Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks, Volume 8: Journals NB21-NB25
Language: English
Pages: 800
ISBN: 0691166188
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
For over a century, the Danish thinker Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) has been at the center of a number of important discussions, concerning not only philosophy and theology, but also, more recently, fields such as social thought, psychology, and contemporary aesthetics, especially literary theory.
Despite his relatively short life, Kierkegaard was an extraordinarily prolific writer, as attested to by the 26-volume Princeton University Press edition of all of his published writings. But Kierkegaard left behind nearly as much unpublished writing, most of which consists of what are called his "journals and notebooks." Kierkegaard has long been recognized as one of history's great journal keepers, but only rather small portions of his journals and notebooks are what we usually understand by the term "diaries." By far the greater part of Kierkegaard's journals and notebooks consists of reflections on a myriad of subjects--philosophical, religious, political, personal. Studying his journals and notebooks takes us into his workshop, where we can see his entire universe of thought. We can witness the genesis of his published works, to be sure--but we can also see whole galaxies of concepts, new insights, and fragments, large and small, of partially (or almost entirely) completed but unpublished works. Kierkegaard's Journals and Notebooks enables us to see the thinker in dialogue with his times and with himself.
Kierkegaard wrote his journals in a two-column format, one for his initial entries and the second for the extensive marginal comments that he added later. This edition of the journals reproduces this format, includes several photographs of original manuscript pages, and contains extensive scholarly commentary on the various entries and on the history of the manuscripts being reproduced.
Volume 8 of this 11-volume series includes five of Kierkegaard's important "NB" journals (Journals NB21 through NB25), which cover the period from September 1850 to June 1852, and which show Kierkegaard alternately in polemical and reflective postures.
The polemics emerge principally in Kierkegaard's opposition to the increasing infiltration of Christianity by worldly concerns, a development that in his view had accelerated significantly in the aftermath of the political and social changes wrought by the Revolution of 1848. Kierkegaard understood the corrupting of Christianity to be in the interest of the powers that be, and he directed his criticism at politicians, the press, and especially the Danish Church itself, particularly church officials who claimed to be "reformers."
On the reflective side, Kierkegaard delves into a number of authors and religious figures, some of them for the first time, including Montaigne, Pascal, Seneca, Savonarola, Wesley, and F. W. Newman. These journals also contain Kierkegaard's thoughts on the decisions surrounding the publication of the "Anti-Climacus" writings: The Sickness unto Death and especially Practice in Christianity.
Kierkegaard's reader gets the sense both of a gathering storm--by the close of the last journal in this volume, the famous "attack on Christendom" is less than three years away--and a certain hesitancy: What needs reforming, Kierkegaard insists, is not "the doctrine" or "the Church," but "existences," i.e., lives.
Between Ecstasy and Truth: Interpretations of Greek Poetics from Homer to Longinus
Classical Literature: A Concise History
The Jack London Science Fiction Megapack: The Complete Science Fiction and Fantasy of Jack London
The Destruction of Pompeii and Other Stories (Ardis Contemporary Russian Prose)
it is rlly superfluous to note it here, which I am doing only to avoid rummaging about in the old journals in order to be sure of it. The Impossibility of Meritoriousness. Imagine someone, who, conscious of his guilt, genuinely wished to make things right again. Imagine that he succeeded to a most surprising degree―what then? Of course he finds himself in the position of having to 118 24 15 20 25 30 25 35 J O U R N A L NB 22 : 25–28 5 10 • 1850 thank God again and again for having
Is a Hum. Being Permitted to Speak about the Most Important Things with One Single Other Hum. Being? For I know very well that he is permitted to speak with him about the weather, and so forth. But the other idea is something I have concerned myself with for my entire life, and so much so that I do not know whether I 125 126 J O U R N A L NB 22 : 44–46 • 1850 dare utter this: Is a hum. being permitted, etc.―for at that very instant I would actlly have broken my relation of silence to God.
for a Sermon. Suddenly, some Sunday, act as if today were New Year’s Day―which in a certain sense is of course true―in order to get a proper impression of the disappearance of time. People are perhaps too well prepared for the ordinary New Year’s Day. 143 144 J O U R N A L NB 22 : 84–85 • 1851 “Bless the Lord, O My Soul, and Forget Not All His Benefits” 84 No, do not forget any―ah, but who has such a memory! Then let me at least not forget your benefit in forgiving my forgetfulness. 5
foecunditatis infirmior atque accessu relabens, et quasi viribus minus valida. Diffudisti siquidem per omnem mundum religiosi nominis membra religionis vim non habentia, ac sic esse coepisti 30 Multiplicatis . . . et decrescens.] Latin, Because while the peoples adhering to the faith have multiplied, the faith has become lesser, and while her children grow up, the mother lies ill; and you, Church, have become weaker with your fruitful growth, and with your progress you are set back, and you have,
everywhere, the priests remain silent. They seem to have entirely forgotten (perhaps misled by the example of Mynster, which is so misleading in this connection) that priests are like the police: that when crime got the upper hand, one has no more the right to say, [“]Where are the police?[”] than, when morality has broken down, to say [“] Where is the clergy―what does the state employ the clergy for, when it is not providing any benefit? For if you reduce Xnty so that you get a State Church
