the dominion of time, but in and through it all they nevertheless harbor a [XIII 106] kind of homesickness for the place of their birth. Indeed, philosophy can now on one side no more disregard the recent history of this concept than it can stop with its earliest history, no matter how copious and interesting. Philosophy continually demands something more, demands the eternal, the true, compared with which even the most sterling existence is in itself just a fortunate moment. On the whole, the relation of philosophy to history is like that of a father confessor to a penitent and therefore like him ought to have a sensitive, perceptive ear for the secrets of the penitent but, having examined the whole sequence of confessed sins, is then also able to make this manifest to the penitent as something else. Just as the individual making a confession is certainly able not only to reel off the incidents of his life chronologically but also to relate them entertainingly but still does not comprehend them himself, so history certainly is also able to declare the eventful life of the human race with pathos and in a loud voice but must leave it to the senior* (philosophy) to explain it and is then able to relish the delightful surprise that at first is almost unwilling to acknowledge the copy provided by philosophy but gradually, to the degree that it familiarizes itself with this philosophical view, eventually regards this as the actual truth and the other as apparent truth.

* Some may take exception to my calling philosophy the senior, but I am assuming, of course, that the eternal is older than the temporal, and even though philosophy in many ways comes later than history, it in fact instantly makes such a monumental step that it passes the temporal, considers itself to be the eternal prius [first]¹¹ and, reflecting ever more deeply about itself, recollects itself further and further back in time into eternity, does not recollect it into eternity in reverie but, more and more awake, recollects it not as the past but recollects the past as a present.

Thus there are these two elements that constitute the essential issue [Mellemværende¹²] between history and philosophy. Both of them ought to have their rights so that, on the one [XIII 107] hand, the phenomenon has its rights** and is not to be intimidated and discouraged by philosophy’s superiority, and philosophy, on the other hand, is not to let itself be infatuated by the charms of the particular, is not to be distracted by the superabundance of the particular. The same holds for the concept of irony: philosophy is not to look too long at one particular side of its phenomenological existence and above all at its appearance but is to see the truth of the concept in and with the phenomenological.

** Philosophy relates itself in this respect to history—in its truth, as eternal life to the temporal according to the Christian view—in its untruth, as eternal life to the temporal according to the Greek and the antique view in general. [XIII 107] According to the latter view, eternal life began when one drank of the river Lethe in order to forget the past;¹³ according to the former, eternal life is attended by the bone-and-marrow-piercing consciousness of every idle word that is spoken.¹⁴

It is common knowledge, of course, that tradition has linked the word “irony” to the existence of Socrates, but it by no means follows that everyone knows what irony is. Moreover, if through an intimate acquaintance with Socrates’ life and way of living someone gained a notion of his singularity, he still would not therefore have a total concept of what irony is. In saying this, we are by no means nourishing the distrust of historical existence that would identify becoming [Vordelsen] with a falling away from the idea,¹⁵ since it is much more the unfolding of the idea. This, to repeat, is far from our intention, but on the other hand neither can one assume that a specific element of existence as such would be absolutely adequate to the idea. In other words, just as it has been correctly pointed out that nature is unable to adhere to the concept¹⁶—partly because each particular phenomenon contains but one element, and partly because the whole sum of natural existence is still always an imperfect medium that engenders longing [Forlængsel] rather than gratification¹⁷—so also something similar can legitimately be said about history, inasmuch as every single fact does indeed evolve, but only as an element, and the whole sum of historical existence is still not the completely adequate medium of the idea, since it is the idea’s temporality and fragmentariness (just as nature is its spatiality) that long for the backward-looking repulse emanating, face to and against face,¹⁸ from the consciousness.

This must be enough on the difficulty inherent in any philosophical conception of history and the care that therefore ought to be taken. Special situations, however, may be attended with new difficulties, which is especially the case in the present inquiry. For example, what Socrates himself prized so highly, namely, standing still and contemplating¹⁹—in other words, silence—this is his whole life in terms of world history. [XIII 108] He has left nothing by which a later age can judge him; indeed, even if I were to imagine myself his contemporary, he would still always be difficult to comprehend. In other words, he belonged to the breed of persons with whom the outer as such is not the stopping point. The outer continually pointed to something other and opposite. He was not like a philosopher delivering his opinions in such a way that just the lecture itself is the presence of the idea, but what Socrates said meant something different.²⁰ The outer was not at all in harmony with the inner²¹ but was rather its opposite, and only under this angle of refraction²² is he to be comprehended. Therefore, the question of a view in regard to Socrates is quite different from what it is in regard to most other people. Because of this, Socrates can of necessity be comprehended only through a combined reckoning. But since we are now separated from him by centuries, and even his own age could not apprehend him in his immediacy, it is easy to see that it becomes doubly difficult for us to reconstruct his existence, inasmuch as we must strive to comprehend an already complicated view by means of a new combined reckoning. If we now say that irony constituted the substance of his existence (this is, to be sure, a contradiction, but it is supposed to be that), and if we further postulate that irony is a negative concept,²³ it is easy to see how difficult it becomes to fix the picture of him—indeed, it seems impossible or at least as difficult as to picture a nisse²⁴ with the cap that makes him invisible.

I
The View Made Possible [XIII 109]

We shall now move to a summary of the views of Socrates provided by his closest contemporaries. In this respect there are three who command our attention: Xenophon, Plato, and Aristophanes. I cannot fully agree with Baur,* who thinks that, along with Plato, Xenophon should be most highly regarded. Xenophon stopped with Socrates’ immediacy and thus has definitely misunderstood him in many ways;** whereas Plato and Aristophanes have blazed a trail through [XIII 110] the tough exterior to a view of the infinity that is incommensurable with the multifarious events of his life. Thus it can be said of Socrates that just as he walked through life continually between a caricature and the ideal, so after his death he continues to stroll between those two. As for the relation between Xenophon and Plato, Baur is correct in saying on page 123: “Zwischen diesen Beiden tritt uns aber sogleich eine Differenz entgegen, die in mancher Hinsicht mit dem bekannten Verhältnisz verglichen werden kann, welches zwischen den synoptischen Evangelien und dem des Johannes stattfindet. Wie die synoptischen Evangelien zunächst mehr nur die äussere, mit der jüdischen Messias-Idee zusammenhängende, Seite der Erscheinung Christi darstellen, das johanneische aber vor allem seine höhere Natur und das unmittelbar Göttliche in ihm ins Auge faszt, so hat auch der platonische Sokrates eine weit höhere ideellere Bedeutung als der xenophontische, mit welchem wir uns im Grunde immer nur auf dem Boden der Verhältnisse des unmittelbaren praktischen Lebens befinden [Yet we instantly encounter a difference between these two that in many respects may be likened to the well-known relation between the Synoptic Gospels and the Gospel of John. Just as the Synoptic Gospels present primarily only the external aspect of Christ’s appearance, the aspect connected with the Jewish idea of the Messiah, whereas the Gospel of John above all captures his higher nature and the immediately divine within him, so also the Platonic Socrates does indeed have an ideal significance far higher than the Xenophontic Socrates, with whom we in effect always find ourselves on the flat and even level of conditions belonging to the immediate practical life].” Baur’s comment is not only striking but also to the point when one remembers that Xenophon’...