Intro to Postscripts
Kierkegaard was “a declaration of independence, not only from the reigning
Hegelianism of S.K.' s time and locality, but also from the whole tradition of
rationalistic, 'systematic' thought.”
“Hegel, he maintained, was essentially a comic figure.”
“All this time we have been looking for truth in the object of apprehension – the
'what' of thought; suppose now that we look for it in the 'how,' i.e. in the subject's
relationship to what he thinks. The minute we do this we see that there is a kind
of relationship of which we may say with absolute certainty that the individual
who is in this relationship to an object is 'in the truth,' even though the object to
which he is so related may turn out to be an untruth. If a man, knowing no better,
worships an idol, but does it with absolutely sincerity and the whole 'passion' of
his being, he is nearer the truth than the enlightened individual who has a correct
knowledge of God, but holds this knowledge at second-hand and remains
unmoved by it. With this ethical, personal kind of truth in mind, Kierkegaard boldly
proclaims his thesis: truth is subjectivity.”
“Since truth lies in the 'how' of the subject's relationship, the fullest truth
attainable by human beings will be that relationship in which the subjective
element – the passion with which one holds to an object – reaches its highest
intensity.”
Thesis Attributable to Lessing
“System and finality are pretty much one and the same.”
A: A logical system is possible.
Such a system must be void of anything that is. Hence, Hegel's introduction of
movement into logic, is a sheer confusion of logical science. “Surely it is strange
to make movement fundamental in a sphere where movement is unthinkable...
nothing must then be incorporated in a logical system that has any relation to
existence.”
Hegel's system is said to begin with the immediate; that is, without thought or
reflection and with no presuppositions. How is this done?
If the System is presumed to come after existence, by which a confusion with an
existential system may be occasioned, then the System is of course ex post facto,
and so does not begin immediately with the immediacy with which existence
began.”
To reach a begin, one would use the process of reflection. But how to stop
reflection? Reflection is infinite; that is, it cannot stop itself. But stopping it with
anything else violates the immediacy with which the system begins. If one defi
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