The One I Got an F on!

In Fall of 2000 I was a lad of twenty, deeply excited by ideas, and as a self-proclaimed existentialist, eager beyond words to take the Philosophy Department’s course, “Existentialism in Literature and Film.”

Reading Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and internalizing his concepts of Faith and Absurdity was perhaps the single most influential event in the development of my intellectual life (the only competition came the same Fall semester, when I internalized Antonio Gramci’s concept of the Philosophy of Praxis).  Remember, George W. Bush hadn’t taken the presidency just yet, and it still seemed possible to believe in the power and importance of ideas – that and of course I was studying at the Intellectual Liberal capital of the world.

I was a good, hard working lad at the time, and through much toil and dedicated study, I had reached the point where I expected to get A’s on my papers, provided I put enough thought and energy into them.   My grades were excellent at Berkeley, and when they faltered, it was more often than not due to my over-commitment to theatre projects.

However, after excitedly writing and turning in my paper on Kierkegaard, my Graduate Student Instructor (these instructors being the great drawback to the University of California, in my humble opinion) returned to me my prized work with a big black “F” and the words, “I don’t understand a word of this.  I suspect that it’s bullshit, but I don’t understand a word of it, so I can’t tell.”

So began a slow and painful shattering of naïve faith in academia, for this earnest young lad.

Now, for your reading pleasure,, the original maddening essay, complete with disclaiming cover letter to the instructor, with further commentary at the end…

Dear [INSTRUCTOR] –

                First, take this cover note as you will, the paper is meant to stand on it’s own without it, although I did want to clarify a few things. I have no idea if this is necessary, but I figure it can’t hurt.

                I believe that the format of my paper is somewhat unconventional.  I chose to do this intentionally because it seemed to be the best way I knew how to express what I wanted to say.  If I’ve lost clarity as the result, I’m happy to accept and learn from the consequences.  It is only because I take these ideas so seriously that I wish to write about them in this way.   I look forward to discussing with you the problems in my “logic” (as opposed, I think, to problems in my “illogic,” which we can also talk about).

Thank you,

-- Jonathan

Fear and Temporality

and Finitude and Trembling

Ruminations on the Dynamic Nature of Kierkegaard’s Rhetoric

“In addition to a yes and a no, the universe contains a maybe.”

--Dr. David Finkelstein, Quantum Physicist

            Let us look to the title of Fear and Trembling and ask ourselves, what exactly do we suppose Kierkegaard means? “When the old campaigner approached the end, had fought the good fight, and kept his faith, his heart was still young enough not to have forgotten the fear and trembling which disciplined his youth and which…no man altogether outgrows,” (p.42).  We see the man who dies with faith understands the trembling of his youth, the force which disciplined him, we might suppose, to have that very faith in the first place.  In this fear and trembling there is reverence, and vulnerability, and something more.  More, in the nature of the relationship fear holds to trembling, that of the abstract emotion to its own physical expression.  Here opens the gateway into the problem of attempting any sort of conventional understanding of Kierkegaard’s meaning – For Soren Kierkegaard deals not only in logic, but also in the death of logic, the paradox by which, “Faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off.” (p.82).  One understands the statement, but perhaps neglects to ask the question – if one must leave off thinking to experience faith, how then can this book, as a philosophic text wherein thought about faith is recorded, possibly hope to contribute anything?  Oddly, the question contains its own answer.  Kierkegaard uses the paradoxical nature of his self-destructive rhetoric to reinforce the paradox of his content, which in turn reinforces the paradox of faith – so that the text as a whole acts not merely a breakdown of faith, but a dynamic demonstration of faith as an operational concept.  Conceiving, in this case, becomes believing.  But now, in the interest of the task at hand, let us look to the words in the title of the volume in question.

It is in finitude alone that we find fear – only in beginnings are endings necessitated, only in birth is there any concern for death – For it is only by the nature of their finitude that things change, and what is there to fear besides change*?  Then, through trembling, do we feel this fear passing from moment to moment through our physical bodies, connecting in rhythmic sensation one moment to the next.  Fear and trembling: the fear of the Finite and trembling of Temporality.  The former is the expression of man experiencing the infinite through the finite, the latter an expression of man experiencing the opposite, the finite through the infinite.  And although it is in this statement that we arrive at the paradox in question, let us first clarify how we might understand these relationships.  In the case of fear of the finite, man is aware of being part of a whole; containing the whole because he perceives something (in this case, his finitude) and thus exists[1] within the realm of existence; being but a part insofar as there exists a greater whole which does not terminate when he does (which for the purposes of this essay we will assume to be the case, else what should man have to fear in the first place, or rather, to mirror Kierkegaard’s syntax, else finitude has never existed precisely because it has always existed[2]).  Thus we can understand fear to be a state in which man is aware of his finitude in the context of the infinite, and so reciprocally experiences the infinite through this finitude.  What then of trembling? 

As I have defined it here, trembling is the physical expression of fear from moment to moment; the experience of finitude in the context of infinity (fear of the finite), expressed through finitude, as it relates to temporality.  The nature of this relation is thus: trembling is the finite expression by which fear moves through time – not within time.  For if fear is the expression of the infinite through the finite, and we assume that the infinite exists outside of temporality, then the man who trembles is experiencing infinity as a consistency – he is experiencing both the finite expression of the infinite in a given moment and, in linking this moment to the next, an infinite expression of the finite, insofar as the infinite continually must renew itself as that same immeasurable infinity.  In other words, he experiences each second as a second, but if in both seconds he experiences the same infinity, it follows then that he is actively experiencing the infinite – as the finitude of the seconds necessarily must change but the infinity of the infinite necessarily must not.  The seconds, in effect, pass through infinity as a part of it – so man can experience finitude only through a finite succession of the infinite.  So in trembling, one experiences finitude through infinity; So in fear, one experiences the infinite through the finite.  So do we begin to see the problem with understanding Kierkegaard.

If we look at the words “finite” and “infinite” as words, forgetting for a moment their meaning and conceptual relationship, we find a basic polarity.  A and not-A[3], as it were.  If we then return these terms their meaning, we can still understand how one might  include one concept as being contained by the other – in this case, The finite is contained within the infinite.  This can also be expressed as the particular being contained within the universal, or, as I will use it, the one being contained in the many.  The problem with understanding Kierkegaard begins to unfold when we view the polarity of finite and infinite in the context of “fear” and “trembling”, as defined above.  The problem is that the finite and infinite are operating as perfect reciprocals – meaning, the finite contains the infinite by virtue of the fact that the infinite contains the finite.  In this case we do not have the one contained in the many, but instead the one contained within the many contained within the one contained within the many -- in infinite regress[4].  The problem here is twofold.  First, we see the rough form of Kierkegaard’s paradox of faith (which is problematic insofar as it is a paradox).  In the case of Abraham, Kierkegaard demonstrates the destruction of Abraham’s highest commitment (Isaac) in the name of Abraham’s highest commitment (Isaac being Abraham’s one great thing) -- with faith in continued existence of Abraham’s highest commitment[5].  The paradox being that if Isaac where not understood to be destroyed by the act of sacrifice, it would not be a sacrifice – And so Abraham was forced to believe, absurdly, that Isaac would continue to exist in the finite sense even though he was precisely being destroyed in the finite sense.  In short, that the Finite should exist Infinitely, when this precisely is impossible, because were the finite to become infinite, the polarity inhering in the word structure would cease to exist.  Consider the rhetorical system as a whole then – how are we to deal with the fact that Kierkegaard’s terminology has such a pointed ability to wipe itself out?

The second problem inhering in the regressing paradox are the implications of an infinite regress when applied to a polarity (A and not-A).  While it may be comfortable to understand the many containing the one, or the one containing the many, the system breaks down when the system regresses infinitely in both cases.  In each case we must understand the one contained within the many to be the same one that contains the many, and no other.  So that the one, in containing the many, contains itself within the many, even as it contains the many.  In short the one and the many completely contain each other and themselves within themselves – the polarity becomes a unity (A is A) and the terminology collapses.  This should be impossible.  If the one and the many are unified, how did we come to make a polarized distinction between them in the first place?  How did the paradox of faith arise if the finite and the infinite were not distinct?  When viewed in this way, Kierkegaard’s reliance on paradox, when carried through, destroys the paradox itself:  If A and not-A are distinct from one another, as the paradox demands, but at the same time are not distinct, as faith demands, then neither the paradox nor faith exist.  Herein the brilliance of Kierkegaard begins to shine, as we see that his terminology, when contained within itself, destroys itself:  The Paradox of faith is that one, logically believing that A is A must then absurdly believe that A is not A, and in fact believe both at the same time, for if you don’t believe in the one then it is not absurd to believe in the other[6].  A knight of Faith, then, becomes who he is by acting as though A is both A and not-A at the same time.  Hence the father of faith, “acts on the strength of the absurd” (p. 85).  Semantically, as a logical thinker deconstructing and trying to “understand” the text -- mustn’t one ask the question – how can the absurd carry philosophical strength?

My purpose here is not to devalue deconstructive evaluations of Kierkegaard’s text.  Rather I mean to point out that the Rhetoric of Fear and Trembling has a secondary function which is harder to grasp by traditional analysis.  Namely, by creating the infinite regress of an impossible paradox, a textual device which is by nature non-definitive, and equating it with faith, used as a definitive philosophical term, the text is making a dynamic statement about how faith must be understood.  And although it would be forgivable to draw the conclusion that, if the above is true, then that statement must be that faith cannot be understood -- I believe to do so is the very embodiment of resignation[7].  To truly understand faith, one must apply it, and if we understand resignation to be the stance that faith cannot be logically understood, then we must understand faith to be the stance that faith is both completely understandable and completely impossible to understand at the same time.  Or, for one final reiteration, faith is the understanding that A is both A and Not-A at the same time.  The equation is both paradoxical and absurd, and yet where in Fear and Trembling does Kierkegaard describe faith as anything but paradoxical and absurd?  The dynamic nature of the text rests in logical breakdown of the illogical; in order to understand Kierkegaard’s conception of faith, one must understand the need to give up understanding – in effect that text is constantly demanding the reader have faith in the text – remarkable precisely because faith is that which the text describes as impossible as having.  The implication then, is this: that in every act of belief in Kierkegaard and his impossible paradox, we are acting as Knights of Faith; with every adherence to and insistence on conventional “logic,” we are stepping back from faith, as would a Knight of Resignation[8]. 

Granted, it is, shall we say, dense – a casual reading will probably prove immensely frustrating, and I suppose my underestimation of the level of irritation that Graduate students experience when forced to grade undergraduate papers was my downfall, in this instance.  I don’t deny the text lacks a certain logical clarity (on the contrary the prose imitates Kierkegaard’s delight  in irreverence towards old world logic), but seven years later reading it again I remain impressed with the meta-argument – the use of absurd rhetoric to demonstrate the relationship between absurdity and faith in Kierkegaard’s work.  And besides, all of the primary texts by Great Philosophers are absurdly dense. Kierkegaard’s in particular – and don’t I stand to learn more as a student by imitating the masters, rather than simply making dry and empty analytic commentaries on them?  It may not be an A paper, but even so!   Anyway, the important thing is, I got an F.

When I subsequently started meeting with this graduate student, who shall remain nameless, he seemed genuinely surprised that I genuinely believed I knew what the Hell I was talking about, and we agreed that I should rewrite the Essay.  However he then put his hand on my knee and said patronizingly, “I know this is hard.” – and in that instant I realized (as I suspected Nietzsche did) that Modern Analytical Philosophy was like a mind virus that had infected Western Civilization and was driving us all to ruin – and, I accordingly decided to do something about it.

This decision would eventually get me into a lot of trouble, but in the meantime, I had a paper to rewrite!  The following paper is dry, redundant, and only hints at whatever higher truths it presumes to embrace – it is also a highly sarcastic, somewhat veiled criticism of the Berkeley Philosophy Department (I vowed to never take one of their classes again, lest they succeed in their apparent-at-the-time mission to shut down my favorite brain centers and replace them with prepackaged analytic truisms.]

-         And whadaya know?  I got an A- !

Rhetorical Paradox:

The Importance of Going Further

            In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard attempts to explore and postulate about the concept of faith in terms that we can understand.  In writing the book, he has carried on that philosophic tradition which demands clear, definitive, and consistent use of terminology.  His rhetoric is subsequently structured as such that it makes excellent use of logic – a term which might also be understood as Aristotelian logic (as much of the groundwork for this method of thinking was laid down by Aristotle).  This term may also be understood as being synonymous with analysis.  We may generally understand analysis to be a rational thought process by which an object is broken down and understood in terms of its component parts.  However, the exact definition of this method of thinking is not entirely important.  Analysis was, and is, considered the best, if not only method of understanding, and rightly so.  I wish only to draw attention to the fact that Kierkegaard’s intended audience was prepared to understand his writings in the context of analytical thought alone.  Furthermore, it must be assumed that Kierkegaard expected every word, sentence, and argument within his text to be understood in this context – else why should his syntax conform to this methodology so perfectly?  Point being, Kierkegaard expected his writing to make sense, and we, as readers, make sense of his writings by means of analytical thinking.  This statement is almost redundant – the methodology of analysis is so self-evidently effective that most would assume that no distinction need be drawn between analytical thinking and thinking itself.

            And there would indeed be no point in going further if not for the fact that the content of all this thinking is the concept of faith – a term which Kierkegaard hopes to define anew.  One might immediately find it odd that Kierkegaard, while so clearly adhering to the Aristotelian tradition, at no point offers a working definition of the term faith, but rather insists on signifying the concept by holding it in reference to various other concepts.  Faith is peered at, questioned, and perhaps even feared – never is the term dissected.  And yet even regardless of whether this initial observation is made, the reader is still doomed to collide with a seemingly impassible wall upon reaching the conclusion to the preamble of Fear and Trembling, in which the author blatantly states, “faith begins precisely where thinking leaves off.” (p.82).

            I will halt here momentarily and attempt to emphasize how disastrous this last sentence truly is.  All thinkers present to this statement, that is, any reader and Kierkegaard himself, should not be able to proceed.  If faith exists beyond thinking, then attempting to understand faith by thinking must be futile.  All of the author’s analysis has reached an initial conclusion which functions, syntactically, to debunk thinking all together.  If one is to proceed analytically, it should be understood that Kierkegaard has failed, by any and all systems of logic, and the exploration of faith cannot be continued.  For if one analyzes the statement as an analytical statement, one must understand Kierkegaard to mean that faith cannot be analyzed – and if this is true then there is no way to proceed within the philosophic rhetoric set forth.  And yet Kierkegaard goes further.  And the reader, intrigued, goes with him.

            Rather than indulge in trying to find a new context for the analytic interpretation of faith as a term which apparently cannot be analyzed, I will merely point to the fact that the rhetoric of Kierkegaard’s argument here takes a startling turn.  Rhetorically, Kierkegaard is functioning as follows: the system of analytical thinking is being used to point to a concept which apparently exists outside of the system of analytical thinking.  If we assume, as most safely do, that analytical thinking is the only reliable method of thinking, than we are faced with a very sticky paradox.  And rightly so – for the closest the text ever comes to finding a term or definition synonymous with faith is by making reference to faith as a paradox[9].  If one continues to read Kierkegaard analytically, his arguments will constantly cancel themselves out, for in every moment that faith is demonstrated so too is it made explicitly clear that each of these demonstrations is paradoxical.  And while there is no doubt a great degree of enjoyment to be had in trying to resolve each of these paradoxical concepts as they come, and perhaps even to once in a while discover those places in which traditional analysis can safely fall away in the name of a richer life, it must not be ignored that fundamentally speaking, Kierkegaard is committing philosophical blasphemy.  It should not matter, to the true analytical thinker, how appealing Kierkegaard’s mysterious “faith” appears – the cold, hard, logical truth of the matter is that nestled within all of this analytical rhetoric is a concept which is fundamentally mystical, irrational, and in complete defiance of all analysis.  And if the one true method of thinking is analytical thinking, and all thinkable concepts must be analytical concepts, than faith must be understood to be inconceivable.  So that if any analytical thinker was hoping to find faith presented in any tangible or acceptable form within Kierkegaard’s writing, the inevitable conclusion that he will reach is that Kierkegaard has failed.  The inconceivable is, after all, the logically impossible.  And the logically impossible must not be credited for existing as anything but an impossibility.

            Kierkegaard would certainly agree that to believe otherwise would by analytically absurd.  If one gives even the slightest ground to the concept of faith as a conceptually existing beyond the realm of the analytical, one must confess to having committed a transgression against logic itself.  And yet this absurdity is precisely what Kierkegaard’s rhetoric demands.  By equating faith with a paradox of analysis, the text insists that understanding must occur on the basis of an alternative methodology of thinking, namely, on the basis of faith.  Rhetorically speaking, the analytical function of faith is the action of suspending analytical judgement.  And the glory of Abraham aside, the reader finds himself encountering faith, with equal impossibility, on the syntactical level.  One cannot go further in Fear and Trembling without having faith that faith exists and is conceivable despite the glaring truth that analytically, faith is necessarily irrational and inconceivable.  The rhetoric of the text cannot be understood unless faith (whatever faith will eventually present itself to be) is accepted despite being an analytical impossibility.  And what I find truly amazing about all of this confusion is that to take this action – to even begin to accept faith as an existing possibility – is an act faith in and of itself!

It is my personal contention that this, and this alone, is why the analytical thinker, in questioning whether to go further or abandon the search altogether, courageously proceeds, even though doing so shall surely take him beyond the boundaries of reason.

My purpose here is not to devalue analytical evaluations of Kierkegaard’s text.  Rather I mean to point out that the Rhetoric of Fear and Trembling has a secondary function which is harder to grasp by traditional analysis.  Namely, by revealing an impossible paradox, a textual device that is by nature non-definitive, and then equating it with faith, here masked as a definitive philosophical term, the text is making a dynamic statement about how faith must be understood.  And although it would be forgivable to draw the conclusion that, if the above is true, then this statement must be that faith cannot be understood -- I believe to do so is the very embodiment of resignation.  To truly understand faith, one must apply it, and if we understand resignation to be the stance that faith cannot be understood, then we must conversely understand faith to be the stance that faith is an understanding beyond analysis.  Such a statement is both paradoxical and absurd, and yet where in Fear and Trembling does Kierkegaard describe faith as anything but paradoxical and absurd?  The dynamic nature of the text rests in logical breakdown of the illogical; in order to understand Kierkegaard’s conception of faith, one must understand the need to give up understanding – in effect the text is constantly demanding the reader have faith in the text – remarkable precisely because faith is that which the text analytically demonstrates as impossible to posses.  The implication then, is this: that in every act of belief in Kierkegaard and his impossible paradox, we are acting as Knights of Faith; with every adherence to and insistence on conventional “logic,” we are stepping back from faith, as would a Knight of Resignation. 

Extra points if you noticed the final paragraph in the second essay is almost identical to the final paragraph of the first…

Really, all bitterness aside, I should probably be grateful the guy let me redo the paper at all.  I’m sure the Berkeley Philosophy Department has a lot to offer – but this was my second bad experience with a Philosophy Grad Student and I didn’t stick around to pan for gold. 

I stayed away from formal coursework in philosophy for three years, until I went to study  abroad at the National University of Singapore.  By that point, my desire for an expanded understanding of formal philosophy had grown so strong that I enrolled exclusively in philosophy courses that semester.    In retrospect I can see that this was a dubious undertaking, given my issues with the abuse of authority, and Singaporean culture carrying the stereotype of being overwhelmingly authoritarian and even mind-controlling.  I probably encountered just as much, if not more, ideational authoritarianism at that institution as I did back at the Berkeley Philosophy Department.  That said, the fact that in Singapore my papers were being read by my professors made a substantial difference, even when they were intolerant of my ideas or rhetorical approach.

I walked away from that semester in Singapore with a perfect GPA – I suppose in the end getting an F taught me that if I wanted to best my opponent, I would have to learn to play the Game.

March 2007, Pasadena

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