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Ideas for '67: Platonic Questions', 'Either/Or: a fragment of life' and 'Theology and Falsification'

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5 ideas

23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 2. Nihilism
22090 For me time stands still, and I with it [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
     Full Idea: Time flows, life is a stream, people say, and so on. I do not notice it. Time stands still, and I with it.
     From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], I:26) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 3
     A reaction: This is from the spokesman for the aesthetic option in life, which is largely pleasure-seeking. No real choices ever occur.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 4. Boredom
9305 The plebeians bore others; only the nobility bore themselves [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: Those who bore others are the plebeians, the crowd, the endless train of humanity in general; those who bore themselves are the chosen ones, the nobility.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], Pt.1), quoted by Lars Svendsen - A Philosophy of Boredom Ch.2
     A reaction: [p.288 in Princeton Edn] Stunningly elitist, but ask where boredom is most overtly found. "Boring" was once a very fashionable word among the English upper classes. Education and wealth seem to intensify boredom.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 5. Existence-Essence
5650 Reason is just abstractions, so our essence needs a subjective 'leap of faith' [Kierkegaard, by Scruton]
     Full Idea: For Kierkegaard, reason, which produces only abstractions, negates our individual essence; this essence is subjectivity, and subjectivity exists only in the 'leap of faith', whereby the individual casts in his lot with eternity.
     From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.13
     A reaction: Interesting, but this strikes me as a confusion of reason and logic. A logical life would indeed be a sort of death, and need faith as an escape, but a broad view of the rational life includes emotion, imagination and laughter. Blind faith is disaster.
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 6. Authentic Self
22095 There are aesthetic, ethical and religious subjectivity [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle]
     Full Idea: Kierkegaard distinguishes three main types of subjectivity: aesthetic, ethical and religious. But are these types of people, or different phases of one person's life?
     From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 4
     A reaction: His picture of the religious mode holds no appeal for me. I also can't accept that the aesthetic and the moral are somewho distinct. People may discover they have slipped into one of these modes, but no one chooses them, do they?
23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 7. Existential Action
20747 What matters is not right choice, but energy, earnestness and pathos in the choosing [Kierkegaard]
     Full Idea: In making a choice, it is not so much a question of choosing the right way as of the energy, the earnestness, and the pathos with which one chooses.
     From: Søren Kierkegaard (Either/Or: a fragment of life [1843], p.106), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Phenomenology'
     A reaction: I'm struggling to identify with the experience he is describing. I can't imagine a more quintessentially existentialist remark than this. Reference to 'energy' in choosing strikes me as very romantic. Is 'the way not taken' crucial (in 'pathos')?