NEITHER HEAD NOR TAIL

A PLAY IN FOUR ACTS

BETWEEN THE PSEUDONYMOUS PLURALITY IN KIERKEGAARD
AND A WITTGENSTEINIAN CHANGE OF ASPECT

DISSERTATION
TOWARD THE DEGREE DOCTOR IN PHILOSOPHY
AT THE FACULTY OF THEOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF COPENHAGEN
DATE OF SUBMISSION: MAY 1ST 2014
BY: STINE ZINK KAASGAARD
ADVISOR: PIA SØLTOFT

i
i
 JOY

FOR THE POETRY,

THE THOUGHT,

AND THE HEART

TO YOU

DEDICATED

BEDSTEMOR

BEDSTEFAR

MORMOR

i
 CONTENTS

APPLAUSES V

EXPLANATION RELATING TO THE SYSTEM OF REFERENCE AND

QUOTATIONS VII

PROLOGUE 1

1ST ACT THE PLAY BEGINS OR THE BEGINNING RETURNS 11

1ST SCENE THE PROBLEM OF BEGINNINGS 13

2ND SCENE ETHICS OF INCONTINENCE 22
3RD SCENE PSEUDONYMS IN THE PSEUDONYMOUS WRITINGS 33
4TH SCENE THE TITLE, THE THEATER, AND LUDVIG HOLBERG 50
5 SCENE POSITION IN RELATION TO EXISTING RESEARCH
TH 56
Secondary literature on both Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein 57
Secondary literature in relation to form and content 63
Secondary literature relating to particular themes 65
1. The Pseudonyms 65
2. The Problem of Reading Kierkegaard 68
3. Indirect Communication 68
Commentary versus Autonomous Literature 71
6TH SCENE THE FORM AND ITS CONTENT 74
7 SCENE THE POET REACHING BEYOND AND POINTING TO THE WORLD
TH 79

2ND ACT WITTGENSTEIN ENTERS STAGE AND SETS THE SCENE FOR A
CHANGE OF ASPECT 83

PRELIMINARY REFLECTION 83
1ST SCENE INTRODUCTORY REMARKS 87
2 SCENE WITTGENSTEIN AND INDIRECT COMMUNICATION
ND 92
3 SCENE THE WITTGENSTEIN NACHLASS
RD 98
4TH SCENE PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN TS 229-323 AND MSS 137 – 138 108
5TH SCENE ON SEEING ASPECTS 127
Aspect Blindness 128
Seeing 130
Seeing as—seeing aspects 134
Aspektwechsel 137
6TH SCENE VERSTELLUNG 142

ii
3RD ACT A CHANGE OF ASPECT IN THE SETTING OF THE PSEUDONYMOUS
LIVING ROOM 147

1ST SCENE GRAMMATICAL VERSUS EXISTENTIAL INVESTIGATION 149

2 SCENE THE UNSETTLEDNESS OF PERSPECTIVES AND CONCEPTS
ND 159
3RD SCENE THE QUESTION OF TRUTH 166
4TH SCENE THE INNER AND THE OUTER 178
5TH SCENE THE POET AS A CHANGER OF PERSPECTIVES AND A REVEALER OF ASPECTS 191
6 SCENE THE CHALLENGE OF AN ETHICS OF INCONTINENCE
TH 200

4TH ACT THE FIFTH ACT HAS GONE MISSING 205

1ST SCENE THE FIFTH ACT HAS GONE MISSING 207

2ND SCENE A DELIBERATE CONFUSION OF SPHERES AND A DELIBERATING ATTACK ON
THE CONFUSION OF THE SPHERES 215
3 SCENE JOHANNES CLIMACUS ON THE FIFTH ACT AND INDIRECT COMMUNICATION
RD
223
4TH SCENE WHAT ARISES OUT OF THE BREAK-DOWN OF INDIRECT COMMUNICATION 233
5TH SCENE ASPECTS WITHIN A PERSPECTIVE (THE STAGE REVEALING BUT NOT ITSELF) 239
6TH SCENE TRAPPED ON STAGE WITH AN UNCERTAIN PLAY-SCRIPT IN HAND WHICH HAS
NO OVERTURE AND NO FINAL ACT 246

EPILOGUE 255

BIBLIOGRAPHY 257

ABSTRACT 265

RESUMÉ 267

iii
 APPLAUSES

In thought and existence I owe more than I could ever hope to express to Trine-
Amalie Fogh Christiansen, Bjarke Mørkøre Stigel Hansen, René Rosfort, Rocco
Fava, and Christian Hjortkjær, conversations, advise, and shared life with and from
whom resound throughout the words of this work. For guidance, advice, and
support I owe greatly to Pia Søltoft, René Rosfort, George Pattison, Steen Brock,
and Alois Pichler. For a kind of beginning, I am and could not have been thankful
without Lilian Zink Kaasgaard and Peer Kaasgaard. In support of my minority and
for indispensable aid on corrections I owe many thanks to Ditte Zink Kaasgaard
Falb, who always knows which entry to look for in case of repetition. Thanks to
Paul Travis Brimhall and the Brimhall clan who gave me the boots for walking in
so many ways. And thank you Juan Moreno Pérez who gave me the eyes for seeing.
Apart from all to which one can give thanks and to whom one can owe
gratitude, all the encounters that mark one’s life and work in one sense or another
can never be called back upon stage, nor indeed should it perhaps be attempted
too vigorously, lest the audience lose their patience, merely will I mention the band
of philosophers with whom I entered this passion, the mokka club of Søren
Christensen, Jon Auring Grimm, and Mads Hansen, and the heart and glue of the
Søren Kierkegaard Research Center, Bjarne Still Laurberg, who has been a
cornerstone of daily stability in the work of so many researchers.
Thank you all.
Also a special thanks to Knud Højgaards Fond and Oticon Fonden for their
kind contributions that allowed me to spend the Michaelmas term of 2011 at the
University of Oxford. Thank you to the Wittgenstein Archives at the University of
Bergen for giving me the possibility to spend a week at the archive in August of
2012, and for receiving me so kindly. Finally, I am grateful to the University of
Copenhagen for the opportunity to carry out this project, and to the Søren
Kierkegaard Research Center and everyone there—in endurance and in passing—
for having housed and homed me for the past three years in a place where
thoughts are shared and grow.

v
 EXPLANATION RELATING TO THE SYSTEM OF
REFERENCE AND QUOTATIONS

All references to Kierkegaard are provided according to the text critical edition
Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, following the standard manner of referring to this. Thus,
I use the abbreviation SKS and the number of the volume in question, followed by
the page number, for example (SKS 7, 360).

References to Wittgenstein are for the most part double, that is, they give
reference both to the Nachlass and to an edited (paper) publication of the work, for
example (TS 229, 923/ BPP I, 257), when applicable (when there is no double
reference, this reflects that reference is made to an unpublished part of the
Nachlass), with the exception of Philosophische Untersuchungen, the paragraphs of
which have the same numbers in the published version and in the typescript (TS
227). When referring to this work, I write merely PU followed by the number of
the paragraph when referring to the text equivalent to TS 227, and PU II, when
referring to the so-called second half of this work. In the case of the latter, there
will likewise be a double reference to the Nachlass. The abbreviations that I use for
the published works are mentioned in connection with their full title the first time
that I refer to them in my text. Here I will list them for the sake of overview:

BPP I Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie, vol. I

BPP II Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie, vol. II
BT The Big Typescript
LS Letzte Schriften über die Philosophie der Psychologie (vol. I, I do not make use
of vol. II)
PU Philosophische Untersuchungen, part one
PU II What used to be called Philosophische Untersuchungen, part two (in the
most recent edition on Wiley-Blackwell from 2009 this latter part is
now called Philosophy of Psychology – A Fragment)
TLP Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus
ÜG Über Gewißheit

vii
All other references are given according to a standard text-immanent system of
reference, with the last name of the author, followed by the year of publication of
the work in question, followed by the page number of the concrete reference.
Thus, for example (Schwab, 2012, 53).

Note to quotations
I quote from the original language in most all cases. In the case of a very few
citations—in Spanish, French, Latin, and Greek—I provide either a translation in
a footnote or cite the works in translation. The vast majority of quotes are either in
Danish, German or English, all of which, without exception, appear in the original.
This has its disadvantages in terms of fluidity in the text at large, but granted that
these are the texts with which I have worked, and granted that I take language and
its fine attunements to be of importance to both the main thinkers in question, I
have decided to reproduce their own words in their own words—and, for the sake
of consistency, to reproduce the words of other authors in their original likewise.
Especially, as it would be, the Danish and the German is of some importance here,
because both contain or indicate a movement in the imagery of some words in
themselves (for example: Meddelelse, Begreb, Virkelighed, Verstellung, Aspektwechsel,
Aufhebung).
Words written in my text, in other languages than English, are italicized as a
manner of indication. Typically, these words are either Danish or German
concepts that I sometimes discuss based on their etymology or an imagery
inherent to the Danish or German concept that may not be or may be different or
less immediately apparent in the English ‘equivalent’, which I find at times to be of
interest.

viii
 PROLOGUE

This dissertation is related to the problem of existence, and to the connected

difficulty of giving expression to this problem in philosophy. I have here situated
the problem between three primary concerns: 1) perspectives—that either hold the
problem in place by systematic consideration or disrupt the systematization by
bringing about other perspectives that clash against it; 2) the theater—as an image
of the inseparability of question and questioned, the thought that we do not escape
the theater in whichever way we care to pose questions relating to its composition
and constitution or our place within it; and 3) communication—as the manner in
which, and the ‘basis’ upon which we are able to pose questions. All three are
marked by the possible confusion of existence, that is, that we are not to escape
their self-contained problems in being raised as questions, because we are already
‘in’ them when the question is being posed.

The Problem of Existence

By problem of existence, I mean that existence poses a problem to us in having
neither head nor tail. That is, that it presents us neither with a definite beginning
nor a definite end, and therefore with no certain point of reference in this being
between. On the other hand, I also mean existence in a ‘simple’ sense—as this
confusing setting within which we find ourselves. Whereas existence in the first
respect may be said to be a philosophical problem, the latter poses a problem to
philosophy, because the want for systematization of philosophical thought cannot
encompass the endless singular morass of existence. Yet, the two are connected, of
course, and connected in the sense that there is a general and genuine confusion,
which we cannot escape—neither in thought nor, indeed, in existence. In this
work it is a point onto its own that while it may be a danger in thought to confuse
categories, there is another sense in which some confusion must resonate when
talking about existence—the confusion of the manifold, which may be expressed
but cannot be reduced.

1
Perspectives
The outset of this work is a wonder about perspectives in philosophy, that is, on
the one hand, a stubborn insistence on the plurality of perspectives, and on the
other hand, a wonder about the problems posed to philosophy by such plurality of
perspectives. The wonder is, thus, also a question posed to philosophy, that is, to
our forgetfulness in not wondering about perspectives. The problem, as here
perceived, is tied to the very basic thought or understanding that we apply a
perspective, a conceptual framework or nomenclature whenever we start out on
the journey of philosophical endeavor. That is, we set the stage in which a
development of thought is to be played out, and within which, many a time the
conceptual framework itself is to be unfolded (as, indeed, it is sought done at
present). Or, said differently, the motivation here is a wonder about the
permissibility of philosophy to leave perspectives out of sight in order to
strengthen one more or less particular perspective or another, if we grant that no
one perspective can lay greater claim to authority than another.
The perspectives are related to the idea of lacking beginning and end, such
that no one point of perspective can be given or obtained, but that many
perspectives are given. In this sense, it seems a challenge not to grow blind to the
manifold. At the same time the many perspectives pose a problem, insofar as they
present resistance to any unifying perspective that we may suggest. The problems
here propounded are all, in the present work, set in connection with the
pseudonyms in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings. As such, the point of
departure here is exactly not a point of departure, but an attempt to keep the many
perspectives of the pseudonyms before our eyes as a challenge that lies latent in
talking about existence at all. In my reading of the pseudonymous works it is a
point to try to insist on the plurality of perspectives within them and their denial
of unification and homogeneity. This is not meant just as a manner of highlighting
(fremhæve) the plurality of voices in these works, but also as a manner of projecting
(frem-skrive) the many problems that this plurality poses to philosophy. Many
questions will therefore be raised along the way relative to this, without however
being answered, and this is of course part of the point.
By posing the problem of perspectives as strongly as here suggested, I do
not wish to suggest that any systematic reading is misguided (or oblivious to the

2
plurality)—indeed, it would seem exactly to be well guided, and as such to be able
to bring out decisive elements of different perspectives within the authorship,
which is, after all, the best that we can hope to do. What I do wish to suggest,
however, is that there is in the pseudonymous authorship a—perhaps
unprecedented—wealth of perspectives that speak up against a perspective; that
even within their individual perspectives there is something that holds their
perspectives against them. As if, by being pronounced, their authority is already
being put into question. While this is something of which most all commentators
are aware, it would seem, there is nonetheless a propensity to advance thesis
relative to the themes presented. And as such we return to the question to
philosophy; is it possible to maintain the plurality and the insecurity related to it
and still be able to say something? Said differently, the intention of this work is not
to stand court in the question here posed to the entire history of philosophy, but
to ask by way of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authorship; is it possible to take the
manifold—indeed the seeming infinite—of perspectives seriously, and still be able
to say something that doesn’t just become an indistinct murmur of life?
It is in this respect that I bring in Wittgenstein as a manner of holding onto
this question without, however, so I hope, losing sight of the difficulty (that the
questions raised above hold something against this question as much as anything).
Through a reading of some ideas from the late Wittgenstein, I bring along the
thought that the confusion of and in existence, the thought that there is no
definite point of departure or end, is by him given expression in a different way—
as a problem of language and grammar (likewise entangled with a Lebensteppich or
Lebenswelt). Wittgenstein shows us, so I hold, at once to keep the stringency and
insistence on things making sense, and at the same time to fathom that we cannot
gain understanding of meaning as such. But, that knowing our way about language
allows us to ‘move on’—that is, to muster an appropriate response (jetzt weiß ich
weiter!) On the other hand, we may also be surprised, in a way that ‘demands’ of us
or makes inevitable a different kind of response or exclamation. Such, when we
suddenly see something different in the same (“now it’s a house!”, for example).
Both these aspects are of importance to my reading(s) of the pseudonymous
works. One, for maintaining meaning, without insisting on meaning as such, and
two, for suggesting a way in which we may make sense of the relative fluctuation

3
of concepts within and relative to the different pseudonymous works (or perhaps,
more importantly, the element of surprise that it purports on us as readers).
Indeed, as many commentators have also pointed out, it seems exceedingly
complicated to talk about ‘Kierkegaard’s concept of—’, and this is here taken to be
part of the challenge of engaging with all the pseudonymous voices (and other
characters within the works). Based on this concern I take my point of departure
with the many perspectives of the pseudonyms, rather than with any given—
central—concept in particular. I do not try to provide, therefore, one reading in
which they all fit, although I do provide many readings, which inevitably suggest
some kind of fit.

Ethics of Incontinence
In this respect, the possible confusion and insecurity, is tentatively expressed in
what I have called ‘ethics of incontinence’. The incontinence lies in all the little
things that seem to challenge a clear view; everything that breaks against our best
attempts at clarity, at keeping concepts clear and neatly apart, at asserting in the
relative darkness or open-endedness of existence. Ethics lies in the homelessness
of existence, which is at the same time the home of our being (together), and the
‘place’ of our unknowing that calls for something known—the meaning of
meaning, perhaps. The concern here is in this sense indirectly with the question of
the setting of philosophical questioning when concerned with the question of
existence.

The Theater
When Plato showed the theater out of philosophy, he did so in the name of truth.
All the misrepresentations of the gods in myth and poetry and theater, as
permeated by the imperfections of man, he saw the need to separate from
philosophy as the quest for truth. The perfection and infallibility of the gods, as
education of the human being, were to stand out as the truth that is not besotted
with the insobriety of man (Plato, The Republic, Book III). So it would seem that
the challenge of philosophy from its cradle was a striving for truth that does not
get distorted by the flickering images of the human Schattenspiel, whence the
perspective that it seeks is not a perspective but the full-blown clarity of pondering

4
the sun. And while the challenge of the philosopher lies not least in returning to
the imperfect representations of human existence, it makes a difference, of course,
that he returns in truth (that this apparent clarity concerning truth is in many
respects already softened in the many perspectives of Plato’s dialogues is, of
course, telling).
The most famous ridicule of this truth in the history of philosophy is, surely,
Nietzsche’s “Geschichte eines Irrtums” (Nietzsche, 1954, 963-965), who likewise
reintroduced—following the footsteps of Hölderlin—ancient tragedy into the field
of thought or knowledge that had admonished it in its birth. And, not surprisingly,
the question of perspectives became to him a proper point of concern. The
question of the all too human, however, never ceased to concern philosophy, and
the pursuit of a somewhat divine perspective to guide the relative madness of the
abundant human ‘fallibility’ was in the tireless viewfinder of thought, not least with
the introduction of Christianity. Bringing back the base menagerie of existence
into the somberness of thought was not least one of the achievements of
Kierkegaard, so I hold. And although many critical remarks may be found in his
works respective to the theater, and the lowliness of human being, there seems to
be an instance on existence as the cave that we cannot escape—and here, the cave
is set up as the theater. The image is, of course, related to the problem of truth,
likewise. For, if in existence we cannot escape the lacking beginning and end, then
this also challenges what we may be able to say concerning truth—that is, it shows
us back to our seats in the theater.
The theater as a setting for the present work is inspired by the idea that
Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works operate like a stage, upon which the different
pseudonyms enter as real life characters, as representatives of philosophical and
theological ideas, from which their ideas may be viewed as ideal perspectives and
concrete instantiations of such. In the theater we are confronted both with the
perspectives being played out on stage, and with our perspectives on this from our
seats in the audience. Following this complexity of perspectives, I have chosen to
set up the entire dissertation as a play, divided into acts and scenes. This is done to
demonstrate the idea that the theater is not merely understood as an element
inside the investigation, but that in talking about perspectives, we do not escape
the theater at any point. Like existence, it is a frame that is at once the question

5
and the setting of our questioning. In this respect it raises the question of reality
versus ideality, but it likewise complicates an attempt at keeping the distinction
between these unambiguous. What takes place in the theater is at once real and
ideal. The script of the play may be exposing enacted thought according to some
ideal, but the theater is at the same time the living space in which any ideal is in the
midst of a continuum of actions and occurrences that has meaning come forth not
merely according to an ideal, but according to the reality of reception and
enactment that it instantiates, describes, makes palpable, and challenges. Theater,
then, is both the setting and a recurring theme throughout this dissertation, while
the pseudonyms and all the other characters and stories of the works make for
quite a theatrical mood. Not in the sense of a lesser degree of seriousness, but as a
manner of staging problems differently. That this is not a coincidental trait to the
works is part of the point that I wish to bring to the fore.
The presence of the pseudonyms on stage becomes more than just
accidental to the problems the pseudonyms set forth; the individuality with which
each problem is presented, rather, goes through—and does not arise except by—
the existent to whom the problem is. In other words, the abstract thoughts by
which they dwell arise from, are disrupted by and continued in particular
existences. The concreteness of their appearance on stage, so I hope, will make
this more explicit and less easy to overlook. The mobility of the pseudonyms on
stage, relative to their words, will also enable us to appreciate some of the twists
and turns that take place with them. The plurality of voices does not come merely
from the pseudonyms, of course, but springs also from the plurality of characters
with whose voices the pseudonyms likewise speak, and from the voice of the
reader that speaks along. Furthermore, the pseudonym need not have a congruent
voice, which speaks only in one manner; rather, as is the case with the dialogue,
speaking is also a way of change.
For the purpose of making the pseudonyms stand out as and by the manner
in which we meet them in the setting of each text, I will not be drawing on any of
the information that we can find about them in the Journals and Papers.
Kierkegaard does not enter the stage here the way the pseudonyms do, and this is
part of the point. A point which likewise brackets the whole question of authority,
because it seems that the voices of each pseudonym can only be allowed to stand

6
out in their own right if we do not take into account the souffleur always lingering
as a silent guide to the dialogue.

Overview
The play is divided into four acts. In the first part of the work, that is, the first and
second acts, the stage plays only a figurative role—the stage is set and an
important player in its setting is introduced. In the latter part of the dissertation,
that is, in the third and fourth acts, the stage takes on a more central and
performative role, and is actually inhabited by the pseudonyms.
So, in the first act the stage is set up. We are here introduced to some major
concerns and challenge that I perceive relative to reading Kierkegaard, and my
work is positioned within or in relation to relevant Kierkegaard research. The
problems and questions dealt with are the following: the problem of beginning,
existence and the suggested ‘ethics of incontinence’, the pseudonyms in the
pseudonymous writings, the theater as setting, secondary literature, some thoughts
on the relation between form and content, and the role of the poet. I thus provide
extensive reflections on the question of method that guides the remainder of the
dissertation.
In the second act I bring in Wittgenstein and suggest a manner in which to
view the stage that makes it comprehensible as a location of meaning, while this
meaning may not be established beyond the concrete situations of the scenes being
played out there. While meaning is not relative to each single act alone, it is also
not so that we may abstract meaning and establish it independently of the
situations as meaning as such. Furthermore, with Wittgenstein are introduced some
thoughts on aspect change and pretense, which will help in holding together what
is seen with the fluctuation of perspectives once the pseudonyms enter the stage.
In this way something appears and may be described, but such that the possibility
of describing it differently at another moment is not discarded in the description.
In the third act the play begins on stage. Here we are introduced to most of
the pseudonyms as they enter the stage, relative to a theme or a problem that I
take to be of interest when trying to allow their differences to appear before us,
and relative to concerns that were raised in the first and the second acts. It is in
this sense apparent that some of the play takes place in front of the stage, while

7
other parts take place on it, but it all takes place at the theater. The themes in
relation to which the pseudonyms enter stage (mostly two different pseudonyms
for each) are the following: existential versus grammatical investigation, the
unsettledness of perspectives, the question of truth, inner versus outer, the poet,
and ethics of incontinence. The idea of the third act is mainly to create an
atmosphere, which makes it apparent that we are dealing with quite different
characters, and that even within their respective perspectives it is hard to find rest.
This is understood not least in relation to the quite radical thought of not
providing results in thought. The third act takes leave with considerations on the
possible implications for ethics when we try to take seriously that the many
perspectives will often interfere with each other.
In the fourth act Climacus enters the stage for the first time, and with him a
perspective that is at the same time bound to the stage and reflecting on this
boundness on his own behalf as well as that of the other pseudonyms—some of
which appear again or for the first time in this act likewise. With Climacus some of
the problems exposed implicitly in the third act are brought to the front of the
stage and given a voice more directly. Such, for example, when he talks about
indirect communication in relation to questions of existence, and formulates the
problem of the missing fifth act as a condition of existence. In the fourth act we
therefore arrive at a clearer view, though still at the theater and still on stage, of
what is a continuous challenge in allowing for the manifold of perspectives to
remain while going about existence. In other words, that ethics of incontinence, as
I have called it, is at the same time the admittance of a systematizing perspective
that allows us to navigate meaningfully within the theater, and the continuous
disruption of it by individuating perspectives that we cannot get rid of by
condemning them as wrong or by ignoring their challenge to a clear view.
My voice runs throughout the play on stage, in the third and the fourth acts
especially, like the voice of Constantin to the young man, like that of Frater
Taciturnus to Quidam, like that of H.H. to the man whose great concern was
whether one can allow oneself to be put to death for the truth, like that of de
silentio to the man whose worry in life was the story of Abraham, like that of
William Afham to “In vino veritas”. It is a voice, which always has the

8
contradictions of an outsider, yet the intimacy of a friend, but in any case a voice
without which the story would not be told as it is.
What is said in this dissertation is in some sense the same about the same,
and yet different. The difference is not in the stage, but in that the stage allows the
same to stand out differently, that is, to exist (exstāre).

9
 1ST ACT
THE PLAY BEGINS OR THE BEGINNING RETURNS

In this first act we are introduced to the stage. The act is divided into seven scenes:
the problem of beginnings, ethics of incontinence, the pseudonyms, the theater as
setting, relevant secondary literature and a positioning according to it, the problem
of form and content, and the role of the poet. These scenes are linked by being an
introduction to the ideas that will guide the remainder of the dissertation, and each
in their own way explain an element of the setting upon which this reading of the
pseudonymous works will take place.
The question of beginning is linked to the overall insecurity of existence—of
standing out from something that we can never know exactly, nor exactly know
what standing out means and where it places us. This insecurity is set in
connection with the challenge of reading Kierkegaard (‘s pseudonymous works in
particular), and—in the second scene—linked to the idea of what I have called
‘ethics of incontinence’, which holds the incontinence, as all the little disruptions
of meaning, over against meaning—suggesting the challenge of not arriving at
meaning as such, while meaning still ensues. Here I also make a distinction between
what I have called systematizing and individuating perspectives. In the third scene
the pseudonyms and the roles they play in relation to maintaining the insecurity
‘before’ existence, and any questions that we may want to ask of and in existence
(or, indeed, the questions asked of us by existence), are considered. Likewise, a
preliminary survey of the different pseudonyms and other character (of authoring
qualities) within the pseudonymous writings is provided. In the fourth scene the
idea of the dissertation as set within a theater, and of bringing the pseudonyms up
on stage is explained more thoroughly. The fifth scene situates my work in the vast
backdrop of other secondary literary. This section is quite extensive, and is so due
to the fact that my reading of the pseudonyms in the third and fourth acts is
dependent upon a relative freedom to approach the texts anew, so that the voices
of the pseudonyms are allowed to be heard, primarily, rather than the extensive
commentary that could be provided from the spectators in the theater. This does
not mean that commentary is not included into the play, of course, but that this is

11
kept at a minimum. The sixth and the seventh scenes consider the question of the
relation between content and form and the role of the poet in the pseudonymous
works respectively. It is suggested, not surprisingly, that form and content cannot
well be kept apart (something also reflected in the idea of the theater), and a
‘traditional’ divide between ‘spheres’ of existence is challenged in this respect too.
Finally, we have the poet as a figure who is at once ‘in’ and ‘out of’ existence
(incapable of either, it would seem, though it remains a question what this could
possibly mean). The poet stands out before the commonplace of meaning, and
questions himself and it in so doing. With ‘him’ we glance the importance of the
question of communication that resonates through all the questions raised in this
scene, which leads us to the second act to establish the scene of the theater—that
of Wittgenstein.

12
1ST SCENE
THE PROBLEM OF BEGINNINGS
“It is all one to me Where I shall begin, for I shall come back to it again.”
(DK 5; Proclus in Parmenides, 708)

When does a play begin? When the first actor enters stage; when he utters the first
line; when the audience arrive at the theater and take their seats and await the
moment in which the curtain is drawn; when the director choses the play and
gathers his group of actors; when the playwright scribbles down the opening lines
of the play; when the playwright awakens one night haunted and inspired by the
idea that will eventually become his next play; when the first ancient writer of
tragedies arose to the idea of bringing the contradictions of life unto stage; when
the first audience gathered and saw what might be called a performance? The play
seems to begin over and over again, and thus in another sense to never begin nor
come to an end. When the spectators leave the theater, are they not already in their
minds back in the theater with the expectations of the next play, do they not enter
the street as if they had never left the theater and thus witness their fellow human
beings as if they were once again before the stage on which the actors play out a
life that can only be theirs insofar as they can find their actuality transformed into
a possibility for them?
The problem of beginning is always the beginning. In its momentary longing
it awaits the first signs of life. A beginning is a multiplicity of beginnings, insofar as
the beginning is supposed to set something afloat that will in its turn ignite more.
The beginning here is with Kierkegaard's pseudonymous authorship which will be
the slabs and the pillars of this construction. There is a problem evolving from the
question of beginnings when it comes to the pseudonymous authorship, which lies
in the multiplicity of possible responses. The pseudonyms at once withdraw the
beginning from the point at which one might recognize the beginning as having
been instantiated, namely from that of the author. The author is not, or is
differently or secretly and by no means directly, in the way one might be inclined
to expect. In bringing thought back from abstraction to the ‘poetically-real

13
subjective thinker’, as Kierkegaard 1 says much after one of the beginnings in
Concluding Unscientific Postscript (SKS 7, 570), the story of the author—now the
pseudonym—is at once made more real, and in the very same instance less real,
because poeticized. The movement is contrary to any obvious reason, and
therefore brings us to and from; closer to existence with this ‘living’ author, yet
further away by coming to us in the same form as that of abstract thought. The
concrete is brought to us through abstraction. Yet this is only one aspect of
beginning.
Another is the problem of how to begin at all. How to begin a work, and
how to begin a thought, without it being merely a continuation of thought that is
already thought, and as such departing from a beginning that has already begun. In
terms of assumptions, this means beginning with something already assumed,
based on which the beginning, as continuation, bases—or debases—itself. When
Descartes attempted to arrive at a certain, unbiased starting point, he took to
ruling out all that could be deceptive, and hence arrived at his own ability to think
as that which he could not reasonably doubt, thus assuming this to be that
indubitable point of departure (Descartes, 2000, 16-18). However, the line of
thinking that he goes through to get to this point is a kind of response to a
problem posed by Western philosophy, as a problem of skepticism. Thus, the
beginning is in some sense no beginning, but a response to, a continuation of
thoughts thought long before, and arguably no matter the novelty of thought it
does not escape this ambiguity.
The problem of beginning surfaces in various ways in the writings of
Kierkegaard—as a philosophical, a theological, and a genre-specific problem.
Philosophically, for instance, in relation to his unidirectional Hegelian feud, where
it is continuously pointed out and ridiculed that Hegel wants to begin his system
with nothing. The scope of this dissertation does not allow for a proper discussion
of this alleged problem in Hegelian thought, but it is important to mention,
because it may be seen in relation to the later claim that the ending or the
finalization of the system is missing (e.g. SKS 7, 22-23), that is, in some sense it

1 I am here referring to the very last pages of the Postscript, where Kierkegaard enters with his ”A

first and last explanation”, wherefore I refer to Kierkegaard and not Climacus.

14
begins and ends with nothing. Theologically, in relation, for instance, to the
question of hereditary sin, the paradox of Christ in God becoming man or the
eternal touching upon time, and the question of the imitation of Christ (Christi
Efterfølgelse). Here we find inherent in the concept the question of what it means to
follow after, what beginning it is that Christ begins, what this leaves as a challenge
to those who come after, and whether those who came immediately after in time
are in any way closer to following him than those who came later (e.g. SKS 12,
234). In terms of genre, the question poses itself as that of distinction. What does
it mean to jump incessantly between genres, and thus continuously force upon the
reader the beginning of thought in ever-new respects? How must we understand it,
for example, when Victor Eremita at the outset of Either/Or (SKS 2, 13)
commences with a rupture of established genres? That is, when he goes from
posing what is known as a philosophical question, namely that of identity between
inner and outer, then immediately goes on to talk about it in psychological terms,
as a matter of whether or not the reader has ever kept a secret in his inner, then
proceeds to unfold the question in a literary fashion by telling the story of a piece
of furniture which was hiding papers in its gut. In this way continuously passing
from one genre to another, constantly enacting a new beginning to the question
for the reader by not fixing the issue to one particular genre or mode of
questioning?
By making this provisional distinction between philosophy, psychology, and
literature, I do not mean to insist on any strict barrier between the three. The fact
that they cannot in any uncomplicated fashion be maintained as entirely separate
fields of thought—in being thrown back upon existence in which distinctions are
not clear in the manner they may be when kept in abstraction—is exactly a point
in question here, but I wish to point to an extreme eagerness to play with the
expectations of the reader. If we start out with Hegel, it is difficult to expect that
we should immediately continue into a questioning relating to personal secrets.
Furthermore, the tone is playful, directed to the dear reader, inquisitive and at the
same time mocking, without it being easy to decide in which direction the voice is
mocking—the reader or Hegel. In other words, the opening lines of Either/Or
strike up a kind of conversation in which we are not invited to lean back and
receive the truths of a great thinker, but in which we are invited to assume the

15
edge of our seats in order to struggle with that which is neither a thorough
philosophical train of thought, nor a novel, nor, indeed, a beginning that promises
an end.
In the pseudonymous writings the problem of beginnings surfaces at the
outset of every work, by the peculiar preface that marks the beginning of each
(with the exception of Repetition, which has no preface, unless we understand the
entire first part of the book as a kind of preface to the latter half, likewise entitled
“Repetition” (SKS 4, 50)). What is unusual about the prefaces to the
pseudonymous works is that their relation to the remainder of the book is not
always clear. In fact it is quite often explicitly enigmatic. While the preface to
Either/Or, for example, does introduce us to the problem at hand in some sense—
in regard to the unresolved story of who we are dealing with and how their points
of view may be understood—it is nonetheless quite obscure and most likely it
takes more than one reading to capture the little intricacies that eventually do
indicate central aspects of what is to come in the first and the second half of the
book. However, there is, strictly speaking, no thematic—let alone schematic—
introduction to the work in question, and there is nothing to indicate neither
beginning nor end. The story begins at an unknown point in time, either with the
story of a piece of furniture or with the timeless exclamation about the poet whose
pain becomes music, and has no ending—at the very least not if by that we
understand something, which sums up and lends explanatory value or some
manner of finalization to that which preceded it. In this respect, the work is
reminiscent of human existence, the life of each individual, which begins and ends
without any certain explanation of either being available to us.
Asking why and in what sense this is the case is of importance to the present
work. The effort will be to allow passages, which one may be inclined to read past
quickly in order to arrive at the thrust of the works, to stand out more clearly; to
speak to us as something that is there not merely for the fun of it but perhaps to
witness to an open-endedness that cannot be overcome (no matter the care we
take to provide coherent interpretations).
So we are back to the problem of beginning. How does one begin without
already presupposing that which one should like to arrive at? How does one begin
if not already with a goal in mind? Has it already been decided, that which one sets

16
out to decide, because the rumination of the question presupposes the questioning
that it digests? If we do eventually come back to the point from which we started
or if on our path we have no way of knowing whether we have gone somewhere
or merely returned to the point from which we departed, then what does it mean
to begin? The question thus posed is of interest to this dissertation in a number of
ways.
First, as has already been mentioned, beginnings in Kierkegaard’s
pseudonymous works seem to hold a marginal and yet central position. Marginal,
in the sense that the beginning may be read through in a hurry, so that one can
arrive at the central problems being treated in the individual texts. Central, insofar
as the beginning often times indicates a struggle with the text and the problems of
concern in it, which cannot be seen independently of that with which it begins,
that is, the individual or character or pseudonym that puts it before us, and
entailed in this the problem of communication—in other words, that question and
questioner, communicator and communiqué are irretrievably interlinked. This
latter would appear to go counter to the former, but perhaps one way of seeing it
is that in the former case, the one who deals with the text without paying much
attention to its form and the character who puts it before his or her eyes, will be
likely to position him- or herself in the place of the character and hence, in some
sense, the role of the questioner is still filled—by another, but filled nonetheless.
Second, beginning plays an important role when the main question that is
being asked is the question about open-endedness. In other words, by entitling this
work ‘neither head nor tail’, it has already been made clear that both beginning and
end are put into question—that the thesis and conclusion can neither be stated as
strongly as one might otherwise expect nor answered as resolutely. By this, of
course, I do not mean to indicate that there is neither thesis nor finalization, this, it
would seem, will inevitably have to be the case. Even attempting to leave questions
open eventually amounts to a kind of closure, and a beginning that foreshadows
the infinite reopening of perspectives, thereby has an ‘end’ in mind which is no
more innocent just because it does not claim to be the only path. What the open-
endedness here points to is basically a beginning, which seeks out other possible
beginnings by and by, but therefore also holds the danger of a stricter doctrine—
that of not accepting a conclusion that leaves things to rest.

17
 Third, the question of beginning in philosophy can be understood as a vital
part of what philosophizing means, namely that of coming back to an unequivocal
point of departure where the assumptions upon which a manner of thinking takes
its offset are exposed and subjected to scrutiny. The infallible starting point is
perhaps an ideal, which has never in any pure form been believed achieved by any
particular philosophical thought. Moreover, it implies the danger which Heidegger
points to when he makes clear that his striving to understand central concepts of
philosophical thought does not mean coming back to what the concepts originally
and essentially meant—as if they had a meaning that was prior and original, of
which all subsequent meaning is merely a derivative (Heidegger, 1992, 31). Such
manner of thinking would merely call for a kind of infinite regress and a longing
toward something original. Rather, what is striven for is to understand what
meaning a concept has contrived through time. Nonetheless, it seems that
philosophical thought aims at an awareness of its own point of departure which
makes it less likely for it to fall prey to a dubious development of thought or which
at least makes it more likely that one can engage in the development of thought
such that dubious assumptions may be discovered and rethought. Thus, beginning
is of vital importance, insofar as it marks the frame within which thought is being
unfolded. However, it would seem that this ideal of thinking was challenged in the
nineteenth century, not least by thinkers such as Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and
that therefore a beginning when now begun must keep the doubt in mind. How
did Kierkegaard question this broadly speaking philosophical ideal? In his
insistence on ex-istence, from which we are not afforded an unquestionable
overview, wherefore the possibility of being lost—of not knowing whether we
have set forth on the right path, perhaps even our own path or whether we are
merely treading the footsteps of another or returning to the same footsteps that
we ourselves tread before, is not finally decidable to us. Also, we learn for example
in The Concept of Anxiety, that every human being is at once a new beginning and a
continuation of the race 2 (SKS 4, 335). Thus, there is something about being on

2 The Danish concept is slægt, which is particular to the human race, and in some sense indicates

the kinship with the first human being, that is, Adam. It is actually phrased as follows ”Dette har
sin dybeste Grund i, hvad der er det Væsentlige i den menneskelige Existents, at Mennesket er

18
the way which may always call into doubt that same way; its beginning, its every
step, and its end.
Fourth, the beginning may in some sense be seen as a striving to understand
the point of departure of the other. Trying to see how the other sees may be
related to the ability of assuming the position of the other, and hence quite
concretely give a new beginning to that which one was only able to view from but
one perspective before. Or, the beginning may consist therein that one’s way of
seeing something changes, so that what was previously obscure or what was self-
evident becomes clearer or more opaque. Examples of the latter are abounding in
the pseudonymous writings. One place in which this problem is articulated quite
directly, is in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, in a passage where Johannes Climacus
is discussing the importance of Socrates’ ability to always say the same about the
same (SKS 7, 260). That is, to not need the change of scene or setting to make
something interesting or relevant, but to be able to always say the same about the
same, and yet by so doing, in infinite passion to that related, saying something
entirely different about the same, in every time saying the same. Taking merely a
change of mood or a slight change of perspective to change it all and yet leave it all
as it is. However, the attempt at making what seemed simple stand out as more
complex, is not as such a desire to make it entirely obscure. It is in wonder to
make the apparent wondrous again, so that what seemed already settled in some
simple manner is suddenly reopened to reveal that there was much more to be said
and thought about it than what immediately meets the eye. The challenge in this
sense is to never grow tired of, or come to see as trivial, the questions that life
poses to us. Fundamentally: what are you doing here? But what are you doing here
in a way that can manifest itself in the smallest and greatest ways in existence, and
which in some sense exactly challenges the idea of small and great, because when
relating to existence it is impossible to judge what will in some given situation be
of importance to someone. What the pseudonyms do, among other things, is to
also show us back to this immediate interest in existence.

Individuum og som saadant paa eengang sig selv og hele Slægten, saaledes, at hele Slægten
participerer i Individet og Individet i hele Slægten (SKS 4, 335).” Thus, it is not explicitly said that
every human being is a new beginning, but that it is so insofar as the first sin of each individual is
the first sin, and at the same time a continuation.

19
 An example can help us see how the above four aspects of beginning are
related, and how they relate to the work of the present dissertation. I take here the
internal struggle of the man going to the Deer-Park in Concluding Unscientific
Postscript (SKS 7, 428 ff.). Climacus is in this context considering the possibility of
understanding what it would mean to go to the Deer-Park or whether or not one
could do this at all, while bearing in mind the word of the minister on Sundays that
we do not have the ability to do anything (in the face of God). The investigation of
this question is a long, continuous opening of the same; sometimes applying the
question to the example of different people who do the same thing in different
ways, sometimes applying it to one and the same man who does the same thing—
goes to the Deer-Park—but with different ways of being turned toward the
question of whether or not that kind of diversion is possible without losing the
constant view of mind that before God man is able to do nothing. Underlying this
extremely long exposition there is also the one following the “situation” from the
sideline—the scout (e.g. SKS 7, 431). Related to the above, we may say the
following: the one through whom the beginning of this narration takes place,
namely Climacus (yet also the priest on Sunday?), has a central relevance to the
manner in which we are enabled to see the problem stand out as a problem and be
considered from different points of departure. At the same time, the introduction
of the scout further complicates the question of the relationship between
communicator, communicated, and recipient, and makes apparent that in any
observation of the other, there can be a slyness that again spurs us on to question
the observation that is being put before us.
The open-endedness is seen in the continuous beginning of the story, taking
the problem into account in ever-new ways, and then starting again. Even when
Climacus arrives at saying that the monastery cannot be the solution, that is, that
hiding from the world cannot bring us closer to living in such a way that we are all
the time aware of being able to do nothing. This ‘answer’ contains as its strongest
point that the question, the awareness of the incapability, is constantly kept alive in
the ‘going about doing’ that life always also is (SKS 7, 436-437). Thus, the
possibility of being lost is incorporated into the question and into the quote-on-
quote answer, and this goes, of course, as much for the one talking as for the one
listening, as much for the minister as for the churchgoers, as much for the scout as

20
for the one whose life is being scouted upon. Beginning, therefore, leads us back
to another beginning; that of questioning the point of departure, that of asking yet
again from where we set out on our trip to the Deer-Park; from where we set out
at every moment. In this sense, the question is always the same about the same,
and fastening our gaze in one particular way, always an invitation to keep looking.
The other—the listener to the speaker, the churchgoer to the minister, those
scouted upon to the scout—may be present in the sense that we know we may
always be in the wrong, not merely before God, but before our fellow human
being, our neighbor, too, and in that sense likewise be in the wrong before
ourselves. Therefore, there is a danger in letting the same become to be the same
such that the question closes itself around itself in self-contentment.
These twists and turns are central to the thesis of this work, which holds
them to enable the spectator, through the pseudonym, through the familiar and
the estranged—or what seemed to be too obviously one thing or the other—
through the concepts that do not necessarily create grounding poles of
stabilization but likewise challenges that can turn our perspective on its head, to
see differently, to fathom new aspects of that which seemed to be unambiguously
one-sided. Thereby also perhaps being positioned and positioning him- or herself
such that the incontinence of understanding will bring about a running of ethical
insight, which may fill the gaps in the incomprehensible beginning of the other.
What I want to argue is that there is a constant movement between knowing one’s
way, being familiar with the scenery, and being lost, not knowing one’s way
about—thus fluctuating between beginning and end and beginning again. Put a
little less obscurely, it seems that we are at once oriented in existence in a way that
makes sense and allows us to navigate in the world, in relation to things and
ourselves and others, and yet, being in existence, hold a proneness to get lost—at
least if willing to follow a movement of making once again complex those matters
that we had perhaps accepted as simple—so that we are suddenly thrown into a
state of doubt—about existence, ourselves, and the other. This movement, this
qualitative difference between living and living, is what makes the beginning so
imperative, because in this manner of thinking existence, the beginning does not
mark the way to an end, but the way to a way that may or may not bring about
another kind of day and another kind of beginning.

21
2ND SCENE
ETHICS OF INCONTINENCE

What is peculiar about the Kierkegaardian texts, among other things, is the
persistent propensity to think in a manner that is committed to existence. In what
follows, I will give an account of what this might be taken to mean and how it is
important in relation to the present work. It is by way of the perspectives on and
of existence that we arrive at the question of what is meant by ethics of
incontinence, and it is likewise on this trajectory that the importance of the theater
as image becomes apparent.
Existence is brought in as a concept by Kierkegaard to mark the limit of
abstract conceptualization. That is, as a reminder that prompts the thinker not to
lose sight of what he or she is writing about. The question is what is meant by this
reminder, what is it that the awareness and presence of existence in these writings
asks of us as existent human beings and ask of themselves as texts? Understanding
the pseudonyms as a manner of looking at this notion in Kierkegaard is nothing
new, as a matter of fact it was suggested by Kierkegaard, as we know him from the
final pages of Concluding Unscientific Postscript (SKS 7, 569-573), although the concept
he uses here is Livs-Anskuelse (life-view) rather than existence 3. What is new,
however, is my resolution to look at them in their individuality, relative to the
notion of existence; to look at them such that no particular concept or theme that
they bring into view becomes the question, but that the question is about them
and how they maintain concreteness right before our eyes, thereby maintaining an
intermittent focus on existential individuality.
Perspectives make up the central problem in this dissertation. The difficulty
lies in seeing them both as the perspective of the irreducible individual and as a
shared problem of existence. The pseudonyms are here taken as a manner to
investigate an understanding of the perspectives in which these show themselves
both as living perspectives of individual characters, and as the conflict between
this notion and that of expressing something relating to shared perspectives that

3 Although aware that these two concepts are by no means synonymous, I take them to be

connected, and especially so in this particular mentioning by Kierkegaard.

22
we may establish in order to consider one problem or another pertaining to being
existent human beings. The perspectives are what I take to stand in the place of a
concern with particular thematic problems of the individual pseudonymous works,
since the resolution to look at any theme in a particular way may always bring us
back to the question of the perspective from whence this resolution makes sense.
My thesis is that despite the apparent impossibility of keeping all perspectives
open—let alone knowing what that would mean—it is a challenge to us, in being
in existence in general and in reading the works of Kierkegaard in particular, that
we should not be deaf in any resolution that we do find to hear the other voices
that speak against it. Not just because they speak against it, but because hearing is
a hearing that, implying that it could have been hearing something different. That
this is a trivial thesis is exactly part of the challenge, since we may easily be blinded
to its simple complexity. Communication is here part of the problem, because the
making shared runs the risk of minimizing the stakes—the stakes of existential
importance to each one whose share it encounters. What is suggested hereby is
also that with the pseudonyms we are presented with an approach to thinking that
puts into question the ideal of systematic consistency relating to thought. That we
find both in the pseudonymous works—the systematic and abstract, and the
individuating and apparently contingent—is part of what this interpretation
highlights.
Ethics of incontinence is what springs from the desire not merely to state
that perspectives pose a peculiar challenge in our existence, that the pseudonyms
are at the same time particular and universal, that the theater is here presented as
the setting that does not lend a final fifth act, but to assume the risk of making
something of it. Ethics of incontinence is a bringing together of opposing
elements that cannot finally be united, but that we are somehow forced to unite,
because our individual existences in community all the time challenges us to be
and act, in reflection and in doing. Thus we are faced with guiding beliefs and the
incontinence of action and sentiment. Ethics of incontinence is a
conceptualization of that which in some sense escapes conceptualization—it is a
concern with all those little details that touch us and sometimes disrupt the idea of
living according to certain ideas. It is, therefore, the admittance of unfathomable
wealth of differences into the search for clarity. The idea is that Kierkegaard’s

23
pseudonymous works do not lend themselves for us to distill from them an ethics,
but they also do not lend themselves as the denial of the importance of ethics.
Here importance does not mean something valuable per se, but that in the
manifold of perspectives there is both system and disruption, such that
understanding at all—and misunderstanding—is linked to a sense-making without
which we could not perceive the disruption at all. The link to ethics in this is
perhaps not apparent, but the thought is that ‘the making of sense’ is guiding to
how we act, and yet what goes against it is not less real or valid, but is somehow
accounted for in our thoughts and actions.
Ethics of incontinence stands in the place of the missing fifth act. The
missing fifth act is the acceptance that there is neither system nor finalization. The
challenge that this poses in terms of reading Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works,
and in terms of asking about existence more broadly speaking, is that any answer
must always return upon itself and pose its question once again. In a similar sense
and related to this, the concern for the many perspectives of the pseudonymous
works is based on the idea that the missing fifth act is not just a coincidental
reproach to ‘speculative thought’ (SKS 7, 117), but a significant reminder
concerning the question of existence and the existent whose question it is.
In order to maintain a focus in this search, I have chosen to bring in some
ideas from the later Wittgenstein—most importantly that of seeing aspects and
aspect change. The thought is to thereby create a basis upon which to consider the
sometimes abrupt changes in the pseudonymous writings—the changes in mood,
focus, fluctuation of concepts and so on. The importance that I see in holding
onto these little changes is multiple, but I will make it threefold in an attempt of
clarity and limitation: first, they challenge any strict notion of consistency, theory,
and systematization; second, they sometimes bring about smiles, even laughter,
which may remind us that the earnestness lies also in not becoming so earnest that
we become ridiculous; third, when noticed, we may ask the question what it is that
they bring about—when a different aspect stands out to us, are we led then to ask
about the perspective or the difficulty in concluding thoughts on existence with
something other than what could be in its turn another surface of possible
rupture? In the interplay between text and existence, we may say that a different

24
aspect appearing in that which we are able to ‘see’ could be formulated as follows:
the word is different than the touch, but the words can still touch us.
In the literature on Kierkegaard some commentators work with central
questions in Kierkegaard’s thinking by way of conceptual investigation. They take
the stand to investigate aspects of his thoughts through systematic and careful
considerations on how certain conceptual milestones may shed light on the
authorship more broadly speaking. Examples would be the investigation of the
concepts of seriousness (Alvor) and despair by Michael Theunissen and the
investigation of anxiety, subjectivity, and ethics of vision by Arne Grøn 4. Thus, for
example, when Theunissen writes in the introduction to Der Begriff Verzweiflung,
while making the distinction between being more concerned with either form or
content:

“Darum bemühe ich mich in bewußter Einseitigkeit um die Inhalte

(Theunissen, 1993, 8)”

or, when Grøn in Subjektivitet og Negativitet: Kierkegaard delineates his aim by saying:

“Afhandlingen her er skrevet ud fra den overbevisning, at Kierkegaardske

nøglebegreber som subjektivitet, den enkelte, selv, syntese og afgørelse skal
genopdages. Det er en påtrængende opgave at overveje forfra, hvad
subjektivitet betyder hos Kierkegaard, ikke mindst for at nå frem eller tilbage
til en pointeret etisk og religionsfilosofisk bestemmelse af subjektivitet
(Grøn, 1997, 9-10).”

In the remark by Theunissen we are made to understand that he makes the choice
to focus solely on content, presumably because he thinks that something vital is

4 E.g. Theunissen (1958), and (1993). Grøn (1994), (1997), (2002), pp. 111-122, and (1998), pp. 75-
87. The latter focus by Arne Grøn, namely that relating to vision, has points of contact with the
present work, since the question of perspectives and putting the pseudonyms up on stage is related
to vision in an impregnable manner. The decisive difference is that to Grøn it serves as the
foundation of a systematic survey that gathers support across the different works and pseudonyms.
The way of the vision becomes in this manner a vision that ‘gathers for meaning’ that which may
otherwise seem fragmented—a movement is made from relative fragmentation to relative order,
without however compromising the complexity. The ethics of vision becomes a grasp (greb)
through the concept (begreb) of ethics and vision. Contrary to this, the pseudonyms and their
perspectives are here taken as something that at the same time facilitate and disrupt the grasp (of
the reader, of themselves, of the questions at hand) through a repositioning of the questioner and
the question, whereby focus is moved from that which gathers in its grasp to that which disrupts
and disperses—also by way of concepts (begreber).

25
still to be discovered with this approach and independently of the playful form of
Kierkegaard’s works. Grøn holds something similar to be at stake, and the
conceptual basis upon which this conviction is carried out marks the outset of an
investigation of the problem as a systematic one (Grøn, 1996, 10). To both these
thinkers it is the case that their conceptual analysis hinges on an understanding of
existence. The approach that I am here to unfold takes a different point of
departure. Rather than nearing the problem of existence through a strict
conceptual investigation, I take the manifold of different perspectives as another
possible way to illustrate a central difficulty concerning existence. I thus enter the
problem from various angles, and instead of aiming at the relative clarity of
unifying concepts, consider the plethora of possible responses that spring from the
kaleidoscopic views of the pseudonyms. I do not take this approach in order to
prove other readings wrong, indeed it seems to me that it would be odd to insist
on the many perspectives by pointing to some as being the wrong ones to follow,
but I do suggest that there is something to the manifold that must resonate in any
clarity drawn from it. It is clear in the many texts that we have from Kierkegaard’s
hand that there is no strict system of thought, according to them, that can finalize
the questioning concerning existence, partly because the interest of each one
asking is at the heart of the matter and cannot be canceled in virtue of an ideal that
will resolve the problem independently of the one asking in interest about his or
her own existence. It is likewise clear, on the other hand, that all manner of asking
is not deemed equally serious, but that exactly the interest with which a question is
posed is what distinguishes the contingent from the significant manner of asking,
and this is likewise what marks existence. Inter-est is at the same time the
involvement and the being-between that emphasizes the incompleteness of the
perspective as existent. Systematic thought does not go against this understanding
necessarily, but shows itself as systematic by not succumbing to this difficulty. The
question I ask is not how far we can go with systematic thought, but how far we
can go in maintaining the individuating aspects in thought.
Another line of reading Kierkegaard that I will mention, in order to indicate
a difference in approach, is that of Kresten Nordentoft. In Kierkegaards Psykologi,
Nordentoft outlines his understanding of the role that the characters and the
pseudonyms play in the writings of Kierkegaard. He makes clear that he sees the

26
characters not as similar to those that we may find if we look around in the world
and want to fasten our gaze on some subjects of investigation and experiment.
They are rather understood as idealized representations and exaggerations of
certain aspects of a human type. Nordentoft writes:

“Kierkegaards menneskeskildringer er aldrig realistiske i litterær forstand,

men bevidst stilliserede. […] Metoden er at fremeksperimentere skikkelser
og figurer som man ikke finder i virkeligheden. Kierkegaard abstraherer fra
hverdagsmenneskets sammensatte og indistinkte væsen. Forenklingen sker
metodisk og bevidst i den hensigt at uddestillere en speciel problemstilling,
ved hvis hjælp der så kan kastes lys tilbage på det almene […] Alt er funktion
og idé (Nordentoft, 2013, 33).”

I find it necessary to position my understanding in relation to this interpretation,

because it challenges my reading on some level. On the one hand, I am in
agreement with Nordentoft that the characters and pseudonyms of Kierkegaard’s
writings are not representations of existent human beings in the sense in which we
find these in novels and the like, where the aim may be to give a more complete
and complex exposition of different individuals. The role of the manifold in the
pseudonymous writings seems to fill a different position than this. At the same
time, however, I see the fragments of personality as no less ‘real’ than what we
may find in novels, in the sense that they remind us of aspects of existence, which
may easily be overlooked if the project is philosophical abstraction. That there are
characters and that they sometimes reveal themselves as being in contradiction
with their own utterances is not an insignificant reminder of thinking or writing
about existence at all. This is not just a stylized representation in order to highlight
particular problems but a significant aspect of bringing into view these problems.
Insofar as it is abstract, it is just as much extremely concrete. Think, for example,
of A who hears the street vendor through his window in “Diapsalmata” (SKS 2,
51), or Climacus walking around at the cemetery at dusk (SKS 7, 214), or
Haufniensis proclaiming that he is the first to succumb to any authority if it has
been announced who is the one to bow down to (SKS 4, 314). These examples
may all serve a number of functions, but not least that they bring us—very
concretely—to well known aspects of existence, which are not just stylized, but at

27
the same time so real that we can almost touch them or vice versa. The difference
in focus may not least be ascribed to the fact that Nordentoft’s interest lies with
Kierkegaard as a psychologist, while my focus is on the perspectives of the stage
that is set up for us in the pseudonymous writings, and does not relate to the
works from the point of view of psychological questioning. Neither the concrete
personalities nor the abstract stylization is at the heart of the matter, therefore, but
the manner in which these meet on stage and question our understanding of both.
There is nothing remarkable, of course, about claiming that something
breaks into and complicates any attempt at making a system of thought—this has
on some level always been a theme in Western philosophy (e.g. the
counterarguments in Thomas Aquinas, the devilish deceiver in Descartes or the
reflections on method in Kant’s first critique). There is also nothing remarkable
about epistemological and ontological uncertainty forming part of reflection,
especially perhaps in thinking after Kant, and even more pronounced in thinking
of the 19th and 20th centuries. What is remarkable in the pseudonymous works,
however, is thematizing by problematizing the thematization of existence. It is an
insistence on irreducibility of particular existence, which is nonetheless paired with
an attempt at understanding what is shared in this experience. The problem is that
we cannot stand-under where we stand, and therefore when surveying the ground,
we are confronted with its groundlessness every time that we try to say for certain
“this is the ground”, as if that which we were aiming at capturing disappears
whenever we finally think to hold it in our hands. Therefore, we can say with
Climacus “Subjektiviteten er Sandheden” (e.g. SKS 7, 187), but if we thereby think
to have captured some-thing which if scrutinized with sufficient care will show us
that it is so, then we are likely to be holding but a shadow between our fingers.
What I aim at doing is to stage the perspectives that put this difficulty before
our eyes, ears, and minds—not to thereby claim that we can after all capture what
is ‘real’ or ‘true’ in some impregnable manner, but that this concern changes its
form if it is viewed in the setting of the theater, where such questions are less
pressing than the one that asks “what does this play show me (about my own
existence)?” or “what does it want me to do?” Not in asking whether it is real or
not, lies the challenge, but in whether or not it moves me or demands something
of me.

28
 Existence is a difficult category to come to terms with, on the one hand
because it seems primarily intuitive; when we engage in abstract philosophical
thought, it comes in as a counterweight—thus reminding the thinker that his
thoughts must always be committed to existence from whence the thinking
likewise springs. We may here think of Anti-Climacus’ remarks in relation to ‘the
system’, when he suggests that the castle build in thought by a thinker of the
system is so fantastic that the thinker cannot but resolve to live in a dog-house
next to it, because the castle itself is unfit for any human being to live in (SKS 11,
158-159). Existence in this respect is then a marker that indicates simultaneously a
background and a foreground of thought, which, if lost from sight, will leave the
thoughts dangling in a vacuum, unable to touch neither the concrete foothold of
the actual steps that we are constantly challenged and bound to take, nor the
abstract horizon which penetrates our concrete steps with a beyond of possibility,
memory, and longing. On the other hand, it seems to constitute a category, which
offers an alternative to ontological and epistemological considerations in
philosophy. With Kant the distinction between the noumenon of the thing-in-
itself and our perception of it (Kant, 1998, 366-368 [A]) posed a new challenge in
terms of how we view the relationship between ontology and epistemology,
deeming the former to be ‘understood’ by way of the latter. With Kierkegaard the
category of existence instills the further challenge to understand both always in
relation to an actual lived existence, that is, in which the uncertainty of being in
time transposes any abstraction back into a concrete reality in which unknowing is
maintained as a condition of being able to live in the same. This concrete reality,
however, is at the same time the basis of immanence and the question of
transcendence; it is real to us and revealed through a perspective, which at once
marks distance and proximity, at once immerses itself into and transcends the
presence of what appears before us. It transcends reality insofar as our perspective
can glide between observation and imagination, between actual and ideal, without
being able to establish strict limits delineating one perspective from another.
The concern with perspectives in the present work I consider according to
the following twofold: on the one hand the systematizing perspective, on the other
hand the individuating perspective. By the former is meant a perspective that
imprints a unifying character to that which is being considered, that holds a certain

29
conceptual framework as defining for the manner of observation. By the latter is
meant the perspective that breaks into the ‘system’ or the relatively clear
conception of a given perspective—a perspective that disrupts the clarity or
uniformity so to speak. Thus, we may understand the systematizing perspective as
that which is conductive of philosophical thinking, for example, in which a more
or less defined view is sketched out that will subsequently guide the further
examination of a given problem or topic. The perspective in this sense is therefore
not a personal one, but one that can be explained and shared through the
demarcation of its scope, and through a clear representation of its aim. The
systematizing perspective may also be understood in a more personal sense
however, and here it comes close to Kierkegaard’s idea of life-view (Livs-
Anskuelse). It is debatable how transparent a life-view can be to itself, but it seems
fair to assume that some level of transparency and self-reflection is possible here.
Thus, for example, when the Assessor in Either/Or sets out to explain his own life-
view, as one that creates continuity, in opposition to the life-view of his young
friend (the so-called A), which in some sense is not considered by the Assessor to
be a proper life-view at all, because it is too scattered (SKS 3, 187-189). In this
sense the systematizing perspective makes up the guiding perspective of
understanding in someone’s life. Not unlike the philosophical perspective,
however, it rests on an understanding, which, if prompted, would likely be able to
formulate at least some of its basic assumptions. What one sees, therefore, may be
said to be marked by these basic assumptions, and, it seems quite impossible not
to be guided in one’s view on life by some such 5. In the pseudonymous writings by
Kierkegaard we meet both of these so-called perspectives of systematization; the
philosophical and the personal one, and we meet a mix of the two. We meet the
former, for example, in The Concept of Anxiety, in Sickness unto Death, in Fear and
Trembling, and in Practice in Christianity, we meet the latter in Either/Or, in Repetition,
in Stages on Life´s Way, and in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, but, importantly, we
mostly meet both in all the pseudonymous works.

5 The status of this statement is quite problematic, but I will return to a different kind of

clarification of it when we turn to Wittgenstein and my choice to bring in some of his ideas to
differently illuminate the question of perspectives.

30
 With regard to the individuating perspective, I said above that it is
something that disrupts the systematizing one. An example of what is meant by
this would be the following: When walking down the street, engaged in thoughts
about something, which is not present in the strict sense, that is, which is not
presented before me as immediate reality, and my hat suddenly blows off my head,
then my mind is immediately directed toward this occurrence. My hat has gone
flying down the street, carried playfully by the strong wind, and until I have caught
up with it, replaced it on my head and redirected my trajectory to the original one,
I do not resume my previous train of thought. In terms of perspectives, this is a
characteristic image. What I suggest is that my hat flying down the street forces
upon me a different perspective, one that I could not have foreseen, but which is
likewise guided by a familiarity with what can happen. I do not assume that a
hidden god has taken it from my head and brought it to an unknown land, I turn
around, rather, and look to find where the wind has carried it. Thus, at once the
scene brings disruption—in this case it brings me back to my immediate
surroundings—and it brings about another perspective, namely that of paying
attention to the particular situation, the individuating factors in that which I see or
experience. Like that of the systematizing perspective, the individuating one may
be both personal, as in the case of my hat, and shared, such as when a
systematizing perspective in philosophical thought encounters a perspective that
holds something against it or challenges it by a particular limitation to its
conceptual framework. In the case of Kierkegaard, it is the individuating
perspective that is underrepresented in research. The pseudonyms constitute both
perspectives, and again, I am interested in the latter, but well aware that the two
cannot be kept entirely apart.
The problem is if and how we can allow for the individuating perspective to
play into philosophical thinking and if and how it may play a role at all. Using
Wittgenstein’s thoughts on Aspektwechsel, it is the intention to provide a different
manner to consider these questions. What these thoughts disclose is a way of
considering the systematizing perspective as a background, without the need to
take recourse to an understanding of reality that is something else and other than
likewise a manifestation of the web of sense-making, which we can put into
question in many ways, but never fundamentally put into question, without at the

31
same time losing the background upon which this or that particular questioning
makes sense. In relation to ethics of incontinence this is of importance, because
this idea moves between the awareness that we give expression to a life-view
through a shared ability to comprehend that something makes sense, which is,
nonetheless, not founded on a theory of what it means that something makes
sense, but on the shared understanding that we are able to express something and
others to recognize it as meaningful.

32
3RD SCENE
PSEUDONYMS IN THE PSEUDONYMOUS WRITINGS

The pseudonyms play the lead roles in the present work. It is through them that
the plurality of perspectives open up to us, as readers and listeners. It is through
them that existence presents itself in its multifarious gowns and challenges the way
in which we are able to see and listen. It is through them that the playfulness of
taking for granted and being lost meets us, as serious and ridiculing, as the happy
and sad lovers of the paradox, of distinction, of confusion and concealment. The
pseudonyms set the stage, dress up the actors, and play with the director, and
thereby shift us around from one position in the theater to another. The
pseudonyms are at once the company of the lonely thinker and the denial of
company into the most difficult questions of existence. We make our acquaintance
with the pseudonyms before we have even encountered the problems with which
their texts engage, and hence they somehow foreshadow that which is to come by
their mere personality—however impersonal it may at times be. They are like the
enigma of the beginning with which all human life begins; the given, yet not
explained, the outset, yet down an obscure and unknown road, the tie of the
particular, yet extended by default in every direction, dependent upon a vast
unknown of otherness, the presenters, yet the presented, the storytellers, yet the
ones whose stories are likewise told, and that tell the story of another—without
judgment, without resolve.
A few questions of a more general nature must be addressed at this point.
The first one concerns the choice to focus solely on the pseudonymous works of
Kierkegaard, and how I intend to approach the question of pseudonymity. First,
part of the intention is to investigate the role of the pseudonyms and what their
‘relative reality’ means to the production. This entails considering the perspectives
that their presence brings forward in their respective works, among other things
the relative distance to the reader through the concealment of an otherwise
perceived possible immediate relationship between author and reader, and the
relative proximity through the means of being existing perspectives and not merely
imagined points of view from the selfsame author. This latter, of course, poses its
own kind of questions, since the pseudonyms may also be seen as being just that

33
or it may lead us to question what it means, in the Kierkegaardian sense, to be an
author at all. Second, one of the things that I wish to do is to make these very
pseudonyms stand out on their own accord and fill more than but a preconceived
space within the authorship as a whole. In other words, I want to investigate the
plurality to which the pseudonymous voices open up. Third, and related to the
above, it is my intention to look at the manner in which the pseudonyms manage
to change the perspective of the reader—a move that will be reinforced by way of
the understanding of Aspektwechsel that we find in Wittgenstein’s late writings.
I aim to point to the implications of the plurality of the works, and in this
respect the explicit characters of the pseudonyms seem to me to be of interest. A
question that one might pose would be: what is meant here by ‘point of view’ or
by ‘perspective’? Especially concerning the former there is a vast history of ideas
relating to this, and it seems philosophically impertinent to say ‘point of view’ or
‘view’ without engaging in a clarification of what is meant by this in relation to
different traditions. And yet, there is some sense to it, because the possibility of a
like confusion is part of the point of bringing this dissertation up on stage. We
may insist that the point of view pertains to or departs from one particular school
of thought, but when placed on stage, the point of view is turned around, and the
possible confusion of what it means to have a point of view at all is what makes
the question become manifest.
Although Kierkegaard scholarship is abounding in literature that in one way
or another considers the pseudonyms 6, the attempt to let the pseudonyms’ voices
be heard over and above the themes and problems of each work is not. I will
return to a positioning of my work in relation to Kierkegaard research a little
further along in scene 5. The way in which I approach the pseudonyms is related
to the two ‘framing devises’ that I am making use of, one of which is Aspektwechsel,
the other the theater or stage. I read the texts, therefore, in two different but
connected ways. On the one hand, I pay special attention to the prefaces, in which
a mood 7 is struck by the pseudonym that marks his appearance on stage; on the

6For a good overview concerning pseudonymity and style in Kierkegaard see Mooney (2012).
7It should be noted that by mood I do not mean to engage in a debate about any kind of ’theory of
moods’. I apply the notion throughout in a very immediate sense as something that strikes a kind

34
other hand I round up different passages, both from the prefaces and elsewhere in
the body of the texts, in which the pseudonyms make new aspects of the same
appear to us. In relation to the latter, it is a question whether and in what sense the
pseudonyms can ‘make something appear to us’. One way in which I wish to open
up the question of plurality is through the pseudonyms’ use of central concepts
and the way in which they play with the stability of these, such that the
aforementioned task of saying the same about the same and thus say something
very different gains a new strength in also being applied in the use of concepts.
That is, in using the same concepts to say something different, the same is
disclosed as the same, and yet in such a way that the same gains new meaning. An
example of this would be the way in which the concept of ethics is used
throughout the pseudonymous production, but also the way in which it is staged
within some of the individual pseudonymous works. For instance, in the work Fear
and Trembling when Johannes de silentio sets the ethical as that which pertains to
the universal, in relating to the individual’s belonging within the universal, and at
the same time as that in contrast to which the individual can stand out as
individual, being in conflict with it. Thus the ethical is at once that which makes
human life commensurable, and that which makes the incommensurable stand
out, as the individuating that cannot be mediated in its sphere (SKS 4, 155).
The question of pseudonymity may, of course, be approached from many
different points of view. It may be in the interest of analyzing the author-authority,
the intricacies of communication relating to existence, the idea of multiple
personalities that bring existential questions back into existence, the distance to the
reader deemed necessary in relation to such questions, the relation between truth
and deception, the sometimes argued gradual approach to a religious point of
view, etc. In the present case, the pseudonyms mainly have a place insofar as they
exactly have a proper place each to their own (however intermingled they may be),
which opens up to a kaleidoscope of differences and perspectives that challenges
the realm of knowledge, and—by way of its relation to existence, of the vast

of atmosphere—much like it is used, for example, by Haufniensis (SKS 4, 322-323), where it

becomes almost indicative of an approach, and Climacus (SKS 7, 216, 324), where it marks a
situation and life in a manner that is decisive, but not as such determinable.

35
uncertainty that is thus called into play—likewise the ethical demand which is
called forth by existence as an engagement with that which surrounds the
singularity of each question posed to it, in every moment that it is posed anew.
The history of the Kierkegaard-reception has seen varying degrees of taking
seriously or not the question or fact of the pseudonymity 8. Largely, it may be
suggested that there are two ways of interpreting the role of the pseudonymous
body in the authorship, that is, if one takes into account the question of
pseudonymity at all 9. One is more reliant on Kierkegaard’s key to interpretation as
we find it presented in the very last pages of Concluding Unscientific Postscript in “A
First and a Last Explanation” 10 (SKS 7, 569-573), giving weight to the pseudonyms
as their own type of creation, the thoughts pertaining to whom one cannot
transfer to be those of Kierkegaard. In taking on this manner of adhering to the
weight of the pseudonyms, it is the ‘key’ of interpretation provided by Climacus,
which is prominently applied. This means that the other works are read in the light
of Climacus’ idea of indirect communication, and the idea that what is being
played out in the pseudonymous works is that of putting thoughts into existence,
that is, taking away the speculative distance by emerging ‘poetically-real’ characters
into the life-views of particular existences (e.g. SKS, 7, 228). It is clear from this
that the idea of poetically real already contains quite a contradiction, and one, so it
shall be argued, that is never done away with. However, this is a point and a
complication of its own to which we will return.

8 A common example of reference to the pseudonyms would be Greenspan (2008), where ideas are
referred to as those of Kierkegaard, while the pseudonymous names are applied at variance. This is
related, presumably, to the thematic reading by Greenspan who traces the idea and role of passion
and tragedy across the different works. A different approach may be found in Schmidt (2006), who
has the ‘plurality of speech’ as his subject, but investigates it as a Schritstellerische Praxis (Schmidt,
2006, 5), such that the plurality ‘itself’ is not the question, but the plurality as a method employed by
Kierkegaard is. An example of a work dedicated to the question would be Bertung and Müller
(1993), where different authors provide their reading of the different pseudonyms. It is worth
noting likewise that there is a forthcoming publication in the series Kierkegaard Research: Sources,
Reception and Resources, volume 17 on the pseudonyms.
9 This distinction is likewise employed by Schwab (Schwab, 2012, 3-4, and further developed in Teil

II of the same work). A related distinction made by Schwab is that between Sachbezogene- and
Mitteilungsbezogene Interpretationstypus, which also takes into account the role of The Point of View
(Schwab, 2012, 53-55). I will return to discuss this distinction in Scene 5.
10 Granted that Kierkegaard thought this to be the last pseudonymous publication from his hand,

he added this ’explanation’ in which he admits being the legal author behind the pseudonymous
production—legal and literary in the sense of being the one whose pen has brought them into
actuality—but nothing more.

36
 In the entire section entitled “A Glance at a Contemporary Effort in Danish
Literature”, Climacus develops his understanding of how the pseudonymous
works may be read (though he refrains from judging whether his interpretation is
akin to the intention of the authors, the question of which he deems, significantly,
to be unimportant (SKS 7, 228-229)). Apart from being a humorous attempt, it is
also indicative of the way in which indirect communication has been understood,
at least in some of its aspects, and it suggests that the pseudonymous works can be
read as working pluralistically in unison in a common striving, namely that of
bringing abstract questions and allegedly settled questions back into the sphere of
existence, and back into view as problems at all. This still sounds rather abstract,
and one may ask what such questions could be questions of, but the questions are
only narrowed down to be such that concern ethico-religious matters (SKS 7, 181).
And which are such matters? They are ones that can grasp the attention of the
individual in passion, that is, which cannot leave the questioner unmoved once it
has been seen as a question, but which at the same time does not concern any
particular ‘thing’—the question is a question, one might say or the question is such
that it cannot be given an answer, and therefore its persistence of keeping us with
the question is relentless, and one that is never settled, and if settled, surely
misunderstood. The problem is closure. The danger is closure, which provides us
with a result such that we are allowed to move on. There is no moving on, because
the question still stands whenever it has been answered.
The other primary perspective through which the pseudonymous works
have been read is the one established in The Point of View of My Work as an Author –
A Direct Communication, Report to History. Here we encounter the opposition to the
abovementioned manner of reading, and the apparent contradiction of what is
elsewhere deemed possible—namely to read one’s own work also only as a reader
(SKS 7, 570) 11. In this work, which was not published but posthumously,
Kierkegaard seemingly provides us with ‘his own’ understanding of how the

11 That even this seeming clarity and opposition to the reading of indirect communication may be

questioned in its turn, is something that could deserve careful consideration. It is namely quite
possible that even the ‘direct explanation’ is not so direct after all. However, granted that the
pseudonymous works are presently our concern, I will not discuss this point any further here.

37
pseudonymous authorship must be read 12. Kierkegaard claims here that there was
from the very beginning only one aim with his entire authorship, namely a
religious one, and that his role was all the time solely that of a religious writer (SKS
16, 18-21). In this manner the pseudonymous authorship may be read as serving
the sole purpose of bringing the reader closer to a true Christian concern (SKS 16,
11-12). Here the question of authority becomes pertinent. Granted that I have
decided not to engage in the debate on authority, it is nonetheless relevant to point
to other readings of this Kierkegaard, namely as not pointing back
unproblematically to the historical, factual Kierkegaard. Such a reading we find
espoused in the work of Joseph Westfall. Westfall’s ideal appears to hinge on a
fine line between not wanting to give up some authorial authority or unity
altogether (such as not to allow the thoughts in them to become totally fragmented
and unrelated) and yet at the same time to avoid reliance on an authorial authority
ascribed to Kierkegaard as the historical person. Thus he argues that the name of
S. Kierkegaard in Kierkegaard’s writings is a veronym, and that the ‘author of the
author’ of Kierkegaard, the Kierkegaardian author, is grounding for all the
Kierkegaardian authors and yet not identifiable with the factual Kierkegaard
himself (Westfall, 2007, 10 – 11). I am in some ways sympathetic to this line of
argument, and wish to lay no claim on one side of the authorship being more or
less true to some conceived authority standing behind it all, but it is also not my
concern to understand the ‘authors’ from a point of view that poses the question
of authority. It seems to me that in asking about perspectives one must ask whose
perspective it is, but at the same time allow for the uncertainty of this question,
granted that the point of view is continuously thrown back at us. In this sense, the
one, whose perspective it is, is accentuated in the flow of the dialogue that the
reader keeps with the text, or the spectator with the play, and cannot be distilled
from it, which means that authority becomes rather than is, and becomes
continuously as a question.

12 A good criticism of ‘buying into’ this story is presented by Dolors Vidal Perarnau (2004),
although she is by no means alone on taking issue with this manner of reading Kierkegaard’s
oeuvre as a whole.

38
 The two perspectives just outlined present to us a manner of reading that in
some sense pretends to be a complete reading, or at least a reading that seems to
encompass the other writings in a kind of unifying perspective. They lend us a key
to understanding that which is put before us in the relative totality of texts. What I
wish to do is to bracket these unifying readings in an effort to open up the
perspectives of each pseudonym in its own right. Only in the fourth act will I turn
to Climacus and his understanding of indirect communication, and consider this in
relation to the change of aspect, as it will be discussed in the second and third acts.
The aim is to present a reading that is not concerned with a particular end-goal,
but rather focuses on that which is left unresolved, because the paradoxicality of
communicator and communicated reopens the questions continuously to the
singular inquirer and the singular inquiry. In so doing, I pose the question not
merely of how we are able to read, but of how we are able to carry on, without
becoming transfixed in a preconceived understanding of where it is that we think
we are going, or where we think that the text wants us to go. To assume the risk of
making something of that, which is put before us, while remaining humble enough
to question our resolve. In other words, I attempt a manner of reading, which tries
not to depart from a preconceived strategy of communication, but to conceive of
ways in which the plurality is exposed and maintained, whereby communication
itself becomes the challenge by and by, however in such a way that it maintains
this as a challenge of existence, without which it remains a mere chimera of
thought.
So, then, let us proceed to considering the pseudonyms. A seemingly basic
question that arises in relation to the pseudonyms is this: how many of them
count 13? In the following I will go through them one by one, as far as this is
possible or I will do so in order to indicate in which ways it is not exactly possible.
There are the obvious pseudonyms who figure at the title page of each work or as
the author of an article. In order to keep track of these, I will number them, and
then unfold some of the complexity relating to each one. Other characters and

13 In posing the question in this manner, I am indebted to George Pattison who was my adviser

during my stay at the University of Oxford in the Michaelmas term of 2011. He posed it to me on
various occasions as a reminder that it is not as simple or straight forward as it may at first glace
appear to be.

39
possible pseudonymous appearances, I will italicize the first time that they are
mentioned. I go through the pseudonyms in order of chronology, based on the
original date of publication, so the numbers do not indicate any hierarchy (except,
of course, that posed by time). An exception to the chronology are the
pseudonyms that alone published articles, these will all be mentioned in the end,
but their work will not play a role in the further investigation. One of the
pseudonyms, Johannes Climacus, appears twice in the listing, mainly because his
two works were published with close to two years of distance, and because some
other pseudonymous publications came out in between. The second time he
appears, I merely refer back to the first number in the line that he was given.
1) Victor Eremita, who is the first solitary narrator of a story of secrets that
at the same time reveals and disguises the beginning of the story of others that are
unknown to him. However, he, if we want to go by the book, wrote only a minute
part of the texts contained in Either/Or; merely the preface as a matter of fact—
albeit a kind of fact that subsequently throws any fact of the story into doubt. He
also appears later as a character in another work, Stages on Life's Way, where he
gives a speech about women (SKS 6, 57 ff.). So who are the others or which one is
the ‘real’ author of Either/Or? Is it just A and B or do Johannes the Seducer, Cordelia,
and the priest from Jutland count as pseudonyms too?
2) Constantin Constantius, whose constancy consists in an exasperating
fluctuation between an existential impossibility of repetition and an almost
conservative persuasion of being in the right in relation to an-other as regards
repetition. A substantial part of Repetition is in the form of letters written by 'the
young man', who eventually turns out to be but a thought experiment 14 performed
by Constantius, that is, the other in relation to whom Constantius understands
himself as being in the right. This poses the question of the ideal that in its
imagined completeness may achieve what in actual existence can only remain
unresolved—and yet the question remains whether even the thought experiment

14The idea or concepts of 'thought experiment', ‘psychological experiment’, ‘poetical experiment’

appear in various places throughout the pseudonymous authorship and leave the question of what
and who is the subject of the experiment, and of how an experiment is to be related to, as opposed
to a representation, an exposition, a treatment of a particular issue etc. (e.g. SKS 3, 24, 107, 139;
SKS 4, 7, 359-361, 371; SKS 6, 173, 7; SKS 11, 55).

40
achieves the ideal repetition or merely a despairing shadow of it. Constantius also
reappears later in Stages on Life's Way when he arranges the banquet (Gjestebud) for
five other characters 15, and suggests that they all give a speech about love or the
relationship between man and woman, once they can feel the power of the wine
(SKS 6, 35).
3) Johannes de silentio, whose silence is at the same time the voice of the
entire human race’s bereavement of or indignation with a father who was willing
to kill his son against all human comprehension. De silentio’s pseudonymity seems
more straightforward in that there is only one in the work, Fear and Trembling, but
his role on second thought is not so simple. Firstly, he recounts a story from the
Bible in ever new ways on the condition that he is recounting a story whose theme
seems to be that it cannot find a human voice anyway; secondly, the name and the
contradiction to boot, he does speak, and yet says nothing for certain, in a manner
of speaking, remains silent. Also, Johannes de silentio relates the story of a man to
whom this biblical story of Abraham became the centerpiece of his existence (SKS
4, 105)—thus; de silentio is posing, and insisting on it passionately, a question,
which in another sense is perhaps not his.
4) Johannes Climacus, whose ladder is not that of a straight ascent but takes
us from the question of Socratic truth to that of the paradox and back to the
question of what it means to think that one has gone further than Socrates, such
that what has been ‘achieved’ is once again put into question, yet now with the
category of faith (SKS 4, 306). The pseudonymity of Climacus is likewise singular
to his work, and yet somewhat complicated in relation to the two works that he
authored (Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript). The difficulty
lies therein that what he claims to stand for and what he is explicitly treating in his
two works seem to be at odds with one another 16. This becomes most explicit

15 Or four, it never becomes quite clear whether or not William Afham, the narrator of the story,

counts as one of the guests at the banquet, but he is there in the end and steals a third manuscript
by Judge Wilhelm from the hands of Victor Eremita (SKS 6, 83-84).
16 There are several works that take up this question in one form or another, a prominent example

would be James Conant’s “Putting Two and Two Together”, in which the recalling of the Postscript
by Climacus toward the end of that work is likened in its radical signification for the rest of the
work, to that which Conant (and Cora Diamond) suggest in reading Wittgenstein’s Tractatus and
considering the revocation that takes place in it. The strong claim is that, apart from some
framework sentences, the revocation deems the remainder of the book, in both cases, to be utter

41
perhaps in asking what eternal salvation means to the single existing individual
from the point of view of one who lays no claim to being a believer (SKS 7, 206,
560). In Climacus we likewise see the contradictory constellation of the following:
when asking about his eternal salvation—the subjective question, the passion of
which alone can carry faith—he at the same time reveals himself as having chosen
his vocation of working with these problems out of vanity, because he felt that he
was getting too old to not have found still for himself something to devote his life
to (SKS 7, 170-173).
5) Vigilius Haufniensis (or, as suggested by himself if one should find the
Latin name too pretentious, Christen Madsen), whose alerted gaze wanders
through the shadows of anxiety, not pretending to find dogmatic clarity, but to
explore incessantly the psychological details of the question posed on human
terms—he is from Copenhagen, after all, and not endowed with an eternal point
of view. Haufniensis is likewise the only author voice in the work, but a steady
companion in what holds him fast on the seriousness of his endeavor is the irony
of keeping always on his side the playfulness which shames the ethical ideality for
not being able to reach reality to which it dictates the impossible (commencing
SKS 4, 324). The theme, of course, is sin and hereditary sin, but the challenge is
arriving as close as possible to the possibility of sin, without shrinking the totality
of each new sin, and without disregarding its seriousness related to the sinfulness
that it simultaneously continues and disrupts. Therefore, in a sense, the vigilant
pseudonym is alone, and yet accompanied by the entire human race.
6) Nicolaus Notabene, whose noteworthiness lies in that he does not engage
in writing great works but, ironically, never arrives at the end in which an NB
would be considered appropriate. Nicolaus Notabene is, rather, all about
beginning, insofar as he writes only prefaces, and hence in a sense only beginnings.
In so doing he advocates the emancipation of the preface—presumably as a
manner of ridiculing the Hegelian mockery of the preface in Phänomenologie des
Geistes (Hegel, 1986, 11-13). Nicolaus Notabene might be the most complete
pseudonym in terms of the reader knowing his life story. We get to know about

nonsense, which nonetheless has an edifying value, insofar as the reader comes to realize his own
deception through the reading (Conant, 1995, 302-303).

42
his wife, about their relationship, about his inclination to write books and his
difficulty in having to give it up in order to not lose his wife, who finds his
devotion to studying and writing, in terms of stealing his attention, to be much
worse than adultery (SKS 4, 473). An interesting aspect here is that his mind—the
fact that studying and writing would steal away from her his mental attention—is
the important part, much more important than his physical whereabouts. In this
sense there is an interesting apparent conflict in asserting that thought dedicated to
the thought of writing cannot at the same time engage in thought dedicated to life,
so that Notabene’s accusation of philosophy’s attempt at doubting everything,
which cannot be solved in the system but only in life, as he says (SKS 4, 510), may
be liked to the accusation of his wife to him. Philosophy writes about the doubt,
but cannot doubt it in life, Notabene writes about his doubt of philosophy’s doubt
related to life, but in so doing is blamed by his wife for the same kind of adultery.
7) Hilarius Bogbinder (or Bookbinder), whose name, of all names that are
not merely abbreviations, is the only one, which is not entirely in Latin. His
vocation is that of a ‘simple’ bookbinder and therefore, presumably, he does not
acquire more than the Danish trade-name as his last name, while his first name,
which is Latin, ridicules him for not even being able to appreciate the value of the
manuscript that has been left in his hands by the accidental occurrence of another
man’s death. Another man, furthermore, whose studious validity was higher, since
being that of an author. The work that our bookbinder publishes, encouraged by
yet another, namely the house teacher of his son (SKS 4, 13), Stages on Life's Way, is
probably the most complex in terms of pseudonyms. Hilarius Bogbinder is the
publisher but, like Victor Eremita in Either/Or, he has only written the preface in
which he explains how the papers that he is about to publish came into his
possession. The author of the next part is William Afham who is recounting the
story of a banquet at which, among others, other pseudonyms were present and
gave speeches on the role of the woman, as mentioned above. Johannes the Seducer,
Victor Eremita, and Constantin Constantius are present on this occasion, along with the
young man and the fashion merchant, whom we have not met before. Later Judge
Wilhelm appears with his wife (he is being secretly watched by the five remaining
men who participated in the banquet. Constantin Constantius has already left the
party at this point (SKS 6, 80). Victor Eremita steals another letter by the judge,

43
which in turn William Afham takes from him. This letter makes up the second half
of the first part of the book. The second part involves yet another writer, Quidam,
in the diary-like entries collected as "Guilty-not-Guilty", which is presented
through a story of lake-related revelation by F.T., presumably Frater Taciturnus,
though this is not clear and also stands in contrast to the later explanation by the
latter that the young man was invented by him. Quidam is a young man who
narrates the story of his broken engagement, and finally there is a response or a
postscript to the young man’s writings by Frater Taciturnus (who also publishes a
few articles later in the same year in the Copenhagen journal Fædrelandet).
Ad 4) Johannes Climacus, here for the second time, and let me say a little bit
more about him. Climacus is the first pseudonym whose name is accompanied by
Kierkegaard's own on the title page, where Kierkegaard figures as the
publisher 17—and in the latter work Concluding Unscientific Postscript the festivities
take on new dimensions as Climacus invites into play all the previous pseudonyms.
He analyzes their works and methods according to his own conception of the
immense complexity pertaining to communication on matters of existence. The
idea being that there is a drawing away from thought and abstraction into an
actuality of action and passionate engagement. This concerns not least the receiver
who may in turn be no one, and whose role it is not to become first and foremost
a reader and a disciple following the call of the one speaking. And, in relation to
the writer, to not write in such a manner that what is written could be jotted down
in a notebook in a few memorable lines such that that which is said can in turn
become the instruction of the behavior of the reader, making communication into
a matter of grand finale like the fifth act in a play in which all the pieces come
together and all else is clear in the light of the ending (e.g. SKS 7, 75-76, 117).
Climacus comments on, approves and disapproves of different aspects of the
different pseudonymous authors and works, and sees them all in the light of his

17 Text-critical work with the original sources has shown that Kierkegaard had originally put his
own name on the title page, but cut it off and replaced it with that of Johannes Climacus at some
point before bringing it to the press, merely placing his own name as the publisher (SKS-K 4, 192-
193). Since my concern here is not to establish a link of authenticity relating to Kierkegaard’s
thinking, in the manner that was questioned above, this fact does not change the role of Climacus
in the present work. The same goes for like concerns with some of the other pseudonyms—
Vigilius Haufniensis, for example.

44
own plan—he wanted to have written all these books himself, but the other
authors kept being one step ahead (SKS 7, 228ff.). While he recognizes that they
may have had other agendas too, he nonetheless assumes that part of their
uniqueness was that they had all realized the need for a different mode of
communication in relation to questions of existence (SKS 7, 240). Possibly, in
terms of communication, with the exception of Vigilius Haufniensis, who is
moderately criticized for being too lecturing 18 (SKS 7, 245). However, Haufniensis
is excused by the assumed fact that once the reader has been prepared in a way
that will allow him or her to view the challenge as one of existence and not either
as a matter of knowing the right thing or following and copying the right people
(and in this respect they have presumably been prepared by the other
pseudonyms), there is a of kind knowledge which is a fundamental part of
Christianity, that can be brought to the fore once it is clear that knowledge alone
will not bring about the Christian in anyone (SKS 7, 245). Climacus grants that
Haufniensis perhaps brings about knowledge at a moment in which it is possible
to be taken in the right way—though, of course, this manner of stating it is
problematic in itself. What does it mean, namely, that the reader would be ready to
receive knowledge in a more direct fashion, and what does it mean to pretend that
a reader has read it all to thus be prepared to receive in the right way—not least
when it is at least pretended that the reader is unlikely to have read a work through
to the end (e.g. SKS 6, 446 ff.; SKS 4, 314)? It is also worth noting that Climacus
does talk about the other pseudonyms as pseudonyms, and even suggests that they
all pertain to one and the same person, without however reflecting on his own role
in this game (SKS 7, 245). At this point in time, or in production, the pseudonyms
were supposed to have fallen silent, that is, to have ceased to be in production. At
least if we go by what is stated in the journals (SKS 20, 46 / NB 45), and the
concluding remarks to be found at the end of Concluding Unscientific Postscript by S.

18The word Climacus uses is ‘docere’, from the Latin, to show, to lead or to teach—specifically it
has been given the meaning of lecturing ex cathedra or even preaching, i.e. affecting the listener in
a particular way. The verb and noun in relation to ‘docere’ is used repeatedly by Climacus as a
manner of ridicule—it seems that this word is taken to encompass the perceived hopeless endeavor
of convincing the other of the truth (of Christianity) through intellectual knowledge-based
acrobatic exercises (e.g. SKS 7, 92, 166, 232, 273).

45
Kierkegaard (SKS 7, 572). However, after roughly three years of silence,
pseudonymous voices begin to sound again.
8) H.H., whose name does not invite for any obvious play on words, unless
we assume that the anonymity refers to something common like Hans Hansen or,
as the commentators do in the SKS-commentary, that it might refer to hiine
Herlige (SKS-K 11, 45, 4), a phrase which is used on occasion in the work by him.
Given the first case, it may be suggested that the question of whether or not one
can justify to be put to death for the truth, is one which might have its relevance
to any one human being at any point in time, insofar as great conviction, which is
not tied to any one time or any one culture, can always bring about the relevance
of this consideration. According to such line of thought it may well be justified
that the question is posed at once by no one and everyone alike. In the latter case,
the pseudonym serves as a much more direct reference to those who did actually
sacrifice their lives for what they believed in at the dawn of Christianity as religion.
As mentioned above, H.H. is, along with Anti-Climacus, a presumably unexpected
sequel to the line of pseudonyms. Despite the escalation in the tone of severity in
the investigation into Christian questions or questions that a Christian or in any
case a theologian 19 might well want to pose to him- or herself, there is nevertheless
an insistence on the playfulness of the pseudonym; as a poet, as an outsider, as
experimenter (e.g. SKS 11, 93). A great part of the work, however, is in the words
or thoughts of another, namely of a man to whom the question of whether or not
one can allow oneself to be slain for the truth has absorbed his existence (SKS 11,
63). His eyes seem less playful and much more focused on the one matter, the
possibility of imitating the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. The setting here is not
entirely unlike that of Fear and Trembling in which it is a scene from the Old
Testament that has the originating questioner transfixed; that of Abraham on his

19 A usually somewhat more extensive preface has in this pseudonyms work, Two Little Ethico-

Religious Treatises, been replaced by a one-liner, which may well be read as a kind of disclaimer. It
reads in all brevity: “These two Little Treatises would essentially probably only be of interest to
theologians. H.H. (SKS 11, 53)” Hence prefacing the work only by a reduction of the audience,
which is, however, and this should never be underestimated when dealing with the pseudonyms,
mellowed by a “perhaps” (and actually followed by another, slightly longer preface a few pages
later). Nonetheless, one might suspect that this disclaimer has indeed done away with a number of
readers, because it may be one of the works that has received the most modest amount of attention
(see e.g. (Kanding, 2005)).

46
way to Mount Moriah to sacrifice his son Isaac. In both cases one might ask: is
then this man the narrator, the one from whom the wonder sustaining the work
supposedly springs, also a pseudonym, perhaps the true pseudonym of the book?
Yet the playfulness of the pseudonym, the one that would lawfully be called such,
changes the treatise on following Christ, it throws forward and backwards over the
main part of the text a light which, if ignored, still might serve to ignite a doubt for
the reader who reads once more, perhaps to trace the beginning or to begin yet
again.
9) Anti-Climacus, whose antinomous ladder to that of Climacus, rather than
rising us to the question of eternal salvation, lays us all down in the sickbed of
existence’s despair or the eternal despair of existence. Like the ‘Anti’ of which this
pseudonym supposedly stands forth, his name figures just above that of S.
Kierkegaard, who appears once again as the publisher on the title page. The works
by him, which are two, namely Sickness unto Death and Practice in Christianity, are
often considered to be the strictest of the pseudonymous works in terms of their
Christian message and the infatuation of the impossibility or near-impossibility of
becoming such. The pseudonym is so stern that he may almost be forgotten (as is
the writer often in a philosophical thesis, where the author disappears to the
reader, because his or her being or non-being is insignificant to the thesis), but he
is there and he is there in such a way that he both radicalizes the claim of what the
question of Christianity actually poses to the existing human being, and, despite his
devoutness to this matter, should not be overlooked in his peculiar role in these
works, and the play that he sets out to perform by being unclear about his
presence as doctor or patient, onlooker or poet; something that continuously
relativizes the role of his pseudonymity.
Finally, there are the pseudonyms that play seemingly more marginal roles all
of whom publish articles in the local journals Fædrelandet and Kjøbenhavns Flyvende
Post.
10) A. (who could, of course, be the same A as the one we meet in
Either/Or).
11) B. (idem).
12) A.F....
13) Inter et Inter.

47
 14) Procul.
And the reoccurrence of some of the above pseudonyms in relation to smaller
publications; Constantin Constantius, Frater Taciturnus, and Victor Eremita are
the ones that reappear in this minuscular manner. The labyrinth of pseudonyms
might be a good reason why it is not customary in otherwise introductory works
on Kierkegaard to mention the number of pseudonyms that he made use of. And,
as the above set out to ask, how many of them count? Is B a pseudonym, is A, is
Cordelia, is the young man (the poet), is the man taken by the story of Abraham, is
the reader? The list within the obvious list is significantly longer and more
confusing than the immediate impression one might get 20. It has been my choice
to focus on the publishers of the texts and the characters within the different
works that do author part of the texts too. In this way, I refer to pseudonyms and
characters respectively, although on occasion I refer to the pseudonyms as
characters likewise. In any case, the pseudonyms add to a possible conceptual
confusion from which it seems difficult to abstract entirely once we venture into
questions of existence.
What will be done with the pseudonyms in the second and third acts
amounts in brief to this: each pseudonym is presented according to the preface of
their respective works, which will be examined carefully to stake out the voice of
the pseudonym, and the manner in which the mood of each work is set (with the
exception of Constantius, whose work has no preface, and Climacus, whose works
play a prominent role in the fourth act). The characters that enter stage do so
either by way of their quote-on-quote prefaces (when applicable) or pieces of their
text that I find to be telling relative to the theme in relation to which they are
introduced. The themes that have been chosen as guiding for the 3rd and 4th acts
are taken to represent different aspects of the difficulty of reflecting upon the
plurality of perspectives that the pseudonyms present us with, also relative to the
wittgensteinian ideas to which we are introduced in the 2nd act. Furthermore, I will
highlight some places in which the pseudonyms seem to rupture against the

20 By, e.g. consulting the list of works in the, now complete, electronic version of the SKS

publication of Kierkegaard's collected works, papers, journals, letters, and dedications. In this list
the pseudonyms are also stated, when applicable, but the confusion is less staggering since only one
pseudonym is stated for each work—namely, ‘the publisher’ (http://sks.dk/forside/skr.asp).

48
surface of their own thoughts, and demonstrate ways in which the pseudonyms
seem to play with the meaning of concepts. Finally, I will consider the way in
which the problem of communication surfaces throughout these works. I will not
divide the investigation into separate readings of each work, but rather stage the
pseudonyms and characters in relation to thematic issues pertaining to each of
them. Therefore, also the readings of each preface will be related to different
aspects of determining the change of aspect and mood, and the tensions that may
be found within them. The order in which the pseudonyms are brought up on
stage is relative to a thorough consideration of which of them help to best
illuminate aspects of the themes according to the scene in which they appear. It is
therefore not dependent on the chronology of the publications of the different
works (as they have here been presented). I strive to place pseudonyms alongside
each other that tend to be understood as pertaining to the ‘aesthetic’ or the
‘religious’ aspects of the authorship respectively—this is done in order to
demonstrate insecurities relative to either.

49
4TH SCENE
THE TITLE, THE THEATER, AND LUDVIG HOLBERG

The first part of the title of this dissertation has been borrowed from Holberg’s
play by the same name (Uden Hoved og Hale). The comedy was first performed at
Lille Grønnegadeteatret in 1724 under the theater project also known as ‘Den danske
Skueplads’. Apart from being a little known play by Holberg, the title is also, of
course, a simple saying—a saying indicating that something is lacking both
beginning and end, or simply lacking meaning all together. The saying appears in
N.F.S. Grundtvig’s Danske Ordsprog og Mundheld, a collection of Danish sayings and
proverbs from 1845. Here it has the slightly more extended form: ”Halv-Skrattes
Tale har hverken Hoved eller Hale” (half-crackled speech has neither head nor
tail).
In the prelude to the comedy it is said by the character Sganarell, who is
looking for the missing fifth act (Holberg, 1970, 130), that the play does not have
neither a proper title nor the compulsory five acts. Having an even number, in this
case four, was unheard of, as was the lack of a title with a more poetic candor.
Sganarell, worried about the play which is about to begin, appeals to the audience
of the theater to please let him know if they have seen this missing fifth act. This
opening act is marked by the irony of the beginning that has already taken place
but is seeking refuge in the fact that the prelude is but a prelude, in which
apparently it is still possible to avert the beginning and the embarrassment of
putting on a comedy which lacks the final act, the finalization and completion—or
the beginning (since the missing act is merely the fifth but not necessarily the last).
He wonders aloud what might be the correct way to go about it (whether or not to
return to the audience one fifth of the ticket price?), while he promises a reward to
anyone who has seen it. In the meantime, the gods come into the picture and have
to decide whether or not they are willing to spend their time watching a comedy
characterized by lacking in completion.
Granted that the play presumably has no title as such, or no proper title,
“neither head nor tail” indicates that we are ‘thrown down’ into the play, and as
such at a loss as to its whereabouts. At the same time, the moral of the story is in
the concluding remarks of the play said to be that one should not fall into one

50
extreme or another, but remain on the golden middle way (Holberg, 1970, 196), so
one might suspect that the head and tail that have been chopped off are the
extremes which might lead a human being astray in his or her existence. The
choice of this title for my dissertation is threefold:
First, alongside Shakespeare, Holberg has a continuous presence in
Kierkegaard’s works, and his comedies are repeatedly referred to both directly and
indirectly 21. As with Shakespeare, these references are always somehow positive, in
the sense that they bring about a positive image of what Kierkegaard, or his
pseudonyms are presenting in the negative; as if the images from the plays of these
two playwrights were a kind of development of a photograph. The scenes or the
characters of their plays bring to life that which is in the process of existential
development, but can only find expression in the particular situation that the stage,
a character or a story is able to bring about, that is, resembling existence, and the
situations in which actions manifest concrete choices. Furthermore, there is in
Holberg’s plays an ironic distance to the characters and the problems being treated
which presumably made his works a very attractive tool or frame of reference to
Kierkegaard. It is remarkable that Kierkegaard, who is not inclined to be an
unquestionable fan of anyone or any one way of thinking, never takes to criticizing
or questioning the works of these playwrights. On the contrary, he makes use of
their imagery and complexity as a kind of photographic representation of a slightly
blurred negative.
Second, the theater, as has been already indicated above, serves here as a
representation of the play with perspectives and the change of aspect. It allows for
a movement between the roles of the spectator, of the different actors, the
director, the script, the on and off stage, the setting of the stage, the demolition of
the stage, and the question of the stage as stage, and so on. What is more, the
setting of a play is at once fixed within the framework of the theater; the fixation
of the play in the script based on which the play is being played out, the

21 Not much literature exists dedicated to the topic of Kierkegaard’s use of Holberg. A good
overview may be found in Julie K. Allen (Allen, 2009). Allen states that one can find quotes from
18 different Holberg plays in the different Kierkegaardian works (Allen, 2009, 77). However, many
references are subtle and may simply mention or somehow incorporate a character, a theme or a
particular scene from one of the comedies, without making explicit reference to it (e.g. SKS 4, 71;
SKS 6, 48, 296).

51
concretion of the characters through individual actors etc., and yet it is at the same
time something liquid which changes continuously depending upon the situation,
the moment, the interaction between actor and audience, and the flux of
coincidence. The situation played out at the theater entails a possible conjunction
of ideal and actual—the ideal being infinite possibility and the actual being that
which is played out and realizes the possible in something concrete, while at the
same time being thrown back into the possibility of the perspective of being seen
now as one thing, now as another.
Third, when the idea of change of aspect is brought into play, the question
must arise: What kind of aspect? From which perspective? And does the ‘seeing
of’ or ‘seeing that’ herein implied refer to seeing something as in a drawing, a
picture, a diagram etc. or in seeing something differently in a manner that pertains
to understanding more broadly speaking—seeing a text, a problem, a person
differently, and how may we relate one and the other? The point in talking of
theater in this respect is that the categories are somewhat blurred here, or rather,
they are all present at the same time in a manner which is fundamental to what it
means to see a play at all. There is a text (usually, unless we are talking some form
of improvisation) by which the actors abide, based on which the director shapes
his or her vision of the performance, and possibly in accordance with which the
theatergoers may have certain expectations to the play they go to watch. There is
the stage upon which the play may be expected to be played out. A stage which
can be transformed to represent the most diverse scenarios, bring forth the whole
spectrum of moods and atmospheres, construe interior and exterior of the world
(the home, the marketplace, the open fields) and of the individual (the festive, the
desolate, the despair). There is the auditorium in which the spectators find their
designated seats, from which they are able to contemplate the play being played
out, from which they can manifest their approval or disagreement, from which
they gain their perspective. There is the building, which breathes a certain (yet
uncertain) history, and exudes certain expectations to those who enter it; it is,
furthermore, the first place that one must return to once the curtain of the stage
has returned to fall. All are elements apart, and yet only in the encounter do they
gain their meaning as being theater, script, stage, and audience, and in the

52
encounter the strict boundaries between represented, representation and reception
is brought continuously into question.
While it is true, of course, that Kierkegaard’s pseudonyms warn us in a
number of ways against the danger of confusing categories—“man vil opbygges i
Theatert, æsthetisk paavirkes i Kirken, man vil omvendes af Romaner, nyde
Opbyggelsesskrifter, man vil have Philosophien paa Prædikestolen og Præsten paa
Kathedret” (SKS 2, 148)—it is also the case, I will argue, that there is a very
deliberate, albeit different, confusion of categories taking place within his writings;
a confusion, which mirrors the lack of solid distinctions when we move about in
the sphere of existence, in which every situation holds the possibility of un-clarity.
In any given situation, namely, so many different factors are in play that achieving
the transparency of distinctions possible in philosophy or abstract thought is
challenged severely. The people partaking in it, their place and role within the
particular situation, and their current, and possible previous, relation to each other,
the circumstances surrounding the situation and so on, open up for the possibility
of always being able to understand the same situation from a different point of
view, viewing it from a different perspective, and at the same time, the people
present are somewhat tied to the space and the time of the situation and cannot
gain a detached point of view in relation to it. This kind of banal confusion, it
would seem, is part of the challenge in bringing thought back into existence, and
the setting of the theater is a good image of the problem at hand. It may seem that
everything is much more well-ordered in the theater, but the possibility of it not
being quite so is what I am exploring in using this image. On stage the situation
and the characters involved are likewise center-stage. In order to bring a character
to life, the actor must at the same time be and yet not be the character that is his
or her due. The spectator must at once be the one watching, and yet be the one to
whom it is possible to either see him- or herself in the characters on stage or see
the distance or estrangement, but related backward to a possible question of the
spectator. The spectator must in some sense be able to be an-other in a similar way
as is the case of the actor, though not necessarily the other that the actor puts
before his- or her eyes. And where does the confusion enter stage? In that there is
no clear division between roles; that the possible change of perspective of the
actor, the spectator, the setting of the stage etc. is part of what it means that a play

53
is being played out. Emotion, understanding, ethics, aesthetics, spectator, actor,
stage, auditorium, intention, and comprehension are all one way or another mixed
up together in order to create the space in which the play unfolds, and engages
those that participate in the situation. As an image of existence and an image of
the manner in which the pseudonyms stage before our eyes problems which
cannot be viewed or properly understood outside this possible confusion, it is
important to pay attention to the stage as that which at once fixes the image and at
the same time allows for the actor alike to move around and thereby allows for the
spectator to gain a different perspective on the same matter. The difficulties here
are manifold, but they always relate to the point of communication and the
possible breakdown of communication. It is exactly in this breach between
communication and breakdown of communication that the idea of an ethics of
incontinence enters stage, and it is in this breach that we find what ties together
the three above-mentioned aspects of the theater as image.
The positive development of a negative, the change of aspect, and the
blurring of categories all have to do with the simultaneous clarification of being
able to see differently, and the destabilization of knowing what it means to see
clearly at all. The theater makes it possible for us to communicate on a level that
involves more than words, and in this sense it brings to life the complexity that
presents itself whenever we venture out to touch upon existence—in thought, in
reflection, and in the immediacy of every new situation that presents itself to us in
life, and the fact that these cannot be kept apart, when the question is the question
of existence. In all aspects, communication makes possible that meaning is created
and conveyed, and yet in every instance it is possible that this communication
breaks down, by making the stage falter and shatter. When communication fails to
make something shared, it is not just a breach, but a demonstration of a deeper
conflict in communication, namely the possibility that it should not reach the other
or that we should not be reached in it, so that whatever comes about hinges on a
greater unpredictable contingency that communication cannot entirely take into its
core without losing itself. Thus, there is an immense vulnerability and a reliance on
fine details, which may change the way in which the other is able to understand us,
but which we can never finally control. One might think here of Hannah Arendt
when she says that our actions, once they have been thrown out into the world,

54
depend no longer on us, but on how they are received (Arendt, 1998, 237, 241). A
question might be, of course, are our actions not already in the world; are we not
already at the theater? Another aspect is the move between simplicity and
complexity as part of the staging of this play. The theater makes it possible that we
should fixate our gaze on a detail which will lend us a way of contemplating the
simplicity, and yet never lose sight of the complexity both from which it springs,
and which may show us in ever-new ways that what is simple has all its depth in
never being simply simple. In the image of the theater, we are allowed to move
around the different troublesome aspects of communication, without escaping
them, when the risk is the greatest—to lose sight of how the other sees, so that
both our vision and theirs should be blurred, and put to rest a question that could
only be asked when we are able to engage in contemplation from a different seat in
the theater. The unsettledness of perspectives, or the other perspective, brings
about the possible change of aspect, which may bring the need for a different kind
of expression.

55
5TH SCENE
POSITION IN RELATION TO EXISTING RESEARCH

In the following I will sketch out the field within which I am moving, and make
clear how my contribution falls into the tightly spun web of existing Kierkegaard,
and to some extent Wittgenstein, commentary. The works that I will mention here,
relating to Wittgenstein, will only be the ones, which in some way are dedicated to
both thinkers. Specific Wittgenstein secondary literature, I will discuss when
relevant in the second act, in which we are properly introduced to him in relation
to the setting of this play.
In drawing up the field within which I move in the present dissertation,
there are different coordinates that can, and must, be taken into consideration. In
the following I will outline these coordinates, and flesh them out as I move along
them.
The first distinction to be made is between secondary literature that involves
both of the main thinkers that are being considered here, and that which has its
sole or primary focus on Kierkegaardian thought. The second distinction lies in a
thematic versus form-related focus. By this I mean to point to the fact that there is
a, for the present work significant, distinction between commentary that focuses
mainly on style or mainly on content, and a lot that lies somewhere in between,
that is, which considers both and holds them to be somewhat inseparable. The
third distinction is between different specific themes being treated in the literature
of either kind of the latter, and the focus on primarily the following four topics:
the pseudonyms, the problem of reading Kierkegaard, indirect communication,
and, to some extent, ethics. The latter is slightly more complicated, since reading
Kierkegaard in relation to ethics is quite a large field onto its own, and yet the here
suggested ethical implications seem to fall outside any of the ‘conventional’
understandings of the issue. For this reason, I will not return to discuss literature
pertaining to it below, but merely mention some very broad tends here.
Kierkegaard has mainly been read in this respect either from the point of view of a
deontological perspective in relation to Kant, for example by scholars such as
Ulrich Knappe (2004) and Roe Fremstedal (2011); from a deconstructionist point
56
of view, by for example Llevadot (2013) or, in a recently increasing trend, from the
point of view of a basically Aristotelian and neo-Aristotelian, virtue ethics,
prominently Davenport and Rudd (2001). Also, Arne Grøn has made his
contribution in this field with his ethics of the vision (e.g. Grøn, 1998, 75-87),
which in some respect falls outside the above categories, being based primarily on
a reading of the Christian message of love of neighbor, as we find this espoused in
Works of Love. Lastly, another distinction that is more difficult to draw is between
literature that is mainly commentary and literature that has its autonomous scope.
Of course, this distinction has rather fluid lines, and it is introduced here merely to
reflect on the nature of the present work.
In relation to especially the first three topics mentioned in the third
distinction, another question is the level of devotion to each particular one. While
it may be expected that most or all are touched upon in one way or another in
most secondary literature, it by no means follows, of course, that either of them is
the main focus of a particular work. It is very possible that one should mention the
problem of reading Kierkegaard, the pseudonyms or indirect communication
without having this as the turning point of a given investigation. What I should
like to stress is therefore at the same time a deep respect for the many different
ways in which one might approach reading Kierkegaard, and a reminder that there
is a potential problem in merely stating the difficulties inherent in a reading which
fixes a point of view and does not proceed to return to question that same
fixation. That the inclination to after all give results is one that is not easily
overcome and perhaps cannot be overcome without arriving at a moment in
which we must either merely point back to the texts with a silent gesture or
abandon them altogether.

Secondary literature on both Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein

Now, let us start fleshing out the first coordinate. In terms of literature that
concerns both Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein, we find the following monographs:
Charles Creegan’s Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard: Religion, Individuality and Philosophical
Method (1989), Gabrielle Nientied’s Kierkegaard und Wittgenstein “Hineintäuschen in das
Wahre” (2003), Onno Zjilstra’s Language Image and Silence: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein

57
on Ethics and Aesthetics (2006), and Genia Schönbaumsfeld’s A Confusion of the
Spheres: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion (2007). Furthermore,
there is Stephen Mulhall’s work Inheritance and Originality. Wittgenstein, Heidegger, and
Kierkegaard (2001). The latter I mention apart because it has a different form than
the first ones, since the three thinkers with which Mulhall concerns himself are
treated apart but all in relation to Mulhall’s reading of Stanley Cavell’s ideas as we
find them in The Claim of Reason (1979), wherefore the level of interaction in the
thinking of the three is not of central interest to Mulhall. The work is interesting,
however, in the sense that it is in many ways centered on how to read and think
with the texts. The aforementioned monographs are all concerned with a reading
of the two thinkers together in one form or another. In contradistinction to all of
them, the present work has the pseudonymous production by Kierkegaard as its
main focus, and the aspects to which their perspectives open up. The distribution
of weight is therefore much more to the side of ‘Kierkegaard’ than Wittgenstein.
A theme that is common to all four monographs is that they concern
themselves with the question of the ineffable or with the distinction between
saying and showing in one-way or another. This was already the central theme in
the work by Creegan, which was significant in being the first of its kind, although
previous smaller publications do exist. Creegan’s focus is on religion and method,
and his approach is that of taking Kierkegaard’s claim of being ‘a religious author’
(Creegan, 1989, 1) as his point of departure. Thus the parallels that he perceives
between the two thinkers hinges upon the religious aspects of Kierkegaard’s
thinking and the method that he developed in order to be able to talk about such
matters. In this line of thinking Creegan focuses on the method of indirect
communication and likens it to Wittgenstein’s both early and late insistence on
“the showing of certain ideas or distinctions which cannot be ‘said’ (Creegan,
1989, 2).” That their methods of writing, and again their insistence on it being
impossible to draw absolutely stable lines of foundation and therefore also
impossible to arrive either at a solid doctrine or a philosophical theory, correspond
to some level of ineffability, is repeated in the four monographs. Their similarities
notwithstanding there are central differences too.
Nientied’s project is in many ways the one that comes closest in interest and
focus to the present one. Like me—or rather, I like her, but unlike Creegan and

58
Schönbaumsfeld, she does not pay heed to, or at least only in a very limited
manner, the personal aspects of Kierkegaard’s and Wittgenstein’s lives as a manner
of pointing to personal, existential convictions that possibly colored their
understanding of philosophical and religious questions. She mostly leaves out
considerations of the possible influence that Kierkegaard may have had on
Wittgenstein, claiming that any such cannot be philosophically substantiated
(Nientied, 2003, 4-5). Likewise, she does not wish to compare their thinking, but
holds that by bringing out certain aspects of each their postures, mainly in relation
to language and indirect communication, it is possible that their respective
thoughts should mutually enlighten each other (Nientied, 2003, 6). She somewhat
accepts the claim by Kierkegaard that his thinking was devoted to religious
thinking, but holds against his posthumously published work, stating this explicitly,
that this goes against the language and existence-bound intricacies of indirect
communication, whence by claiming only one reading as correct he betrays the
project of a non-definitive understanding in relation to Christianity (Nientied,
2003, 12-13). Nientied also explores the Wittgensteinian understanding of
‘showing’ (zeigen) in relation to the idea that there is a strong connection here
between situation, contextualization, already lived situations, and understanding,
and that therefore simple definitions of words or all encompassing theories of
language will always fail to take into account vital elements of what it means to be
enmeshed in a context of meaning which cannot be settled once and for all
beforehand the situations in which it comes to life (Nientied, 2003, 82). The idea
being that there is always latent in language use the novelty of the situation, in
which new meaning may be brought about. It is clear that these considerations do
not fall far from my inclination to bring the thoughts of this dissertation up on
stage, where the situation and the context is a central element of thinking thought
in existence. Another aspect is that Nientied too devotes considerable space to
Wittgenstein’s reflections on Aspektwechsel, although Nientied in so doing takes her
point of departure in the so-called second half of Philosophische Untersuchungen, while
I base my reading of this element in Wittgenstein mainly on Bemerkungen über die
Philosophie der Psychologie parts one and two and Letzte Schriften über die Philosophie der
Psychologie. In any case, the idea of so doing is likewise informed by the notion that
there is in this conception of Wittgenstein a radicalization of what it means that

59
something has meaning, and the extent to which what is seen unquestionably as
thus or so may after all be disrupted by a new way of seeing thus or so, which
ensues without any noticeable change of anything to have taken place.
The major difference between Nientied’s reading and mine is twofold:
firstly, I use the insights from Wittgenstein to bring about a reading of the
individual pseudonyms that shows how in one way or another they are playing
with this ability in the reader by way of character which is never transfixed in a
finally determinable manner; secondly, I then use this instability of representation
and determination of meaning to suggest an ethics of incontinence, which takes
holds the challenge of flux between certainty and uncertainty in human relations.
In so doing it is true that I somewhat disregard or downplay the question of faith,
which of course is a recurring theme to greater or lesser extent in all the
pseudonymous works. However, by bringing out or pointing to disruptions in
what I have called the systematizing perspectives of some of the pseudonyms, I
indirectly challenge what it might mean to talk about this question or I suggest that
Christianity is also seen as connected to the missing fifth act. Another decisive
difference is the following: while Nientied assumes that there is a Christian end
goal in play in all writings of Kierkegaard, and that indirect communication is
coined as a response to the dilemma of at once keeping the question open and yet
having the preparation for a Christian appropriation in mind and as aim, I suspect
(but to some extent also suspend) that the way in which the two seem
intertwined—the aim and the openness—the former can only be insofar as it
becomes as a question to each one asking in existence.
The work by Schönbaumsfeld contributed greatly to the collection of evidence
or probable textual suggestions regarding Wittgenstein’s knowledge of
Kierkegaard. She makes use of his diaries (collected as Denkbewegungen, published
in 1997)—which had not been available to Creegan in his work—of letters and
conversations between Wittgenstein and his friends and family, and of
Wittgenstein’s own remarks, for instance in what has been collected as Vermischte
Bemerkungen. All of which, to demonstrate the extent to which Wittgenstein did
familiarize himself with Kierkegaard’s thinking, and to point to similarities in
aspects of their thinking—primarily on religious matters, and in their claimed
accordance of understanding philosophy as primarily an ethical endeavor

60
(Schönbaumsfeld, 2007, 84). In this latter assertion, I am inclined to disagree with
Schönbaumsfeld, although much depends on how ethical in this respect is to be
understood. However, her intention is briefly summed up in the following quote:

“[…] I hope to have made good on the claims advanced in the previous
chapter that Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard are united in their common aim
of paving the way, in their writings, for an authentic existence – an existence
that is free of self-deception and illusion – and that hence their conception
of philosophical authorship is fundamentally an ethical one
(Schönbaumsfeld, 2007, 83).”

The problem, as I perceive it, with this statement is not so much what it tries to
answer, but the many questions that it opens up to. What, namely, might we
understand by “an existence that is free of self-deception and illusion”? And
where, if Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein are the teachers in this understanding, does
that place them in terms of authority in relation to their fellow human beings or, in
this case, readers? It is not obvious how one should lay claim to authority upon a
thinker who, both pseudonymously and otherwise, does not appear to find it
appropriate to talk of authority as something that one can have before other
people on matters of existence. It is also not clear how a thinker who says that
“Wollte man T h e s e n in der Philosophie aufstellen, es könnte nie über sie zur
Diskussion kommen, weil Alle mit ihnen einverstanden wären (PU, 128)”, can be
thought to expound like authority. After all, Wittgenstein did not think that
everyone agreed with him, nor that it could be so. In any case, this question of
authority is exactly part of what has been bracketed in the present reading, and
partly for the reason that the question seems to me to be easily stated in a manner
that lends no clarification but merely a further escape from the question that is
posed, and in so being, exactly without authority.
The aspects of Schönbaumsfeld’s work pertaining to the religious will come
to play a part in the fourth act when I raise the question of a confusion of the
spheres, as briefly discussed above in relation to my use of the theater as the
setting of the present play. Schönbaumsfeld argues that there is a common trait in
Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein related to the idea that there is a danger in fitting in
an understanding of the religious in a sphere where it does not belong, by way of

61
which certain misunderstandings are inevitable. I will argue that while there is
certainly a kind of confusion that is strongly discouraged, there is perhaps another
kind of confusion which is ‘necessary’ if we want to be informed by and inform
existence in the manner that Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein, each in their way, seem
to suggest.
The last monograph on both thinkers by Zjilstra does not play an important
role in relation to my work. While I do touch upon similar aspects in the thinking
of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein, as does Zjilstra, the focus is sufficiently shifted
for the similarities to bear little weight. Zjilstra’s main concern is with the relation
between the ineffable and the importance of art in bringing this to the fore in ever-
new ways. He likewise makes use of Aspektwechsel in Wittgenstein, but does so
relative to a conception of the relation between ‘iconoclasm’ and ‘logoclasm’, that
is, the breakdown of either in certain respects before the aesthetic image of the
ineffable or before the word that cannot make commensurable that which
language wants to bring into universals in the only way it knows how (Zjilstra,
2006, 6-7). The basic thesis is that the gap between one and the other may not be
as straight cut as we might be inclined to think, partly because the divide between
image and language isn’t either.
Though not listed above, because it does not concern Kierkegaard and
Wittgenstein in equal parts, one last monograph does deserve mentioning. This is
the work by Allan Janik and Stephen Toulmin, Wittgenstein’s Vienna from 1973.
Needless to say, this book is about Wittgenstein and the time and atmosphere of
the Vienna in which he was born and grew up. It weighs the cultural tensions and
the new flux of ideas, politics, music, and art more broadly speaking that flooded
the Austro-Hungarian capital during this time, (i.e., at the end of the 19th and the
turn of the 20th Centuries). The interesting part at present is that Janik and
Toulmin actually suggest a decisive influence on Wittgenstein by the interest in
Kierkegaard that flourished at this time. Most insistently they bring to the fore the
idea that “Kierkegaard made the separation of the sphere of facts from that of
values an absolute one (Janik and Toulmin, 1973, 160-161)”, and claim that this
became a grounding pole in the understanding of aesthetic and ethical questions,
as we find them espoused in Wittgenstein’s early work Tractatus logico-philosophicus,
and furthermore an element which carries over into his later thinking. Their work

62
was an important contribution in many ways, to Kierkegaard scholars not least in
bringing to our attention this possible influence. In some sense we may see this
view as still quite influential in the work that has been carried out thus far on
Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein ‘in unison’, considering that the unsayable here
becomes a part of the equation.
Apart from the monographs on Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard, there are also
a vast number of articles devoted to a reading of them both. Among these we find
such contributors as D. Z. Phillips, M. Jamie Ferreira, Jamie Turnbull, John Lippitt
and Daniel D. Hutto, Stanley Cavell, James Conant, and many others. Mostly, the
subjects that they work with have been considered in the above, and, not
surprisingly, the theme of the ineffable is also a relatively persistent one in these
contributions. I will not dwell with these contributions any further, but simply
make it clear that the idea of staging the two thinkers together is by no means an
exercise reserved for but a few.

Secondary literature in relation to form and content

It is clear that no secondary literature on Kierkegaard is devoted solely to form or
solely to content. However, that there is a legitimate difference in how much heed
is paid to either is likewise clear. Schwab (2012) makes a distinction between der
sachbezogene Interpretationstypus and der mitteilungsbezogene Interpretationstypus 22 (Schwab,
2012, 54-57). I find this to be quite illustrative of the different modes that I am
hinting at. In relation to the first, such work as that by Arne Grøn may be given as
an example. His concern is with specific, and major themes within a wide
spectrum of Kierkegaard’s work, for example that of subjectivity, existence, and
the vision. And, although he likewise considers the problems inherent in indirect
communication, for instance in his work Subjektivitet og Negativitet: Kierkegaard
(Grøn, 1997, 249-256), the question of form per se does not come to play a
determining role in his interpretation of the different themes. In relation to the
latter, an example might be Roger Poole’s Kierkegaard: the Indirect Communication
from 1993, which purports to carry out a study in which Kierkegaard’s manner of

22 A distinction, which Schwab (Schwab, 2012, 55) bases on a reading of Theunissen with reference

to the latter’s work Der Begriff Verzweiflung (1993).

63
communication, and its implications of instability of the texts, is to be taken
seriously. Such that “It is the constant play of the supplement 23 that is the
meaning; or at least it is as much of the meaning as the reader is going to be
allowed to deduce (Poole, 1993, 5).” In Poole’s reading, however, there are several
disturbing elements, among other things the disregard of literature produced on
other basic assumptions than his own (Poole, 1993, 7, 10), yet insisting that all but
the opposite is the case (Poole, 1), and the idea of the “lived body in ethical
space”, where the lived body is to be understood somewhat like it is represented
by Maurice Merleau-Ponty (Poole, 1993, 1, 26), but with an ethical dimension. My
concerns regarding this work are likely stronger, because I am aware of being
closer to the dangers that he encounters than to any others.
Both, but primarily the first, the sachbezogene Interpretationstypus, hold many,
many proponents, however, the distinction is here what is important, and the
understanding that it is not my aim to go against such readings, but merely to
point to a different possible reading, which takes the manner of setting forth
thoughts into account as a particular point of interest. It is clear, however, that a
reading, which takes the details of form to be significant, may also come to
question what it is that we subtract when the focus is mainly on the Sach. Does not
the case, namely, also alter, when the point of view from which it is seen alters? In
relation to literature with a greater focus on form, my reading is not meant to
resemble that of Poole for instance. While it is true that I focus more on form
than does the sachbezongene Interpretationstypus, there is, however, something in
considering the plurality of perspectives through the pseudonyms, which does at
once rely on the question of form, and yet goes beyond this. Furthermore, I use
some concepts or ideas from Wittgenstein to illuminate certain questions, but I do
not attempt to say neither that these were already somehow implied in the writings
of Kierkegaard, in which case I would pay little heed to the differences between
the way in which these two thinkers thought, nor do I move away from the

23 Here, of course, a term from Derrida, upon whose concepts Poole bases his reading of
Kierkegaard on indirect communication. Schwab, who likewise considers this work by Poole,
points to the gross misconceptions of Derrida’s concepts in the use that Poole makes of them
(Schwab, 2012, 62-63, footnote). It is, indeed, somewhat ironic that Poole, in insisting on the form
in Kierkegaard’s works, nonetheless ends up talking about this as if it were to represent the kind of
theory-building which Derrida not only abstains from, but has as a target of his thinking.

64
pseudonymous texts at hand in a blind fascination with what these later concepts
can do for us. In my reading, I will return to other commentators of both kinds as
inspiration and support or discordance.

Secondary literature relating to particular themes

The themes that I mentioned above were the following: 1. the pseudonyms; 2. the
problem of reading Kierkegaard (including the pseudonymous works); 3. indirect
communication; 4. ethics. I have chosen to focus on these, because they are the
ones of primary interest to my work. As stated above, it is very common that some
or all of these are mentioned in one way or another in any given, larger, work on
Kierkegaard. This, of course, is related to the fact that it does not require much
attention on the part of the reader to recognize their partial unavoidability, because
they quite literally, at least the first three, jump at you whenever one sits down to
read the pseudonymous works. Even commentators who lend little attention to
the pseudonymity are likely to mention it anyway when writing on the
pseudonymous works, if nothing else as a kind of disclaimer.

1. The Pseudonyms
Related to the first theme there are a few works that I will mention here. The first
one is the article by Alastair McKinnon, “Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms: A New
Hierarchy” (1969). Here we find exposed the understanding of the pseudonyms as
pertaining in greater or lesser extent to Kierkegaard’s own ‘aim and strategy’
(McKinnon, 1969, 116), and as each expressing a full ideal of a certain life-view,
ascending in importance and dedication through the different stages. The
important part here is that the pseudonyms are perceived as falling within a
master-plan of Kierkegaard, and Kierkegaard again, based on “A first and last
explanation” and on The Point of View of My Work as an Author, as the
unquestionable authority to whose, apparently clearly audible, voice of authority
we can base a complete understanding of the exact role of each pseudonym.
McKinnon writes thus: “The pseudonyms canvas virtually every possibility and if
we would reach the real Kierkegaard we must know which are closer to him and
which more remote. We must, in fact, learn to plot the relations between

65
Kierkegaard and his various pseudonyms (MacKinnon, 1969, 117).” And this is
what MacKinnon sets out to do. Therefore, the pseudonyms, for all that they are
worth, must be understood as being more or less in proximity of the real aim of
the real Kierkegaard. McKinnon bases his analysis on a concrete, conceptual
search for certain concepts, as they appear in the ‘proper’ Kierkegaardian and the
pseudonymous Kierkegaardian text corpus respectively.
Not surprisingly, this manner of analysis and the assumptions on which it is
based, stand in stark contrast to the reading that I am here going to carry out.
Firstly, I leave out the question of authority all together, and secondly, the voices
do not seem to me to represent ideal and entirely coherent life-views, but rather to
challenge a conception of what it means to have a view on life—or the great
questions of life—at all. The uncertainty pertaining to any view is very much a part
of this challenge, I will argue.
The second work that I want to mention in this respect is that of Anders
Kingo, taking into consideration both his earlier work Den Pseudonyme Tale (1988),
and his later work Analogiens Teologi (1995). The idea which is here espoused on
pseudonymity hinges on Kingo’s understanding of the edifying aspect of the
authorship as being “[…] det punkt, hvor analogien går til grunde, og hvor selvet
grunder gennemsigtigt i Gud (Kingo, 1995, 321).” The pseudonymous relation to
existence is understood as an analogy of the many different existence possibilities,
but the so-called ‘new-made subject’, to the passing of which no analogy can be
given, is the passage from humane to Christian according to which all other
analogies are made. The argument is somewhat intricate, bringing to the fore a
kind of reading which at the same time grants importance to the pseudonyms, and
allows for a singular subject (sag) as being the one that becomes the standard from
which all plurality shines out, and upon which it is measured in its plurality. They
are all humane possibilities that eventually succumb before the reader in their
encounter with the paradox (Kingo, 1988, 11). Kingo’s reading is based on the
claim from The Point of View for My Work as an Author, which provides him with the
subject that informs all else (Kingo, 1995, 10). Therefore, despite its relevance as a
manner of thinking pseudonymity, it falls into the kind of reading, which I have
temporarily suspended, and with which my reading—in so doing—takes issue.

66
 The last work I want to mention in this respect is Vielstimmige Rede vom
Unsagbaren by Jochen Schmidt (2006). The focus of the work is to consider the
unsayable in relation to the question of faith. Already from this fact it is clear that
the thrust of the work, although it opens some similar perspectives, is quite
another than the current one. However, Schmidt uses the plurality of voices
(although only in the so-called early works Either/Or, Repetition, and Fear and
Trembling), but does so with the aim of bringing forth the particular challenges of
giving voice to faith. In his analysis he makes use of ‘deconstructionist’ or
‘postmodern’ thinking, as this may be found in the philosophy of religion
pertaining to the same (Schmidt, 2006, 3). This raises two likely questions to my
work: why do I not expressly pretend to discuss the question of the unsayable
(also mentioned above as being the common denominator between works on both
Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein)? And why do I not make use of a ‘postmodern’ line
if thinking, since this seems to be quite close in some ways to my way of
presenting things? As regards the former, it will not be entirely absent, but at the
same time will not get to play a dominant role. My reason for choosing that this
should be so is that I have certain reservations in relation to the notions of the
ineffable and silence. I will return to this indirectly in the third act and more
explicitly in the fourth act, when the basis for discussing it is greater. Regarding the
latter, the main reason is that I wish to read the texts by the pseudonyms once
again in a manner that does not rely too heavily on a particular other mode of
interpretation. The obvious question would therefore be, but why then
Wittgenstein? The simultaneous strength and weakness of using Wittgenstein the
way that I do, amounts to the fact that Aspektwechsel or other manners of
‘expression of meaning’ is by no means an interpretative key, much less to reading
a text. Thus, the challenge is that of making it resonate in ways that make sense in
relation to the plurality of the pseudonyms, and yet to accept that it is exactly not,
or at least not unproblematically, a literary devise. This tension makes for a good
middle ground between receiving help, and yet being left to one’s own devises, so
I hope.

67
2. The Problem of Reading Kierkegaard
This second theme may be said to be of such generalized nature that it is difficult
to pinpoint literature that takes it into account, because almost all seems to take it
into account in one way or another. An important Danish contribution on the
topic is that of Joakim Garff, “Den søvnløse” (1995). In this work Garff opens up to
an alternative reading of Kierkegaard’s oeuvre in which the many different literary
devises are taken into account, and the leaps and bounds of the authorship are
considered in their immense richness. A very different kind of example would be
that of Anne-Christine Habbard in her article “Time and Testimony,
Contemporaneity and Communication” (2002), in which she discusses the
‘position’ of the one watching or following Abraham, and with this the reader, in
other words the possibility of communication when this resides with the ‘singular
subjectivity’ (Habbard, 2002, 186), rather than the universal. She brings to the fore
a peculiar complexity pertaining to the relation between related, relator and
receiver. It is not least in the light of readings such as the former that Kierkegaard
interpretations have been opened up to a wider spectrum of sensibility to the
challenges of reading his works, and indirectly this work owes thanks to such
widening perspectives. In what is to follow, I will draw on both of these texts on
some level.

3. Indirect Communication
Considering the fact that I have already in the above discussed the work by Poole,
I will not return to it here. First, I will briefly mention an article by Jamie Turnbull
“Kierkegaard, indirect communication, and ambiguity” (2009). In this article
Turnbull displays three different, and, to some extent, opposing manners in which
Kierkegaard (or his pseudonyms) describe(s) his (their) use of indirect
communication, and discusses how to understand, and place, the ambiguity
inherent in this method of communication (if such at all). Turnbull ends up
concluding that the only way to properly understand the role and capability of
indirect communication is by a reading of it through a Christian interpretation,
that is, only through Christ can we gain the proper understanding of what it is that
this manner of communication can and does. He thus places himself in opposition
to more secular readings, and lists a number of these (Turnbull, 2009, 20). While
68
his conclusions are of lesser immediate concern to my work, I do find the survey
of the different representations of indirect communication to be useful. That there
is an ambiguity in play is hard to deny, and I agree with Turnbull that the
interpretation of, and the place we provide for this ambiguity is of great
importance as to how we are able to understand it, and what we are able to do
with it. In many respects this ambiguity is accentuated and amplified in the
following. The problem in claiming that indirect communication can only make
sense through a ‘Christian’ reading, however, I find hard to place. Mainly, because
this seems to indicate that we could get a clear view of what ‘Christian’ means,
which seems to be at the heart of the concern of Climacus.
The main work here to be considered takes on the thorough and unifying
attempt of making indirect communication its main topic, Der Rüchstoss der Methode
(2012) by Schwab (whose distinctions were likewise used above). Already the title
indicates an important point, which I should likewise want to have lingering
throughout my work, namely that in the creed of indirect communication 24 lies
inherent a resistance or a throwing-back of the method upon itself. Indirect
communication cannot in any uncomplicated fashion provide a direct
understanding of how the communicated is communicated or, indeed, an
uncomplicated understanding of what the communicated is (Schwab, 2012, 14-15).
Schwab argues that no proper investigation has been done with the sole focus on
indirect communication or the problem that communication poses in
Kierkegaard’s works in its own right (Schwab, 2012, 52), whence the rough
division of works that do consider the problem of communication but mainly take
as their indicator the ‘key’ to reading Kierkegaard provided by himself in the
posthumously published work The Point of View for My Work as an Author, and
therefore end up with an interpretation that is overall minded toward an end goal,
or the readings that mainly consider different subjects in the authorship of

24 Like Schwab, I also want to maintain that there is a one-sidedness to the Danish term Meddelelse
which is not present in the English or Latin word of ’communication’. Although the Latin word
entails making something common between the communicating parties, the structure of one
sharing (den meddelende) with another (modtageren) is not the same (Schwab, 2012, 22, footnote).
This is of importance because it lays a different kind of emphasis on the part of the one
communicating something, and on that which is being communicated—which is indeed part of the
difficulty in talking about indirect communication.

69
Kierkegaard, and many a time on this account to a great extent disregard the
question of communication (Schwab, 2012, 57-66). He also points to some newer,
especially German, research which to a greater extent is involved in this question
directly, but maintains that a work with this aim as its main focus has, until his
publication, not been carried out in a focused, systematic way (Schwab, 2012, 66).
The scope and intentions of this work to some extent overlap the void that I too
had perceived. However, there are important differences between this work and
mine.
First, my main focus is not indirect communication as a theme or method;
I take leave from the plurality of perspectives (in staging the pseudonyms). Also,
I am more interested in the role of the individual pseudonyms than is Schwab,
and it is indeed the intention to make a point of letting the pseudonyms stand
out in a way that is not merely either subdued to some ‘final goal’ as we meet it in
The Point of View, or restricted by the interpretative key lend to us by Climacus in
Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Schwab also operates with this distinction and
makes groundbreaking and thorough work in keeping apart the different
historical aspects of this matter (e.g. Schwab, 2012, 3). Second, while I am, much
like Schwab, not interested in any end goal as such, but much more with
understanding the difficulties that the peculiar method of Kierkegaard opens up
to us, I am, however, still interested in considering what this non-particular,
particular manner of communication poses to us in terms of a philosophically,
existential challenge. This is where my so-called proposal of an ethics of
incontinence comes into view. When I insist that we must be able to make
something of it and not merely show ourselves capable of systematically ’listing
the facts’ (this is in a sense unfair since Schwab would not talk of factuality in this
way either, what I am trying to exaggerate, however, is a certain tendency of
carrying out extremely thorough research of an analytic and historical sort, and
then leaving it at that, without assuming the risk of making something of it) it is
because it seems to me to be of great philosophical importance to be able to pose
questions not merely to how we read but to how we are able to carry on. Third,
the role of the theater is here taken as a different manner of pondering the
importance of communication. For the reason of wanting to give voice to the
pseudonyms in a way that does not preconceive a strategy of communication, I

70
will not thoroughly consider the role of the Postscript until the fourth and last act
of this work, as already stated above.

Commentary versus Autonomous Literature

This last, yet on some level inactual, subheading lends itself for a little further
clarification. I will not attempt a division of other secondary literature according to
this distinction—this seems a bit too daring to me, and without much purpose for
the present work. However, I will reflect a little on my own work in relation to it,
granted that this could hopefully only insult myself. It is at once a commentary,
and yet seeks a little light of autonomy in its setting and scope. It might well be
said that the present reading compromises some aspects of the central questions
raised in the pseudonymous works by being more focused on representation
rather than substance. It might also be the case, by suggesting ‘an ethics of
incontinence’, in which the individual character types and the suggested changes of
aspect that their manner of representation brings about can hint at an
unsettledness in the inquiry into communication, that I may go a step further than
Kierkegaard wanted to go. A step further, namely, by insisting on the thought that
the ability to see a different aspect of the same holds one fast in the insecurity in a
way that leaves a demand on us, not merely in a poetically real or a faithfully real,
but in an insecure ethically real way. Real in the sense of the Danish word, virke-
lig, something that is like or has the appearance of a practice, an action or a
vocation. In this way, I suggest an implied responsibility, not to do this, that or the
other, but in this, that or the other that we have to do, to keep the impossibility of
knowing that no other way could be perceived of in mind, that it might always
come back at us to relativize that which we did or thought or acted upon, in
relation to the real, that is, comparable to a practice. However, that there is
something like a practice, that is, that reality is in the picture, also means that we
are always thrown back at the concrete situations which demand that we act
according to a practice in which possibilities become manifest in concrete actuality.
That we take a step on the way, no matter the impossibility of knowing if that is an
expression of being lost or on our way. This manner of thinking may seem to
stand in contrast to the setting of the present investigation, which attempts a

71
reading that opens up perspectives rather than closes them around some
teleological reading of the works toward some given problems. However, the
plurality is exactly what incites this idea. In any case, the reading of the
pseudonymous works that follows will decide whether or not such understanding
as the one just outlined might find any resonance in there.
There is a clarity of distinctions in the present investigation which cannot be
given without offering up too much. If we grant that the idea is to leave the
plurality speak, then too firm an outline of the investigation would preempt a
structure, which might not be found or impose a conception that would again
silence the discordance. Therefore, I take as the point of departure some of the
psychological conceptions from the late Wittgenstein, which I hope will be at the
same time sufficiently guiding and sufficiently foreign to allow a thread of reading,
which nonetheless is open enough to make differences and ambiguity stand out
more clearly, but such that they are not entirely detached either.
Some concepts seem to have grown tired in the Kierkegaard literature, and
tired in such a way that their immediate mentioning ties a knot around the subject
and rounds off its own questioning with a series of choking normalities. There is
nothing wrong with having a nomenclature in any given field of research, of
course, but there is a danger in letting it become so tightly spun around itself that
the concepts it holds go blind and numb. I try to leave words ‘simple’ and thereby
to appreciate their complexity, avoiding, when possible and when sufficiently
aware, to pull the big triggers that leave nothing but smoke, hard to penetrate and
difficult to absolve for a measure. For this reason, I will also be reluctant to engage
in the discussion of religious, aesthetic, and ethical categories. In the moods of the
texts the distinctions call for Gehör, rather than mere categorical analysis, so I will
try to show. In any case, they should not become a mere lullaby upon which we
can rest our heads and cease to sense the difficulty. In this thought about Gehör,
Wittgenstein can also provide some useful hints. When he talks about aspects,
namely, he sometimes presents us with the idea of feine Abschattungen des Benehmens
(e.g. MS 137, 143a/ LS, 688), and these little differences in a given situation, can
very much change the demonstration of one’s having understood something or
not—akin to the difference it makes when a piece of music is played with or
without Gehör. Calling it a sensitivity might be too vague, but it is clear that

72
something vital is missed if we rule out entirely the thought that understanding
goes beyond mere accurate distinctions and distinguishability or in any case that
accurate distinctions hold many dimensions.
The present work is therefore very much concerned with a close reading of
texts to try to perceive and ponder these fine nuances, and in this respect it is
indeed a commentary. On the other hand, it also suggests a reading, which
attempts to point beyond the texts and their immediate involvement, and in this
sense it also lays claim to some level of autonomy.

73
6TH SCENE
THE FORM AND ITS CONTENT
“Den der er Existerende er bestandigt i Vorden; den virkeligen existerende
subjektive Tænker eftergjør bestandig tænkende denne sin Existents og
sætter al sin Tænken i Vorden. Det er hermed som med at have Stiil, kun
Den har egentlig Stiil, der aldrig har noget Færdigt, men hver Gang han
begynder »rører Sprogets Vande«, saa det meest dagligdagse Udtryk for ham
bliver til med nyfødt Oprindelighed (SKS 7, 85).”

When considering form and content, it may be useful likewise to consider the
relation between simplicity and complexity. In one sense the problems being
treated in Kierkegaard’s authorship relate back to extremely simple questions of
existence, whose immense complexity, however, is revealed in the difficulty of
representation. A problem which most commentators will be likely to recognize is
that of retelling some major themes in Kierkegaard’s thinking, and then being
confronted with the extreme lack of coherence with the complex exposition of the
same from which these points were subtracted. So, the commentator might always
turn around, turn back to the texts that are being dealt with, and there realize that
the simplicity, when exposed in a simplified manner—which after all is the best
that most of us can do—leaves much wanted still in appreciating how complex it
is to express the most simple without running the risk of making it simply banal.
The form of the story, which includes the form that is given to it every time
that it is retold, therefore becomes a decisive part of what the story is able to relate
to us. When we consider the pseudonymous works it seems almost trivial to say
that the form in which they appear to us is an undeniable part of what they
communicate to us. Therefore, the title of this scene becomes questionable—the
form and its content—rather it might be suitable to talk about forming a content
or contenting a form. If we accept that communication is part of the problem,
then the manner in which communication is taking place comes to be itself part of
the question, and therefore the way is all the time part of the travesty; part of the
difficulty of the road commenced upon. Thus with the pseudonymous works—it
would be wrong to say that we cannot focus our gaze in one way and make
something uniform stand out, which may be characterized as content, but it would

74
also be wrong to say that there is only one true way of fixing our gaze, at least this
would seem to compromise the complexity of representation, and the underlying
problem of communication. We may also relate this idea to the distinction earlier
referred to, by Schwab, between sachbezogene- and mitteilungsbezogene Interpretationstypi.
The Sach can become dubiously unambiguous if we fail to recognize the manner of
representation in which it is imbedded, while the ambiguity seems to be driven
forward by a struggle with the form; a struggle, which may be seen, for example, in
the voices of the pseudonyms and other characters.
One way, in which the relation between form and content has been
explored, is through the representation of art. This is the case, for example, with
commentators who have discussed this problem in relation to Kierkegaard’s
apparent inheritance from Heiberg, Hegel, Lessing, and Mendelssohn concerning
the relationship between form and content, and how the two must correspond in
order to provide an ideal representation. An example used to demonstrate this
point is A’s analysis of Mozart’s Don Juan in “De umiddelbare erotiske Stadier eller
det Musikalsk-Erotiske” from the first part of Either/Or. George Pattison (2003/
2007) uses the writings of Heiberg, and his understanding of good taste to show
how the same parameters are founding for the analysis that we meet here. The idea
being that certain manners of representation correspond to a certain subject of
representation. Distinctions are set up such as the following: between plastic and
musical art and, corresponding to this, between art pertaining to space or time—
the momentary occurrence is thus better represented in the plastic art and vice
versa, whereas that which is extended over time finds better representation in
music. Further, a distinction is made between ‘immediate’ and ‘reflective’ and
between epic and lyrical content. In any case, the immediacy of Don Juan,
combined with the duration of his emotional escapades over time, makes music
the ideal form of representation for the story, and the idea is that when presented
in such manner there is a confluence between form and content—it reaches a
different kind of ideality. While Pattison wants to maintain this kind of analysis as
being proper to an aesthetic point of view, another commentator touching upon
the same theme, Anthony Aumann (Aumann, 2013), tries to expand this both to
the challenge of reading Kierkegaard in general, and the question of whether or
not we as commentators can allow ourselves to write in a manner about the texts

75
that totally disregards the form or holds that the stricter and more concise the
form of our own text, the better it serves to reproduce major themes from the
Kierkegaardian works. Apart from the fact that it becomes a bit difficult to grasp
the distinction here between interpretation and the relation between interpretation,
original text and commentator, the question raised is interesting, I believe. Not
least in the sense that Aumann does not try to keep something aside which is ‘the
aesthetic’, and therefore in one way or another can be condemned for its
inadequacy or its limited scope and importance. The problem of form and content,
I will argue, does not limit itself to a particular aspect (content wise, if you will) of
the authorship. Aumann and Pattison are, indeed, involved in this question for
different reasons too. Pattison wants to explore the possible inheritance from
Heiberg in his, that is, Kierkegaard’s, manner of analyzing theater and the like
(Pattison, 2003, 319), while Aumann is interested in this inheritance because he
finds it to transgress all of the Kierkegaardian writings and the challenge that it
poses to us as commentators (Aumann, 2013, 378). Pattison points to the
disinterested observer, as we find him, for example in the Postscript, smoking a
cigar, and contemplating the clouds of smoke that dance around before him (the
smoke actually does not figure in the story by Climacus, but the image is quite
nice), and says that the level of reflection here involved, the one that will keep the
observer sufficiently distant from that which he observes, is what makes the
Heibergian kind of art-criticism possible. And while this may be appropriate for
the contemplation of art, it by no means suffices when questions arise regarding
existence and faith, in which the contemplative mode does not allow one to enter
(Pattison, 2003, 328-329) or in any case, would only call for confusion if
attempted.
So the two take the inheritance from Heiberg and others to have different
implications for the authorship. What is important to us is that there is an
interesting, at least seeming, conflict between a rather strict analysis of the relation
form—content, and the apparent confusion of different genres. We will return to
this question in the last act of this play. What ties together the concern of Pattison
and Aumann, I take it, is that they explore the limits of the form—both in relation
to the Kierkegaardian representation, and to his own analysis of other
representations, with the concern in mind of what challenges this poses to the

76
reader and, directly or indirectly, to the commentator too. What I will be doing is
in a way to expand this concern, to spread it out even further by including the
pseudonyms and other characters in a more direct way. What is more, the moods
come to play an important role, and it might be suggested that the different moods
at the same time encompass the rigor of analysis and disregard the distinctions that
it holds as autonomous. The inheritance from Heiberg may explain, but the level
of explanation obtainable in this sense also comes to an end, it would seem,
namely when after all the texts that we are confronted with are those by
Kierkegaard, not by Heiberg or Lessing or Mendelssohn, and we have to make
something of them that doesn’t just slide back into equating one thinker with
another. Pattison’s exposition in this sense is remarkable, because it at once puts
forth the point of contact in a very concise manner, and then proceeds to delineate
the limitation of this comparison. What I am less inclined to agree with is the
separation of this task of talking about art to that of ethical and religious matters.
Perhaps the limit of comparison with Heiberg is that Kierkegaard does not
seem to expose confidence in that any one set-up for explanation can get us to an
explanation of anything, when we are concerned with existence, but that this
concern with existence cannot be kept apart from the so-called aesthetic approach
to life. When Climacus contemplates life while smoking a cigar in the park in a
distanced and ironic manner (SKS 7, 170-172), it might at the same time be seen as
the superior expression of not giving a shit, of being removed from all that
matters—in his own terms, but exactly, in his own terms. And, at the same time, it
might be an expression of the earnestness in the little things that are at the same
time the surface that he seems to want to dive under, and the sincerity of the
moment. His concerns of the infinite and almost pathetically finite conflate, and,
without the cigar lit, the next idea concerning existence would not come to be. The
idea, yes, but an idea that gains at the same time its ridicule and its earnest from
being manifest in an occurrence so small that we can almost touch the smoke
from his cigar in the air. It is not, so I hold, merely detached contemplation, the
ridicule lies also in it being so pathetically honest that we can follow the baseness
of simplicity from which the greatest challenges of complexity spring. If the
‘aesthetic’ can be swept aside as a different mode of concern or contemplation,
then existence perhaps has to take its point of departure from whence there are no

77
smiles left—taken away so that we may recognize that now we are talking in
earnest—but this is not the case in the pseudonymous writings, and it is not the
case that it could be so and all things still remain the same.
The theater is not just a place for entertainment, it is the place where the
simple and the complex battle to find—not just an ideal expression, but an ever
renewed expression, that will allow the passion to be passionate, and allow the
light that brings us on to keep flaring with its faltering answers and its renewed
requests.

78
7TH SCENE
THE POET REACHING BEYOND AND POINTING TO THE WORLD
“(También los hombres pueden prometer, porque en la promesa hay algo
inmortal.) 25” – Jorge Luis Borges, “The unending gift”

The problem of the poet is in many ways central in the writings of Kierkegaard.
The poet represents the difficulty pertaining to the struggle between immediacy
and reflection when communication pretends to bring us closer to existence that is
at the same time the core and the question of its inquiry. The poet is one of the
most ambiguous figures in the pseudonymous writings—at once cherished for his
abilities and ridiculed for his distance to the existence, which he portrays or
understands so well, yet finds it utterly impossible to pertain to. The poet is in
language, this is his strength, he can make comprehensible through it that which
otherwise belongs in immediacy, prior to the reflection that language instills. And
yet, at other times language is his great enemy; that which makes him guilty in the
words of any human language (SKS 4, 68 (SKS 6, 216)), which cannot pronounce
his singularity and exceptionality, but merely deems him guilty for not being able
to make himself commensurable with the universal that it fosters. The poet
reaches beyond and touches within existence—breaching the gap between
transcendence and immanence—and yet he is not able to be neither religious nor
but a human being bequeathed to the world. His reflection and his insistence on
maintaining the pain that makes him a poet, keeps him distanced both to the
immediacy of existence, and to the second immediacy of faith in existence, and yet
better than any is he able to put this problem before our eyes.
The problem of the poet is not exactly overrun in secondary literature on
Kierkegaard 26, but for being the incarnation of the problem of communication, I
believe that this is a loss. In his ambiguous figure we find likewise an invitation to
reflect upon the (partial) absurdity of our own reflections—on the questions of
existence that Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms put before our eyes, ears, and

25 ”The human being can also make promises, for in the promise there is something immortal
(Borges, 2005, 984 (my translation)).”
26 A relatively recent example would be Raymond (2011), whose reading is unfortunately quite stale

on the side of categories and distinctions.

79
noses. And in the question of the poet Quidam in Stages on Life’s Way: “er jeg da
Skyldig (SKS 6, 353)?” we find the problem indirectly thrown back at us: is there
any way in which we can do what we do, as commentators, and not be guilty?—
guilty, not in breaking the engagement, but in not being engaged and married,
before being in the business of thinking about the life that passes us by
meanwhile? This, of course, is kind of a ridiculous way of putting it, but the
problem of where reflection places us in relation to existence and faith is a real
one, and while it is clear that the two cannot be kept entirely apart, it is at the same
time clear that there is tension between being present in a given situation and the
distanced reflection upon it. There is at the same time a tension that has to do with
the possibility of communication on matters that lend no final result. The problem
of language seems to be that it requires some level of settlement—in its all-
encompassing universality it does not approve of anything that cannot be
subsumed into its order. Or is it perhaps not as easy as that?
The poet doesn’t close the story, he doesn’t let the wound heal or be healed.
This is his infinite strength and yet his greatest weakness, the condemnation of his
poeticized existence. What he fixes in concepts so that it stands forth with all the
passion of the unhappy lover is not that of an unhappy lover whose wounds can
be healed in existence. His words at once shatter and resolve all stagnation, but he
finds no rest. When he says, “this is beautiful” to others it might instill the
calmness of resolve, the transparency of immediacy, but to him it is only ever a
pain, which calls for further reflection. His point of view is one that is always
searching for another, who knows that the only way to make a point of view bear
in existence is by putting it into existence, but whose way is always a beyond that
opens up and reaches further, further until it collapses on itself in the death that
the human being cannot give him- or herself. Moving between the challenge of
existence and faith, both of which demand an immediacy, that nonetheless never
grows tired in becoming merely im-mediated in banal mediation, is the problem of
communication. Eventually we do not fall eternally silent in immediacy. The
difficulty is finding a kind of reflection that is passionate enough to keep the
passion of immediacy alive, so that when the silence does speak it doesn’t merely
become an impassionate simplification of the infinite complexity of the most
simple. The most simple expression can be the most profound, of course, but

80
then, so it would seem, also because its simplicity invites for infinite ways in which
to see and see ever anew this most simple expression. The simple as expression is
either novel or repetitive, and here expression as existence and expression as
reflection on existence interlace. The poet has the latter and reaches for the
former, but without both interlocked we run the risk of mere empty chatter. This
is exactly where Wittgenstein enters stage and offers us a character that might help
to illuminate this vulnerability of communication in a different manner.
Wittgenstein perceives the ability of language to at once repeat itself in a
manner that lends us the infinite threads of the carpet of life, the familiarity that
makes possible a genuine understanding in our going about life, and at the same
time a carpet that, for being the backdrop upon which all else is meaningful, can
never in its totality make itself meaningful to us. The expression that we give to
something may be a repetition or may be a novelty, but without a context in which
it could have meaning, in which it engages with what is already there before us, it
engages with nothing and therefore makes no sense. This is the great disturbance
of philosophy that it thinks itself capable of removing the context and talking in a
vacuum, like an engine idling, as he says (PU I, 132). The vulnerability of
communication may be seen in how difficult it is to express vagueness.
In relation to this idea of a carpet of life, a problem that has still not been
touched upon directly in the above, but which is arguably an underlying difficulty
in it all, namely what is meant by ‘existence’, may be brought to the fore. Till now
it stands as an ambiguous concept of that which we cannot escape from being
enmeshed in and with. Being at once the backdrop and the stage, at once the
theater as play and the theater as place. The problem that may lie in always
showing problems back to this ambiguous background, is whether or not it hides
an assumption of an ‘ontology of existence’, in which ‘existence’ sort of has its
own life—apart from the different manners in which we can relate to it,
conceptually embrace it, etc. This again, of course, may be seen as touching upon
the problem of the relation between ideality and reality. By claiming that the poet
is trapped in a manner that leaves him stranded somewhere between existence and
faith, unable to become actual in either respect (and the two are connected, of
course), this must raise the question of what might be understood by the ideality
that is his medium, and the actuality that is the core of his production and at the

81
same time only ideally so. What does it mean to be trapped in ideality? What does
it mean to become actual? In some sense it would seem that this question is related
to that of time. The ideal is in some respect outside of time, in its ideality it can
always be resumed and repeated, such as also the Quidam in Stages on Life’s Way
repeats his ruptured engagement story again—at night in its ideality, on midday in
the recounting of the actual occurrences, however, in both cases as something that
is at once embedded in time, recounted in time, re-lived in time, but at the same
time standing aloof to time, by the recounting defying that the time has passed. In
the reflection of the poet; in the conception of the ideal, the time can always be
taken into ideality as if it were another poetic element, which finds determination
in the will of the poet. And yet in this retaking of time into the ideal, there is
something real too. The struggle to keep them apart and yet together is something
that seems to be encountered again and again in the poetic figure, and in the
thoughts that he spells out in his poeticizing distance to all that is important, but is
differently important because the moment is postponed or remembered in his
story.
The epitaph of this scene is taken from a little poetry story in which Borges
reminds us—after previously having told us that human beings cannot make
promises because, unlike the gods, we are mortal—that yes, we can make
promises, because in the promise there is something immortal. And why is that?
Because the promise can change reality to us, that is, in the mortality of the
promise—in that it may never be promised, and nonetheless is—there is
something immortal. When a human being promises something to someone else
or to him- or herself, it brings about a change, even if the promise itself still
pertains merely to an ideal, which may or may not come to be. In the promise lies
the immense uncertainty of existence, and yet it is exactly in this uncertainty or
rather in holding it fast in certainty despite its uncertainty, that the promise gains
all its strength. If life were differently assured, we would have no need of
promises, but exactly because it balances on uncertainty, the promise is in some
way our defiance and acceptance thereof toward others and ourselves. Making a
promise is what the poet, in Kierkegaard, cannot do, because that would mean to
let go of the control that despises all uncertainty.

82
 2ND ACT
WITTGENSTEIN ENTERS STAGE AND SETS THE SCENE
FOR A CHANGE OF ASPECT

The following will be an exposition of some thoughts in Wittgenstein. The

endeavor is threefold: One, to provide some introductory remarks which place
Wittgenstein’s thought, without however assuming that any final placement is
neither appropriate nor indeed possible. Two, to clarify problems relating to the
Nachlass, which essentially, apart from Wittgenstein’s early publication Logisch-
philosophische Abhandlung, is the only source of his writings that we have. This is
relevant here because all the concepts and ideas that I will be drawing on from
Wittgenstein pertain to his Nachlass, wherefore I wish to consider some of the
insecurities that relate to using these texts. Three, a reading of his writings on
philosophy of psychology with special attention to such questions as ‘seeing’,
‘seeing as’, ‘Aspektwechsel’, ‘Gemütsbewegungen’, and ‘Verstellung’. The act is
divided into more scenes, but they are all relative to one aspect or another of these
three primary concerns. In relation to the exploration of the pseudonymous works
in acts three and four the latter concern is the more indicative, but granted that
Wittgenstein on his own poses the reader with a great many challenges, and due to
the conviction that one should not fare slavishly in employing concepts from a
complex thinker, without taking into account this complexity as part of the
challenge in so doing, I will not fail to provide a more generous introduction.

PRELIMINARY REFLECTION
Much as is the case with Kierkegaard, and perhaps to an even more abounding
degree, the literature and commentary that exists on Wittgenstein seems almost
endless. Needless to say, it is therefore an impossible task to place oneself in
relation to it all. However, the fact that the focus of my reading of Wittgenstein in
this context is limited primarily to the texts known as Bemerkungen über die
Philosophie der Psychologie (henceforth BPP I and II) and Letzte Schriften über die
Philosophie der Psychologie (henceforth LS) means a slightly more narrow interest in
the Wittgenstein commentary. Much of which is dedicated to the Tractatus Logico-

83
Philosophicus (henceforth TLP, first published 1921) and to Philosophische
Untersuchungen (henceforth PU, first published in 1953).
My manner of relating to secondary literature may, at least in some sense, be
strung out between general observations made by two prominent Wittgenstein
commentators. On the one hand, I do not wish to claim, nor find it to be a
desirable approach to reading Wittgenstein overall, that there is one interpretation
which could somehow embody the whole, as in correct, interpretation of his work.
This point of view is expressed very clearly by Stephen Mulhall in the following
words:

“In claiming that I have identified one way of making sense of

Wittgenstein’s interest in this material [seeing aspects], one way in which his
varied body of remarks on the topic might be seen to hang together, I do
not take myself to be committed to denying that there might be other such
ways, other equally coherent and total readings of his remarks. Hence, I do
not regard the validity of my own reading as dependent upon my ability to
demonstrate the invalidity of other readings which may align and juxtapose
Wittgenstein’s remarks in very different ways to my own; on the contrary, I
would expect there to be more than one such alternative reading, and I
would welcome their elaboration by others (perhaps even by myself, on
other occasion) (Mulhall, 2010, 250).”

It is quite remarkable how Mulhall talks of at once a ‘total’ and yet not exclusive
reading of Wittgenstein’s remarks on seeing aspects. In the sense that a reading
makes sense of it all by making a context of sense, I very much agree with Mulhall.
A reading will in some form lay claim to incorporating all into its realm of
meaning, and yet there may be a manner of doing this which preserves the
awareness that it is in an important other sense never exclusive of other totalities
of meaning that could be drawn out from the same material. This relation to the
interpretative task is thus at once authoritative and humble.
On the other hand, and much related to this humbleness toward the texts,
Joachim Schulte expresses the concern that there are ways of talking about
Wittgenstein’s thoughts which leave the distinct impression that one can talk about
‘Wittgenstein’s concept of this that and the other’ (a free summary of Schulte,

84
1993, v) as if one manner of delineating a ‘conceptual framework’ could suffice to
clarify the matter. Schulte writes:

“I simply cannot find these allegedly definite ideas in Wittgenstein’s writings.

To be sure, it sometimes looks as if he wanted to defend a certain thought in
a clear-cut definitive way, but in most cases it suffices to read on for a while
to see that he has changed his attitude and is now looking at the relevant
question in an entirely different light (Schulte, 1993, v).”

That is, unlike what we might be prone to do, namely to try to extract
‘Wittgenstein’s concept of’ as a clearly delineated field which can be explicated, we
may benefit from seeing the impossibility of such a task as at once the great
challenge and the great gain of reading Wittgenstein. This thought Schulte relates
to a description that one may engage in from a birds-eye view or from that of the
wanderer treading the actual path that he is trying to describe or engage in. The
latter takes much more time and effort from the reader, because one becomes
more than just a mere reader, and because the journey in this manner is slow and
strenuous, hence Schulte chooses the latter way—walking the road with
Wittgenstein, but as he ends up saying in this respect, alas there is no guarantee
that the latter option is the better or the right one (Schulte, 1993, vi). The slow
walk with Wittgenstein, I in some sense cannot engage in here—partly because
Wittgenstein is not at the theater in order to play the lead role, but mainly present
as someone who helps guide the play, partly because I lack the capability, but at
the same time, there is something in my striving which I should like to resemble
this thought, and one of the basic elements of such endeavor must be, that one
exactly engages in it, that is, relies on that which one by a slow wandering is capable
of bringing into view. This is important in respect to commentary and the use of
secondary literature because, although I will of course find support or
counterarguments in other commentators on my way, I do not mean for this to
overshadow the fact that the challenge of reading these texts on this occasion is
primarily mine. And while it would be pointless to merely repeat what has been
said time and again by others, I do rest my case on the fact that I am involved with
these texts for a purpose other than that of most commentators. It is my hope that
my manner of including commentary as we go along will nonetheless testify to my

85
position in relation to that selfsame literature, so that a thorough delineation as a
separate point in the beginning shall not be yearned for.

86
1ST SCENE
INTRODUCTORY REMARKS

Both in relation to Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard it cannot be emphasized strongly

enough that as commentators we are always on the verge of making the theory,
which their manners of thinking and writing so ardently resist 27.
As will be underlined many a time in what is to follow, it is always the case when
reading Wittgenstein that one must take care not to be too hasty on drawing out
generalizations about any one overall approach to subjects. However, being
overwhelmed by the apparent total fragmentation of the text, one is indeed
inclined to search for something that will hold it somewhat together for us as
readers. A useful image of ‘the overall’ may be the one that Wittgenstein himself
paints in the introduction to PU:

“Daß das beste, was ich schreiben konnte, immer nur philophische
Bemerkungen bleiben würden; daß meine Gedanken bald erlahmten, wenn
ich versuchte, sie, gegen ihre natürliche Neigung, in einer Richtung
weiterzuzwingen. --- Und dies hing freilich mit der Natur der Untersuchung
selbst zusammen. Sie nämlich zwingt uns, ein weiteres Gedankengebiet,
kreuz und quer, nach allen Richtungen hin zu durchreisen. --- Die
philosophischen Bemerkungen dieses Buches sind gleichsam eine Menge
von Landschaftskizzen, die auf diesen langen und verwickelten Fahrten
entstanden sind.

Die gleichen Punkte, oder beinahe die gleichen, wurden stets von neuem/
von verschiedenen Richtungen her berührt und immer neue Bilder
entworfen. […] – So ist also dieses Buch eigentlich nur ein Album (PU I,
IX).”

27 It is important in relation to the picture that I will here paint of Wittgenstein that it reflects a
primary involvement with his late writings (that is, writings which were written in the late forties).
It is therefore a manner of thinking language, which is concerned with a very broad conception of
experience in relation to the same. For an understanding and development of this idea as a lead
motif in Wittgenstein’s manner of thinking see, for example, Thompson, 2008, 9-10. Thompson’s
work has as its main focus the ’middle period’ or the move away from some aspects of his thinking
that were prevalent in the TLP, toward and later away from a more ’phenomenological’ approach.

87
The remarks, therefore, may be viewed as a landscape or an album, and the way in
which it curves around and displays a variety of images must be seen as part of the
challenge of engaging in this activity with Wittgenstein. But that there is a scenery
also means that there is a kind of morphology. Certain themes run throughout and
appear continuously in different ways, others make their appearance—as in an
album—as a seemingly flimsy image, to return much later in the same unwarranted
fashion. In general, the introduction to PU is interesting, because it is one of the
few places in his late writings where Wittgenstein steps somewhat outside the
investigation and tries to provide some general reflections on what to expect of the
remarks that follow. We are told that the thoughts contained in the work
“betreffen viele Gegenstände: den Begriff der Bedeutung, des Verstehens, des
Satzes, der Logik, die Grundlage der Mathematik, die Bewußtseinszustände und
Anderes (TS 227, 1/ PU, IX).” An interesting thing to pay attention to is that he
does not mention language per se as one of the things with which these thought
are concerned, although he does mention elements of what we might consider
philosophy of language. The first two, the ‘object’ of meaning and the ‘object’ of
understanding, give us the impression that the investigation is concerned with
something that encompasses a lot more than what might be thought of in a
narrow sense of language philosophy 28. Of course, meaning is always an issue here
too, but this can be separated out to have more or less to do with a general
concern about existence. The fact that Wittgenstein does not mention language
specifically here, nor anywhere in the short preface, perhaps indicates that we
should not get lured into thinking that much has been said and done by declaring
it a kind of philosophy of language. The concern, it would seem, is of a more
general nature, and this is important to keep in mind when one wants to make a
connection back to a kind of thinking involved with questions of a seemingly quite

28Such wording is dangerous, of course, because it talks in much too abstract terms about a field of
philosophy, which is as amorphous as any generalization that language may come up with. It might
be said to be unwisely chosen, since part of the point may be that language—in a very wide sense
of the word—as the home of expression of meaning has become a question to itself that it cannot
answer but painstakenly enmeshed in itself and its question to itself. What I aim at here is perhaps
the kind of philosophical discourse that by narrowing its scope finds a local discussion of meaning
feasible, and perhaps alone meaningful. It seems, rather, that Wittgenstein found the wilderness of
language and the bewilderment with which we take to consider it to be part of the challenge in so
doing.

88
other nature. Later in the PU Wittgenstein famously writes, in relation to
imagining different kinds of languages: “Und eine Sprache vorstellen heißt, sich
eine Lebensform vorstellen (PU, 19).” This too indicates that in talking about
language something all encompassing is in play.
Furthermore, Wittgenstein talks about approaching again and again the same
points from different directions, thereby indicating that no one direction will ever
suffice to bring out the point in question in a self-sufficient sufficient manner.
And, although I do not want to say that it is the same, it is difficult to deny that
this might call to mind some of what was said in the previous act about always
bringing forth anew the same question, because no one answer will ever suffice in
answering it as such and once and for all. What is more, the questions posed may be
different, especially when we contemplate the dimension of transcendence in the
pseudonymous works, and yet, the indecisiveness and the uncertainty regarding
the point of departure if we want to emphasize a such, meets us with a similar
ambiguity. We are somewhat entrenched in the mode of questioning, and the
questioning involves something outside of which we cannot place ourselves,
wherefore extremely humble steps and a continuous return both to the somewhat
obscure point of departure and to the every step made from there, is in order or is
ordered as an inescapable aspect of venturing out on such a journey.
The kind of unsettledness connected with this manner of thinking and of
approaching problems of existence in relation to language is not unlike the
challenge posed to us by Kierkegaard if we see in his writings also a struggle with
meaning. The same way—though of course also very differently—that
Kierkegaard charges at his reader to leave behind the frantic search for results, the
same way Wittgenstein holds any concluding result at a safe distance from his
fellow investigator if by result we understand something of the sort: X is always Y.
The ground is shaky and there is no other way about it, but that does not mean, of
course, that there is no lesson contained in the writings, but perhaps that the
lesson is not one that can be subtracted from the text as such—it always points
beyond the text itself, and not to mere solutions but also to further challenges;
hence the negation of the possibility of forming a theory of language. A main
point is, perhaps, that by and large communication is successful, we do understand
each other, and we know how to go about life, but that does not mean that there is

89
no room for doubt or that there is no such thing as change, mistake,
misunderstanding and so on but merely that these, nor indeed the more rule
abiding cases, can ever be thoroughly rung up on a great register of language
comprehension.
In this act we will be moving toward the appearance of Aspektwechsel (change
or fluctuation of aspect). We will be moving in this direction by way of many
smaller, introductory steps. When writing about Wittgenstein’s remarks it is always
a challenge to place them in a larger, comprehensible understanding of what is
going on when we try to think with Wittgenstein—in what manner of thinking do
these remarks belong, what approach to knowing, investigating and so on do they
invoke? It is my understanding that this difficulty lies at the heart of the issue at
hand, and this will be sought underlined in different ways throughout this act. One
aspect is central to outline immediately, however. I believe that no matter the care
one may take in giving justice to a thinker in one’s representation of his or her
thought, it is pivotal that there is something in this representation that goes
beyond being a mere such—that is, that the thoughts are eventually brought to life
by the vision of another thinker, namely the ‘reader’ or subsequent ‘author’ him-
or herself. In a manner of speaking, without this latter step, there is no real
understanding at all. And while both Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard were probably
more clear on this same thought in their writings than in their factual acceptance
of how their thoughts were received in their day, they nonetheless strove to give
this very thought voice in each their way (e.g. TS 227, 4/ PU, 2001, X; SK, SKS 7,
73). The insecurity of each new gaze is one, which accompanies the wealth, and I
will make no effort to butcher this richness away. In other words, the challenge
must be to accept the insecurity so that something can be done when another
thinker thinks the thoughts of the other to life without laying claim to some appeal
of an indivisible underlying truth.
An obvious question to this author might be: why try to illuminate one
complex thinker with another, arguably even more, complex thinker? One aspect
of this involves the affirmation of the thought that there is an open-endedness to
the investigation, which does not deny systematization but denies the system. In
this sense, there is a similar challenge to the reader or the spectator, that when
Wittgenstein enters the theater with us, not one description of the play that we are

90
to watch will suffice as the description. Another aspect is that Wittgenstein’s notion
of Aspektwechsel seems to be able to provide the clearest suggestive image of the
play with perspectives that I claim for there to be taking place in Kierkegaard’s
pseudonymous writings. Furthermore, Wittgenstein’s thoughts seem to me to ‘fit’
in the thinking of Kierkegaard, because his whole manner of doing, eliciting, and
challenging philosophy likewise challenges the entire form and frame of the
enterprise. As a response or reproach to the system, Kierkegaard’s unsystematic
ways stand out even more clearly, such also contrasted to the ‘solvability’ of logic,
Wittgenstein’s remarks stand out as at once affirming and yet entirely denying the
form. What is dealt with escapes the kind of systematism that makes clear
arguments and coherent trains of thought without side roads and off tracks
incomprehensible. Rather, we have with both these thinkers boarded a train, and
though the route is on tracks and the control panel has handles that will guide the
smoothness of the ride, there is no final rule-making that will spell out once and
for all where we are going or how we are going to arrive. But before the journey
gets too wild and rides off track, let us turn to the argument at hand, namely seeing
Wittgenstein’s writings as also shaping up a kind of indirect communication. This
is the beginning of our involvement with Wittgenstein, it is also the beginning of
making indirect communication less problematic as an instrument for presenting
thought.

91
2ND SCENE
WITTGENSTEIN AND INDIRECT COMMUNICATION

What meets the novel reader of Wittgenstein—in any of his writings—is an

unusual sight 29. Physically, in terms of form, there is nothing that signals that now
we are approaching something familiar, a well known manner of exercising
thought academically, poetically, prosaically or in ‘accordance’ with any other
genre. The reader meets something that strikes a note of difference. This, of
course, is well known and a well-known aspect of approaching 30 Wittgenstein’s
remarks, but the challenge that it poses is one that cannot be separated from the
problems of the investigation, so I hold.
I am by no means alone when insisting on the fact that form and content
cannot be viewed apart when considering the writings of Wittgenstein, that is, that
the particular form is not contingent to the message that is being conveyed. Such
thinkers as Marie McGinn (McGinn, 2010, 10), James Conant (Conant, 1996, 248-
249), Stephen Mulhall (Mulhall, 2001, 34-36), and in some manner Stanley Cavell
(Cavell, 1979, 6) have argued in different ways to the effect of this same point. The
question is, of course, what to make of it once we have decided to shy the hope of
distilling thoughts that can be stated in a radically different way without losing
their jest. In order for them to ‘serve’ us, we must be able to otherwise bring them

29 Perhaps one exception, which gives a more immediately neat appearance, is The Big Typescript
(dictated in 1933), which, unlike all the other remarks (including TLP) was fitted with a table of
contents, and a seeming division of topics in an orderly fashion. However, the predictability does
not pass much beyond the table of contents, for the remarks are by and large according to the same
relative fragmentation that characterizes the later remarks (for a careful reading of the work
progression of Wittgenstein on a small passage from this work see Hrachovec (2006). I do not
hereby wish to insinuate that there is no treatment of subjects over time in Wittgenstein’s remarks,
but merely that in whatever way there is coherence in this manner, it does not meet a predictable
standard. One might say that the history of philosophy knows many forms—such as Thomas of
Aquinas’s thesis, counterargument, and refutation or St. Augustine’s confessions, but these have
their own kind of order, which amounts to a relative predictability. The point in relation to
Wittgenstein’s remarks is that the peculiar form, that this initial difficulty, never ceases to pose a
special kind of challenge to the reader.
30 It may also be argued, as Cavell (1979) does, that there is no ‘approaching’ Wittgenstein’s

remarks, since this would indicate the expectation of somehow being able to move closer to some
true content. I use here ‘approach’ in any case, because it is in my view inevitable that a reading
establishes a closeness with that which is being read, unless the content will pass over in silent
incomprehension.

92
into words somehow. Needless to say, all the above Wittgenstein scholars do think
this to be possible too.
The problem that is portrayed is linked to the difficulty of keeping the
perceived content in connection with the manner of presentation as forming part
of this selfsame content.
Remembering what was said in the above in relation to Kierkegaard and the
problems inherent in the claim of indirect communication, for example in relation
to Schwab and his suggestion of the method throwing itself back upon itself, it
may be useful here, first to keep this difficulty in mind as one that is not foreign to
the difficulty we meet in Wittgenstein; there is something inescapable in that the
point proven cannot reveal itself outside the point it is trying to prove. Hence, the
investigation of language, grammar, and life-world if you will has to take place
within the frame of itself, which is—and this is of course pivotal—no frame as
such. And second, I should like to argue that the same kind of issues that we may
find in Wittgenstein’s use of ‘language game’, can be traced in the issue pertaining
to ‘indirect communication’. While they of course pertain to very different issues,
one to the challenge of talking about questions of existence of an ethico-religious
nature without imposing on the listener an objective measure according to which
his or her understanding of life can be weighed (SKS 7, 26), the other to the
difficulty of talking about language and language as a form of life without reducing
it to something that can in all aspects be measured and understood in accordance
to the same idea of description (PU, 24), both seem to hold the point of tension of
bringing into play a ‘concept of unity’ which is instilled because a universal point
of unity needs to be avoided. In other words that the concept of unity is at the
same time a concept of dispersion. There may be a great inclination to ask “what
exactly is meant by it; by language game or by indirect communication?” and while
some sort of answer naturally must be given or be possible to give, I see the
question as somewhat misgiven. As much as it is an obvious question to pose, it is
also one that does not manage to escape the difficulty to which it is aimed at
responding. If the question could be easily answered or, indeed, rightfully posed,
there would be no need for the salto mortale, which in some way they both
provide for the investigator. It is not a manner of closing the question, so I hold,
but perhaps a manner of bringing into view that there is a question here at all.

93
 What I should like to maintain by suggesting a likeness of ‘method’ is the
idea that there is a genuine sense of being lost before the works—that any one
string we might fasten our gaze on and find useful as an explanation, always has
the possibility of being brought back into doubt. Hence, the certainty is one that is
likewise tied to a kind of uncertainty. Talking of method in relation to what
Climacus tells us, is related to the problem also that he most frequently mentions
method when referring to the Hegelian system or something of a like mind-set (for
example: SKS 7, 98, 103, 309), which leaves the impression that his own reflections
on indirect communication may as well be seen as a kind of anti-method. It is an
approach to communication, which is set in the negative, in the sense that it always
withdraws from having final explanatory force. Something similar might be said of
Wittgenstein’s remarks. Even though they serve as a manner of clarification or
description of that which is already there before our eyes to see, they can never be
compiled in such a way that they will gratify the desire of a theory that lends clarity
once and for all (PU, 71, 109). It is therefore a kind of negative or anti-method
likewise or a method that comes back to the same point and has to view once
again what it had already seen. In a sense, we might liken it to what was said in the
previous act about simplicity and complexity. The most simple is what has the
greatest interest, because in its simplicity it hides the ‘real’ complexity, which
points the philosophically minded incessantly back to existence or back to the
practices in which the ethico-religious questions or the difficulties concerning
language have their proper home. While therefore both being concerned on some
level with that which is quote on quote common, universal or shared—that which
makes communication possible at all, there is embedded in this concern an even
greater one, namely that which makes it possible that this communality can be
broken, surprised, disrupted and remolded or turn out to be differently simple
than we thought 31. It is true, of course, that the individual in the writings of
Kierkegaard plays a prominent role, which it does not hold on the face of it in
Wittgenstein’s remarks. However, if we consider the importance that novelty plays
or moods or having an ear for something or being blind to intricate nuances that

31 That this kind of disruption is inherent in any practice itself is discussed to some extend in Cora

Diamond’s lectures on irony and Kierkegaard (Diamond, 2011, e.g. 12).

94
make the world of a difference in the ways in which we employ language, it seems
to be the case that even though the individual is not a theme per se, because the
interest is language and not psychology, the manner of thinking of Wittgenstein
leaves immense room for, and perhaps even responsibility to the individual in
some form. The novelty that each one can bring into a language game or the fact
that each one of us can in some sense invent new ones if we are sufficiently
familiar with other ones of a great level of complexity, leaves a singularity without
which language perhaps could be described by and reduced to something much
more singular.
Whether or not this latter point is too far fetched does not make a great
difference to the present exposition—in some ways, the fact that it might be
entirely beside the point shows the severe difficulty in keeping a tight frame
around the matter. What I should like to emphasize by this attempted image of a
likeness, is that there is always a great risk of being lost or disoriented or confused
when we read their writings, and though I think the aim for Wittgenstein was
clarity, it is a kind of clarity which does not allow for a positive final clarity—hence
bringing us back to where I started this little meditation.
Creegan likewise suggests Wittgenstein’s method as being one of indirect
communication. In an attempt to pinpoint their similarities, Creegan writes:

“[…] it is not a case of identity in academic specialization, nor yet of

correlation in factual discoveries. Instead, it is a congruity of method. Both
authors stress reliance on indirect methods of communication; both rely on
such methods themselves.
The term ‘indirect communication’ was coined by Kierkegaard.
Wittgenstein’s parallel concept, which carries over from the early to the later
period, is the ‘showing’ of certain essential ideas or distinctions which
cannot be ‘said.’ Both methods are based on the perspicuous presentation of
evidence, rather than the advancing of ‘theses,’ concerning the various
subjects under consideration (Creegan, 1989, 2).”

I am in agreement with Creegan to the effect that the style of both Kierkegaard
and Wittgenstein is related to method, and that hence it may be argued that there
is a similarity here. However, firstly their styles of writing, even if they both are

95
fundamentally linked to the nature of their respective concerns, are so different
that they hardly compare. This, of course, does not mean that one cannot point to
the fact that the manner of communication of either is tightly linked to the
problems being dealt with, which, of course, I also hold. Secondly, I am a little
weary in placing the indirectness of the writings of Wittgenstein in his distinction
between ‘saying’ and ‘showing’. While this dichotomy no doubt is present 32, in
whichever way one wants to take it, it does not seem to me central to an
understanding of Wittgenstein’s writings as a form of indirect communication.
Primarily, indirect communication becomes pressing because there is a difficulty in
unfolding thoughts systematically without having them press on toward some one
‘theory of knowledge’, which is to both Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein something
that must be avoided. A system of thought or knowledge presupposes a
foundation, which can be given, exposed, and illuminated or builds on a
reasonable series of unifying assumptions, thereby illuminating a greater
connection between all elements encompassed in its frame. And while connections
to Wittgenstein are important 33, this does not mean that they can lead to a
grounding theory (of language or anything else for that matter). This issue is not so
much one of ‘showing’, or is only so when we understand ‘showing’ as the only
other means of approaching any phenomena when a theory of total congruence is
discarded or abandoned. Things may still be said (that is what communication
does too, it says something whether or not it speaks, and whether or not it does so
directly or indirectly, but there are fallacies in saying and exposing thought which

32 This point in question has, of course, been the centre of an extensive debate between the so-
called standard- and the so-called resolute readings of the TLP (and in connection with this, also
the question of how the earlier work relates to the later). The debate gained resolution and speed
especially with the publication by Diamond (1988) (a story of forerunners to it is provided by
Goldfarb (Goldfarb, 2012, 6-21)), and subsequent publications by her and James Conant, and
others that followed in their wake. A greater publication devoted to the discussion of the resolute
reading, saw the day of light at the turn of the century (Crary and Read, 2000), and has been
followed by a recent publication (Read and Lavery, 2012), in which the repercussions and
developments of this manifacetted trend in reading is given thorough treatment by proponents and
opponents alike.
33 Wittgenstein talks frequently about Ähnlichkeit in BPP I and II (TS 229 and 232), and while this

is, of course, not the same as connections it seems to reflect a concern for establishing connections
that is part of the point of interest. Thus, e.g., ”Das ’Erleben der Ähnlichkeit’. Denke an das
Sprachspiel: ”Ähnlichkeiten erkennen”, oder ”Ähnlichkeiten angeben”, oder ”Dinge nach ihrer
Ähnlichkeit ordnen”. Wo ist hier das besondere Erlebnis? der besondere Erlebnisinhalt, nach dem
man fahndet (TS 229, 411, 1614/ BPP I, 947)?”

96
must be avoided (not to make it an ethical project, which by and large it cannot be
without losing its justification) if one does not want to generalize in ways that will
inevitably point to foundations (explanations come to an end, PU, 1, 87); again,
which can be revealed and exposed, and fathom some kind of Truth.
Furthermore, it seems to me that evidence is not so much in question here.
Demonstration, perhaps, but more than anything it seems that they are both
involved in expounding approaches; ways of looking at something, manners of
asking etc. This is not evidence but a kind of putting forth that which is already
available for all to see, but which may occur to us in many ways. We will return to
this thought later when we get closer to considering Aspektwechsel, but for now I
hope that it flaringly dawns on the reader how we are gradually positioning
ourselves in that direction.

97
3RD SCENE
THE WITTGENSTEIN NACHLASS

The following scene is a bit of a side-event, but I include it nonetheless, because it

is an important explanation of the choices that I have made in terms of how I use
the texts by Wittgenstein to later explore psychological concepts and the idea of
Aspektwechsel in his later writings, and to explain the way in which I make
references to these texts.
Wittgenstein as a source of philosophical thought is famously a complicated
issue. I will here point to some of the difficulties involved in dealing with his
thoughts and reflect on the choices made to delineate the sources that have been
sought out for my research, and to give voice to some of the limitations
surrounding this choice. It is not an easy task to give a short summary of the
history of the Wittgenstein Nachlass, nor indeed should it be a central aspect here.
However, due to the vast mystery revolving the status of the published writings
and their position within the totality, and because I find it to be of interest in
relation to the texts that I have chosen for further investigation, I will make an
attempt at something just short of a comprehensive overview.
It is well known that Wittgenstein only left behind one published
philosophical piece of work, namely the Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung (better
known as Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, a title it was given for the first English
publication in 1922, one suggested by Moore to help the awkwardness of the
English translation of the original title, and resounding the treatise of Spinoza’s
Tractatus Theologico-Politicus (Ray Monk, 1991, 206)). Despite the infamous fact, he
actually did publish a book review (1913), a dictionary for Austrian school children
(1926), one philosophical article (1929), and a letter to the editor of Mind (1933) as
well (von Wright, 1993, 505). Also, copies of the dictations known as the Blue Book
(D 309, dictated 1933 – 1934) and the Brown Book (D 310, dictated 1934 – 1935)
were in circulation during the time he taught at Cambridge, though not published
as such (Rush Rhees, 1989, 9). Nonetheless, considering his fierce productivity of
writing, Wittgenstein published very little, and especially his middle- to late
writings—from the late 1920ies (approximately from his return to Cambridge in
1929) up until his death—were largely unread by others, with the exception of the

98
access which some friends and students were allowed to them and to the
discussion of them with Wittgenstein. In the will Wittgenstein left behind, upon
his death on the 29th of April 1951, he named three literary heirs; Rush Rhees, G.
E. M. Anscombe, and G. H. von Wright. His will had the following wording:

“I give to Mr. R. Rhees, Miss G.E.M. Anscombe and Professor G.H. von
Wright of Trinity College Cambridge All the copyright in all my unpublished
writings; and also the manuscripts and typescripts thereof to dispose of as
they think best but subject to any claim by anybody else to the custody of
the manuscripts and typescripts.
I intend and desire that Mr. Rhees, Miss Anscombe and Professor von
Wright shall publish as many of my unpublished writings as they think fit…
(Hintikka, 1996, 7).”

The story of what the public has had and gradually gained access to of the writings
that Wittgenstein left behind thus goes through these three prominent figures, at
least until the time when it was decided to make public his manuscripts and
typescripts in a more complete fashion (initially with the Cornell microfilm copy
and since with the Bergen Electronic Edition). Upon his death the extent of
Wittgenstein’s productivity was largely unknown, even to his literary heirs (indeed,
von Wright states in his article “Wittgensteins Nachlass – Historische
Anmerkungen zum Nachlass”, which was first published in 1969 as “The
Wittgenstein Papers”, that even the fact that he had been chosen by Wittgenstein
as one of his literary heirs was unknown to him at the time of Wittgenstein’s death
(von Wright, 1986, 71 34). One may conclude from von Wright’s paper that the
literary heirs made inquiries to Wittgenstein’s friends, mentors, family members,
and former students, the result of which was that manuscripts and typescripts
came to light from different locations in both England and Austria. Some were
with him when he died, some he had left behind at G.E.M. Anscombe’s house in
Oxford, where he spent much of his last year. The vast majority, however, had
been stored by Wittgenstein at the Trinity College in Cambridge or was to be

34 I refer here to the German translation of this work, simply because it was published later and

therefore contains more details, which have been added at a later stage. The first version of the
article was published in The Philosophical Review (1969, 483-503).

99
found between the family-home in Austria and the house of his sister Margaret
Stonborough, also in Austria; although many single manuscripts and typescripts
also appeared from elsewhere (von Wright, 1993, 480-482). Some were discovered
or brought to the attention of the literary heirs almost immediately while other
pieces appeared quite a bit later. Some of Wittgenstein’s more personal journals
are an example of writings, which came to light rather late (Wittgenstein, 1997, ed.
Somavilla 35).
The most pressing assignment to the literary heirs was the publication of the
book on which Wittgenstein had been working from the late 1920’ies up until the
late 1940’ies (c.f. Stern, 2004, xi) 36, the work entitled Philosophische Untersuchungen.
Although several versions of this work were attempted by Wittgenstein, he had
never arrived at one with which he found sufficient satisfaction to let it publish
(although, as the “Preface” will bear witness to, he came close on various
occasions (PU, 2001, IX, X). So, the immediate task at hand for the literary heirs
was to arrive at a version which they deemed fit for reflecting central elements of
Wittgenstein’s extensive work. The first edition was published in 1953, translated
into the English by Elizabeth Anscombe, and edited by her and Rush Rhees. The
work as it stands consists of the typescripts TS 227 and TS 234, as the first and
second part respectively, the latter of which is claimed to have been lost while sent
to the printer—no copies of it exist (BPP I, 1984, 7 (“Vorwort” by Anscombe and
von Wright)).
In 1969 G. H. von Wright published the abovementioned article “The
Wittgenstein Papers”, which continues to be of central importance to Wittgenstein
research. “The purpose of this paper is to give an account of the scope and the

35 This collection of journal entries has been published as: Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tagebücher 1930 –
1932/ 1936 – 1937, ed. Ilse Somavilla, Haymon, Innsbruck, 1997. The documents (including the
first manuscript toward PU, given by Wittgenstein that very title, in von Wright’s catalogue known
as MS 142, from 1936) had been given to Rudolf Koder, a friend of Wittgenstein’s from Austria,
from Wittgenstein’s sister Margaret Stonborough, as a memory to him upon Wittgenstein’s death
(Åmås, 1998, 7).
36 A good source for tracing back the development and strenuous work Wittgenstein performed in

the attempt to finish this book, may be found in the critical version edited by Joachim Schulte,
Heikki Nyman, Eike von Savigny, and G. H. von Wright: Philosophische Untersuchungen: Kristisch-
genetische Edition, Suhrkamp, Frankfurt am Main, 2001. This volume contains the five primary stages
of the book from “Urfassung” (MS 142) to “Spätfassung”, the latter of which is equivalent to TS
227.

100
character of Wittgenstein’s literary Nachlass”, with these words von Wright
commences. What the reader is given is not just an overview but also a manner of
systematization or categorization of the Nachlass. In 1967 a microfilm copy of the,
as of then known and in England located, Nachlass had been ordered made by
Cornell University, Ithaca, New York (later, during the same year, the Austrian
Nachlass was added to this microfilm version). Norman Malcolm, a former student
(Malcolm, 1966, 23) and friend of Wittgenstein, and at this time a professor at
Cornell University (Monk, 1991, 552) and G.H. von Wright were asked to oversee
the work (von Wright, 1986, 47). One might assume that it was based on this work
with the microfilm version that von Wright was given the overview over the
Nachlass which allowed for the subsequent development of the catalogue, the main
point of interest in the article of 1969. The microfilm copy and the Xerox paper
version which was printed from it, made the majority of the Nachlass available to
scholars around the world for the first time, hence allowing for a greater level of
transparency regarding the works that had already been published based on it (for
a comprehensive overview of these publications in relation to the manuscripts and
typescripts see Biggs and Pichler 1993, “Catalogue”). However, it has the great
drawback that all the manuscripts and notebooks are written by hand and hence
take some effort to decipher (and even more so considering the fact that the
microfilm version is not always of the best quality). Nonetheless, it provided a
great step up from having to blindly trust the selection of the literary executors
concerning the choice of material to pass over to publication. When one looks
through the manuscripts of Wittgenstein it is clear that some level of editing is
desirable, however, the main problem has been a tendency to take on thematic
interests (remarks on the foundation of mathematics being a prime example here
(Pichler, 1993, 8-10)), and thus taking remarks from the context they were
embedded into, and in some cases—which is of course the question of most
concern—doing so without making it clear from whence the remarks had been
subtracted. While it is clear that Wittgenstein did himself, to some extent, perform
his work in this manner, that is, cutting out parts from longer manuscripts and
using them elsewhere in other manuscripts or in typescripts, that is hardly the
same as saying that anyone else would be capable of doing that same work on his

101
behalf. For this reason also, the production of the Cornell Microfilm version of
Wittgenstein’s Nachlass was significant.
In “The Wittgenstein Papers”, upon which the majority of the above
information has been taken, von Wright gives the reader some historical details
surrounding the discovery of ever more parts of the Nachlass, and then proceeds to
suggest the following division of it into different sub-groups. The main three (the
philosophical papers) being: 1. Manuscripts; 2. Typescripts; 3. Dictations. He also
made a division of these to attribute to each a separate number. Hence, the
manuscripts run from 101 to 182/ 183, the typescripts from 201 to 245, and the
dictations from 301 to 311 (von Wright, 1986, 52-59) (an order which does not
necessarily reflect chronology in either of the groups).
Basically von Wright offered an overview and a manner of referring to
different parts of the Nachlass, which made this considerably easier. Von Wright
points to several aspects of the Nachlass, which makes it difficult to organize it.
Firstly, there are different ‘types’ of writings. There are notebooks written by hand
comprising everything from ‘draft like’ to ‘more finished versions’ (typically
revisions of remarks that appear in earlier versions), some manuscripts being re-
workings of older ones into ‘more finished’ versions. Von Wright divides these
into different levels of completion. Secondly, only some remarks are dated, and in
some notebooks 37 with much greater frequency than in others. Some notebooks
contain remarks that span over a long period of time, while others run
concordantly to one another, hence overlapping. Thus, a strictly chronological
ordering of the manuscripts is impossible. I will not go into detail here with
examples of the different ‘stages of development’, but merely point to the fact that
due to Wittgenstein’s manner of working, there is no obvious and straightforward
manner of classification, which always holds.
Not until the year 2000 was the totality of the Nachlass made available by
Oxford University Press and their publication of the work of digitalization of the
Wittgenstein Nachlass, which had been carried out at the Wittgenstein Archive in
Bergen since 1990 (http://wab.uib.no/1990-99/). This version contains three

37I use this term generically here to refer to all the parts of the Nachlass, which are written by
hand.

102
primary sources: the facsimile (similar to the Cornell microfilm in that it depicts
the actual pages of the manuscripts, yet in a much better quality and as color
copies), the diplomatic (which is, as far as possible an exact transcript of the
manuscripts and typescripts), and the normalized version (which is a “clean”
version of the text, that for the most part leaves out alternate possibilities, words
or phrases that have been crossed out, and errors). The diplomatic version being
perhaps the most interesting, as it allows for the reader an impression of
corrections and secondary, even tertiary alternatives to something written—it
basically gives one the opportunity to read Wittgenstein’s manuscripts without
having to oneself decipher his handwriting.
As has been insinuated in the above, Rhees, Anscombe, and von Wright made
some editorial choices, which probably became decisive to the Wittgenstein
reception in latter half of the 20th century. A clear example of this may be found in
the previously mentioned publication of the so-called LS. In the introductory
remarks from the editors, G.H. von Wright and Heikki Nyman, we are told that:

“Diese Manuskripte, die zweite Hälfte des MS 137 und das MS 138, werden
hier, mit Ausnahme einer nicht unbeträchtlichen Anzahl von Bemerkungen
‘allgemeiner’ Natur, die fast alle schon in den Vermischten Bemerkungen
gedruckt wurden, in toto veröffentlicht. Jene Bemerkungen allgemeiner Art
waren meistenteils von Wittgenstein selbst durch Striche || vom übrigen Text
klar abgesondert (LS, 1984, Vorwort der Herausgeber).”

At the very end of the volume, however, we find an omission, which is difficult to
place within the (arguably much too broad and vague characterization of) editing
principles described to us in the preface. The following piece of text has been
taken out of the context that I will quote at full length afterwards:
“Die Idee vom Geist des Menschen, den man sieht oder nicht sieht, ist sehr
ähnlich der der Wortbedeutung, die als ein Vorgang oder Objekt beim Wort steht
(LS, 1984, 979).” Thus is the wording of the last remark recorded in the published
version of LS. Here is the context from which this remark has been subtracted:

“20.5. 20 May, 1949

Wie ist es denn, wenn Leute nicht den gleichen Sinn für Humor haben? Sie
reagieren nicht richtig auf einander. Es ist, als wäre es unter gewissen

103
 Menschen Sitte einem Andern einen Ball zuzuwerfen, welcher ihn auffangen
& zurückwerfen soll; aber gewisse Leute würfen ihm nicht zurück sondern
steckten ihn in die Tasche. Oder, wie ist es, wenn Einer den Geschmack des
Andern gar nicht zu erraten versteht.
Die Idee vom Geist des Menschen, den man sieht oder nicht sieht, ist sehr
ähnlich der der Wortbedeutung, die als ein Vorgang oder Objekt beim Wort
steht.
Ein in uns festes Bild kann man freilich dem Aberglauben vergleichen, aber
doch auch sagen, daß man immer auf irgend einen festen Grund kommen
muß, sei er nun ein Bild, oder nicht, & also sei ein Bild am Grunde alles
Denkens zu respektieren & nicht als ein Aberglaube zu behandeln (MS 138,
32b – 33a).”

Neither are the surrounding remarks delineated by two lines, nor do they seem of
such an ‘allgemeiner Natur’ that they do not belong in the context. The published
line, which by chance (or perhaps not) has caused me some puzzlement, has been
chosen as the only one of the three, one must assume, which had any relevance to
the publication. However, it seems obvious that both the omitted lines are relevant
and, indeed, have a ‘psychological’ content rather than merely one of ‘allgemeiner
Natur’ (whatever that is supposed to mean exactly). An omission like this makes
the publication somewhat less trustworthy, I believe, and calls for some awareness
on the side of the reader to crosscheck with manuscripts and typescripts whenever
a piece of text appears to be somewhat crippled. Another aspect of this omission,
which makes it a little unsettling is that it does not appear in Alois Pichler’s
otherwise excellent catalogue, which traces the origin and composition of the
published works in relation to the manuscripts and typescripts. Here it is simply
noted that LS contains MS 138, 1a – 32b (Pichler, 1993, 21), while in fact some of
32b and most of 33a has been left out.
Another example of this manner of editing may be found at the beginning
of BPP I, the published version of TS 229, which is actually connected with TS
228 (the latter has never been published in a separate publication, with the
exception of the parts of it which appear in TS 227 (PU I)). The two typescripts
are connected and one continues directly into the other (with consecutive
pagination from 1 to 457, and the remarks running from 1 to 1804 (or 1834

104
effectively, see von Wright, 1993, 500). Hence if BPP I were to start where the
publishers claim that it starts, namely at the beginning of TS 229, it would begin
like such: ”So eine Entdeckung würde man geneigt sein, als Beweis dafür zu
betrachten, daß wir die Figur wirklich jedesmal anders sehen”, that is, halfway
through what is in the published version called §11. The paragraphs up until this
one actually stem from TS 228.
Neither of these examples are perhaps decisive, but they help demonstrate
why even these relatively uncomplicated pieces of text that are going to form the
basis of the analysis to follow, are also part of a publication history which has
made the reception of them in great part reliant on text material which is not
uncompromisingly true to its source. While this act is not meant as an
investigation further into the details of this history, I do believe that it is
worthwhile for researchers to a greater extent to include into their considerations
of text material, an awareness of this complicated history, which could to some
extent change the discourse on Wittgenstein 38. An important move in this
direction would be to have greater transparency in referring to the works by him,
that is, to make references back to the actual Nachlass rather than, or at least in
addition to, the edited publications. For this reason, I have double citations in all
references to Wittgenstein (except when referring to PU I, where the paragraph
numbers actually correspond to those of TS 227 (with the exception of the
introduction, where I will use double references too). In this way I thus refer both
to the published versions of his work, and to the unedited Manuscripts and
Typescripts. While it is very likely that Wittgenstein would not have chosen to
publish all the remarks unedited himself (considering his constant attempts to
rework notebooks into more lenient typescripts and first typescripts into further
selected remarks in a second or third typescript), it is also true that the work of
selection (which after all he willingly left to his literary heirs) could hardly be done

38 An important contribution toward such a development is the publication Wittgenstein After His

Nachlass, in the preface of which the editor utters a similar want and concern (Venturinha, 2010, 3-
4).

105
by anyone but himself 39. And considering his own hardship in boiling it down in a
satisfactory manner, it may not be unwise to remind the reader of his own imagery
of the danger of striving for some sort of reduction:

“Das bloβe Beschreibung ist so schwer, weil man glaubt, zum Verständnis
der Tatsachen diese ergänzen zu müssen. Es ist, als sähe man eine Leinwand
mit verstreuten Farbflecken, und sagte: so wie sie da sind, sind sie
unverständlich; sinnvoll werden sie erst, wenn man sie sich zu einer Gestalt
ergänzt. – Während ich sagen will: Hier ist das Ganze. (Wenn du es ergänzt,
verfälscht du es.) (TS 229, 923/ BPP I, 257).”

Considering the fact that Wittgenstein is trying to put before our eyes this exact
complexity in a way that does not force it into one single theory of language, it
seems meaningful to compare the difficulty of unifying his remarks as something
similar to that of forcing language in one single direction. Every time we
understand one aspect of the difficulty, the further challenge is to resist forcing
this understanding upon all else alike. The color patches are meaningful in their
irreducibility.
The texts which will be central in the following scenes on Wittgenstein, and
his considerations concerning psychological concepts broadly speaking, and
‘Aspekt’, ’Sehen’, and ’Aspekt-sehen’ and –’wechsel’ in particular, are the two
typescripts TS 229 and 232—known from their first publication in 1980 as
Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie 40 volumes one and two 41, written
largely between 1946 and 1948 (Pichler, 1993, 5). Furthermore, there will be some
consideration of the manuscripts 42 which formed the basis of these typescripts,
and lastly, I will draw on the manuscripts MS 137 – 138, written in 1948 – 1949,
some of the former half and the latter majority of which make up what was in

39 A good exposition of the problems concerning the publication of Wittgenstein’s Nachlass may be

found in Jaokko Hintikka’s work Ludwig Wittgenstein; Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half-Truths (Hintikka,
1996).
40 Published in a bilingual version—the English title being Remarks on the Philosophy of Psychology

(Pichler, 1993, 21), edited by G.E.M. Anscombe and G.H. von Wright.
41 For more details on this matter view the discussion above (2nd Scene).
42 Typescript 229 is based on the manuscripts MS 130 – 132 and 134 – 135, while typescript 232 is

based on MS 135 – 137.

106
1982 published under the title Letzte Schriften über die Philosophie der Psychologie 43,
thought to be the ‘Vorstudien zum zweiten Teil der Philosophischen Untersuchungen’
(Pichler, 1993, 21/ LS 351). This second part of PU, TS 234, which is supposed to
be based on MS 137 and 138, is said to have since been lost while sent to the print
(LS, 348). In the most resent publication by Wiley-Blackwell of PU, revisions have
been made in a number of ways (a revised translation into the English for
example 44) and the second part of the work is no longer so-called. The choice to
focus on these manuscripts and typescripts is of course related to the fact that
Wittgenstein here considers with the most frequency the question of Aspektwechsel,
Verstellung, and other ideas which I take to be of major interest in relation to my
reading of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works. Some of these ideas figure as well
in section xi of PU II, but much more extensively so in the manuscripts and
typescripts on which I focus my reading.

43 LS I is comprised of the manuscripts MS 137 and 138, although roughly the first half of MS 137
has been left out—from p. 1a to 75b (that is 150 pages of manuscript). And at least the latter
remarks of MS 138 have been left out in part, as was demonstrated above. The reason for omitting
approximately the first half of MS 137 is likely due to the fact that many of these remarks also
figure in the typescript (TS 232/ BPP II).
44 Up until this revised edition and translation, the official translation into the English had been

that of G.E.M. Anscombe. This translation has the apparent shortcoming, relating to decisions in
translating some important concepts, of downplaying the particular ‘tone’ of the Philosophische
Untersuchungen. For a comprehensive discussion of this concern, view e.g. David G. Stern’s
introduction to Wittgenstein’s Philsophical Investigations (Stern, 2004) or the introduction to the new
Wiley-Blackwell edition (the 4th edition) of PU.

107
4TH SCENE
PSYCHOLOGICAL CONCEPTS IN TS 229-323 AND MSS 137 – 138

“22 Jun, 1948

Wir beurteilen eine Handlung nach ihrem Hintergrund im menschlichen
Leben, und dieser Hintergrund ist nicht einfarbig, sondern wir könnten ihn
uns als ein sehr kompliziertes filigranes Muster vorstellen, das wir zwar nicht
nachzeichnen könnten, aber nach einem allgemeinen Eindruck
wiedererkennen.
Der Hintergrund ist das Getriebe des Lebens. Und unser Begriff bezeichnet
etwas in diesem Getriebe.
Und schon der Begriff ”Getriebe” bedingt die Unbestimmtheit. Denn nur
durch ständige Wiederholung ergibt sich [ein| das] Getriebe. Und für
’ständige Wiederholung’ gibt es keinen bestimmten Anfang (MS 137, 54a/
BPP II, 624-626).”

The here characterized, but needless to say not defined, background of human life
is what forms the center of attention in the following scene. The attempt here will
be to give an impression of this background, which cannot be encompassed in a
final understanding but which is nonetheless an important notion to keep in mind
when trying to comprehend what each individual consideration of conceptual
psychological phenomena is somehow pointing back to. That ‘our concepts
characterize something in the gearing mechanism’, means that we are all the time
able to engage the gear to witness and consider that this makes something move,
but not being able to grasp the entire mechanism at once, we can only ever make
sense of its movement by re-engaging different parts of it. And, as Wittgenstein
says, because we must always start anew in this manner, there is no certain or
definite point of departure. If we understand this in relation to his own remarks, as
was likewise indicated with the final quote of the previous scene, then the apparent
randomness and disorder makes more sense. If he were to commence his
questioning from a structurally definite plateau, then this would indicate the kind
of overview, which he seems to be ‘arguing’ against in the above quote.

108
 All the writings in question stem from Wittgenstein’s later work. It is
characteristic of the manuscripts and typescripts here being considered that certain
topics and concerns repeat. The most distinct topics are perhaps broadly speaking
psychological concepts and phenomena (to be in pain, to be waiting for someone,
to hope, to love and so on); the problem of inner and outer (which were in PU
mainly expressed through the remarks on pain and private language (e.g. PU, 268-
315); and the question of ’seeing’ and ‘seeing aspects’. In what follows we will be
paying attention to the former by way of setting the stage of the investigation at
hand, and the latter as the primary point of concern. If we are to believe the
distinction that Wittgenstein himself makes on various occasions, the main
difference between his investigations and one characteristic of psychology is that
the latter is interested in the causes of psychological phenomena, while he is
concerned with what implications the concepts have and how they are ’used’, that
is, in what way they help us to move on according to certain techniques or
situations more broadly speaking—that they make us know our way about (rather
than how), that they enable us to know how to continue (rather than why). A
different, and perhaps more clear way of stating this, is given to us by Joachim
Schulte: ”Wittgenstein, whose aim in philosophy is not explanation but description
[…] (Schulte, 1993, 26).” Wittgenstein formulates it like this:

”Seine Ursachen interessieren den Psychologen nicht mich.

Uns interessiert der Begriff und seine Stellung in den [Erfahrungsbegriffen.|
Erlebnisbegriffen.] (MS 137, 120b/ LS, 434-435).”

And like this:

”Denn nicht das ist die Frage: was ich mache, wenn… (dies könnte nur eine
psychologische Frage sein) – sondern, welche Bedeutung die Äuserung hat,
was sich aus ihn entnehmen läßt, welche Folgen sie hat (TS 232, 609, 038/
BPP II, 38).”

In both cases a delineation is taking place which makes it quite clear that
Wittgenstein does not take himself to be doing psychology. The distinction
between asking ‘what am I doing when…’ and ‘what meaning the expression has’
and ‘what is its position within concepts of experience’ is complicated, of course,
but it must be important to remind oneself repeatedly that Wittgenstein is not

109
trying to ask as if he were a psychologist, he is rather holding on to the expressions
that we give to these matters, and what place they fill. What he is doing is bound
to an interest in that which ensues or is made possible when something is phrased
like this or like that. To make a beginning, as the above quote starting this section
strongly indicates, there is only the choice of making a beginning which is in an
important other sense never a beginning because it is always reengaging something
in a mechanism that is already working and without which the understanding of a
concept, by putting it once again in gear, could not make sense. When I am keen
on spelling out this differentiation, it is because one must pay careful attention to
what Wittgenstein in any case is not doing, since so relatively little is given to us in
terms of what he is doing. However, the continuous pointing toward the concept,
the situation, the grammar and so on only makes sense when it is also clear that
this is viewed on the backdrop, indeed infinitely enmeshed with, the ”Hintergrund
im menschlichen Leben” and the ”sehr kompliziertes filigranes Muster”.
The remainder of this scene is divided into two main sections. The first
section considers language in the context of practice, use, language games,
grammar, and rule-following—thereby trying to paint some broad strokes in the
greater ‘framework’. The second section looks into the specific concern for
psychological concepts or phenomena, leading us toward the question of seeing
and seeing aspects.
The grammar of use. So far I have mainly stressed the point of uncertainty
in relation to Wittgenstein’s approach to philosophical investigation, but there is
another aspect that is no less important—the relative firmness of practice, the
rules by which language makes sense to its practitioners. While it is held, namely,
on the one hand that there is nothing called a description of language as such, it is
on the other hand stressed that our ability to navigate in any number of different
language games is related to a long and complex ‘training’ or learning of games,
which basically means to get to know the rules in a vast complex of situations.
Understanding how a game works does not mean, necessarily, to know how to
describe its every detail—some games have firmer rules than others and some

110
require more, some less explicit knowledge of how they work 45. When asked,
however, we will normally be able to state something regarding the rules that apply
in given cases. This complexity hinges on a vast interest in life, in which language
in use shows 46 itself.
Having mentioned the dimension of the infamous ‘late-Wittgenstein-in-one-
line—language is its use’ issue, there is an important distinction, which should be
spelled out. This distinction is one, which I have taken on from Steen Brock 47, and
it seems to me a central one to keep in mind 48.
While the English translations of Wittgenstein’s late works, most
prominently G.E.M. Anscombe’s translation of the first 1953 publication of PU,
mainly use two translations of ‘use’, namely use or application (which are for the
most part used interchangeably), the German texts operate with three concepts of
‘use’, namely: Gebrauch, Verwendung, and Anwendung. When this is important it is
exactly due to the care taken by Wittgenstein to make distinctions; just because
something looks the same or seems the same, it does not mean that it is the
same—or that it plays the same role in grammar (and here again, actually in the
sense of use). An example would be when Wittgenstein talks about the many
different ways of employing ‘describing’ (Beschreibung), the difference between
describing one’s room, describing the sense of touch, describing a face etc. (PU,
24; see also TS 229, 335, 1304)—and the question of ‘use’ is in this matter central.

45 Thus, for example, when Wittgenstein talks about the man who knows his way around a city,

such that he would always be able to find the fastest route from one place to another, and yet, if
propted, might be entirely unable to draw a map of the city (TS 229, 317, 1225/ BPP I, 556).
46 I do not mean by this to refer to the much debated distinction between showing and saying

(particularly vibrant in discussions on how to interpret the Tractatus, cf. footnote 6 of this act), but I
mean it in a very concrete fashion—that ways of use show themselves to us; can be observed and
described by us. That is, in reference to the careful spelling out of situations by Wittgenstein, in
which we can see a manner of use of certain concepts (oftentimes exactly related to a particular
kind of behavior).
47 Notably, I here use the following unpublished paper as my source “The Grammar of Pretense –

Wittgenstein’s Irish Writings”, delivered at the Nordic Network of Wittgenstein Research congress
in Odense, 2010. Much of the same thought material may be found in the likewise unpublished,
but on Steen Brock’s AU website accessible, manuscript “Some Main Features of Wittgenstein’s
Philosophy” (http://pure.au.dk/portal/files/2127476/brock-wittgenstein_manus.pdf).
48 It should be mentioned that my reading of Wittgenstein in many respects, and probably in many

more than those of which I am aware, owes a great deal to Steen Brock’s reading of him. Though I
wish to give full credit to Brock’s influence on my reading of Wittgenstein, it must of course be
understood that I alone am responsible for the interpretation here provided.

111
It rather figures as a vital part of the underlying means of investigation (for
example in language games in which different kinds of use are central). Steen
Brock makes this very comprehensive and useful distinction between the three
concepts of use:
First, there is meaning as ‘use’ (Gebrauch) in which it is a matter of particular
uses of particular things or words for certain purposes. I use the word ‘hi’ when I
greet someone; I use a pot when I boil pasta.
Second, there is the ‘employment’ or ‘utilization’ (Verwendung) of a technique
or operation. I employ the set phrase “I am pleased to meet you”, when I meet
someone for the first time in an English speaking setting; I employ the
mathematical constant pi when I want to calculate the circumference of a circle.
Brock writes as follows: “I “follow”, “stick to” or “consult” a certain rule, table,
scheme, form of instruction, exemplar, paradigm etc. I make use-of whatever are the
adequate expressions for such rules, tables, schemes, paradigm, exemplars… (Brock,
2010, 7 49).”
Third, ‘application’ (Anwendung) concerns entire language games and “their
relation to other games (Brock, 2010, 7).” I may be preparing a particular meal
following a recipe, but it makes a difference if I am preparing it for my wife who is
about to come home or I am preparing it as the last meal for a prisoner on death
row—the same employment can fall within entirely different games. Hence the
same use can have different employments and the same employments different
applications, that is, as Brock points out, we receive from this differentiation a
manner of understanding how different language games relate to and are
entertwined with each other (the distinction may also find support in the first
mentioning of language games in PU, 7). What is likewise important in this
differentiation, I believe, is that it presents us with a manner of understanding why
the notions of ‘fit’ and ‘knowing how to move on’ are so important to
Wittgenstein. First of all, that something fits means that it falls into a game in such
a way that we are able to understand what is meant by it (it is a ‘known’ move in a
game, not that it has been performed before numerically, but that its kind is

49The pages in this unpublished paper are actually not numbered, but making the first page
number one, this page amounts to page 7.

112
known, comprehensible—every time I use a pot for boiling pasta I am of course in
some sense doing that for the first time, but in an important other sense I am
adhering to a well known kind of use). Secondly, knowing what is meant by it
makes us capable of knowing how to move on, and these are indeed two
extremely important aspects of language and human behavior broadly speaking.
This does not mean that there is a set and unchangeable frame according to which
a certain move will always be correct in a certain game. However, there are rulers,
measures, techniques, scales according to which one way or another may be
‘correct’, may correspond to the way in which it is expected or expectable that
something could be done or said, and there are different measures of correctness,
depending on the game that is played, but nothing that may be said to be correct as
such. This does not mean that there are different levels of correctness or exactness
as such but that the notion or measure of correctness plays a different role in
different games. However, there is no such thing as drawing a line or limit to
games overall (e.g. PU, 69). Brock puts it in the following very clear way: “That
there is nothing called the general description of the employment of words (of
Verwendungen) (Brock, 2010, 3) 50.” While Wittgenstein phrases it, in one example,
as follows:

“Wie würden wir denn jemandem erklären, was ein Spiel ist? Ich
glaube, wir werden ihm Spiele beschreiben, und wir könnten der
Beschreibung hinzufügen: ”das, u n d Ä h n l i c h e s, nennt man ’Spiele’”.
Und wissen wir selbst denn mehr? Können wir etwa nur dem Andern nicht
genau sagen, was ein Spiel ist?— Aber das ist nicht Unwissenheit. Wir
kennen die Grenzen nicht, weil keine gezogen sind. Wie gesagt, wir können
— für einen besondern Zweck — eine Grenze ziehen. Machen wir dadurch
den Begriff erst brauchbar? Durchaus nicht! Es sei denn, für den «diesen»

50 This comes very close to Wittgenstein’s own wording, actually, when he says in MS 138, 31b/

LS, 969: “Ich will also sagen: es ist von vornherein nicht ausgemacht, daß es so etwas gibt, wie
‘eine allgemeine Beschreibung der Verwendung eines Worts.’
Und wenn es also doch so etwas derartiges gibt, - so ist es nicht ausgemacht, wie bestimmt eine
solche Beschreibung sein muß.” In a sense, Brock’s phrasing is even stronger, but it is something
that we find expressed in different ways in different places in Wittgenstein. The softening tone of
Wittgenstein may support one’s suspicion, however, that the lesson is much more difficult to take
on than one should think—partly because it is much simpler, and partly therefore much more
challenging than one is inclined to see.

113
 besondern Zweck. So Wenig, wie der das Längenmaβ ‘1 Schritt’ brauchbar
machte, der die Definition gab: 1 Schritt = 75 cm. Und wenn du sagen willst
“aber vorher war es doch kein exaktes Längenmaβ”, so antworte ich: gut,
dann war es ein unexaktes. – Obgleich du mir noch die Definition der
Exaktheit schuldig bist (PU, 69).”

Hence, the determination and description of that which we call a game—how to

describe it to others, how to engage in it and so on—is dependent upon our
drawing lines. In line with the story in this part of PU one might say: so I can
explain to you what board games are about or other kind of games. The exactness
with which I may describe ‘games’ or a game or a game of chess in particular,
depends on what game, while being engaged in the description of what I play—
and it makes a difference what the reason may be for the person to have asked us
to explain what a game is. Of course, it is pivotal here that exactness does not have
a home outside of the game that is played, the lines that are drawn etc.
Not only do we know and adhere to different kinds of use, we do not need
to be able to describe what a certain use entails in order to be able to employ it 51.
However, it is possible that we need this awareness in order to be able to apply
differently the same employment. We will return to this question later when we
turn to the concept of Aspektwechsel (there is an obvious problem in this thought,
namely that it advocates a rule-binding in general which should be questionable, as
it indeed is in the above quote, because it could never count for all games at all
times 52). The leveling, as I am tempted to call it, of modes of description, of
exactness, and of explanation; that there is nothing called describing games as such, but
that each game can in turn be described, yet in differing modes of exactness, is
puzzling but important not to overlook (note that it strides against all our
eagerness to generalize and theorize and throw all means of description into a

51 See also TS 232, 645, 166/ BPP II, 167, “Ich will nun sagen, daβ Menschen, welche einen
solchen Begriff gebrauchen, seinen Gebrauch n i c h t müβten beschreiben können. Und sollten
sie's versuchen, so könnten sie eine ganz unzulängliche Beschreibung geben, (Wie die meisten,
wenn sie versuchen wollten, die Verwendung des Papiergelds richtig zu beschreiben.)”
52 It is interesting that the mentioning of ‘rules’ is considerably less prominent in the later

manuscripts in which Wittgenstein, among other subjects, concerns himself with philosophy of
psychology. He mentions rules, but the concept of Technik (also in relation to Technik der
Verwendung, MS 137, 114a/ LS, 353) seems more central.

114
unified whole). An exact description of a game of chess, and the rules involved in
playing this game, would be quite different from an exact description of how to
perform a heart surgery. Here, of course, it may be claimed that I am committing a
categorical mistake comparing two games, one of which is not even a game, but
the point is not the mode of procedure, but that both are activities in which people
engage—one more common and doable for all, obviously. However, not only is
there a difference in the mode of the ’games’, the contrasting clarity of which has
led me to choose these rather diverging examples, but exactness means something
entirely different in the two games. Furthermore, this is not due to the fact that in one
there is a greater level of exactness in play than in the other (e.g. that the
positioning of a runner within the white square in chess is in need of less accuracy
than is the stitching of the aorta after a vascular surgery) but that there is no point
in talking about exactness overall. There is only exactness that pertains to games,
and thereby exactness in adhering to the rules, based on the rules that (in part)
constitute a ’given’ game (I am reluctant of this latter formulation because it
insinuates a possibility of explanation that I do not take to be compatible with this
manner of thinking language and practice). And yet, as was indicated above with
the suggestion by Steen Brock on how to understand the different kinds of ‘use’, it
is so that the different games are not monades and worlds apart. It is because our
conception of things is imbedded in a very broad and complex background, that in
some sense informs our every way of engaging in games that we are able to make
sense of anything at all, or understand that different practices can have different
conceptions of exactness for example.
The above aspect is, of course, the easy part. Meaning is embedded in a
practice and concepts cannot be subtracted from it to be considered in a free-
floating state without the danger of all meaning going shot. The more difficult
aspect is to grasp the radicality of this understanding, and this is where it becomes
interesting to our endeavor concerning psychological concepts. It is in relation to
this radicality that the leveling comes in. Because even when Wittgenstein gives us
something like the “Bereich des Psychologischen (TS 229, 385, 1504/ BPP I, 836)”
as presumably that of ’experience’ (Erlebnis) or a ”Plan zur Behandlung der
psychologischen Begriffe (TS 232, 615, 063/ BPP II, 63)” or a ”Fortsetzung der
Klassifizierung der psychologischen Begriffe (TS 232, 638, 147/ BPP II, 148)” this

115
does not mean, to the best of my understanding, that he is in the midst of making
neither a hierarchy of psychological concept, nor some sort of state of the art
classification of psychological concepts. Rather, I believe he is trying to delineate
which concepts we normally use when ’talking psychologically’ or when talking of
manners of being present or ’states of mind’ characterized by ’psychological
concepts’, simply to remind himself to investigate ways in which the employment
of these make things possible to us in situations that we engage in.
What I should like to bring to the fore is that the same kind of moderation,
exactly due to the vast (and possibly ever new) games into which some concept
can appear or make its entrance, can be brought out in relation to all psychological
concepts. The boundaries that one would want to draw by asking for the
explanation of the employment of psychological concepts in general, point to a
conception according to which something like this could somehow be settled in a
manner that would bestow a measure for all future reference. However, and this is
perhaps an aspect in which my reading of Wittgenstein diverges from Brock, it
seems to me that the notion of rule-following has an end to it or entails its own
limitation in a manner that on some level makes all talk of generality questionable
(albeit unavoidable or even necessary to many types of language games). Thus, to
tie this back to my previous talk of rules and measures—there are some such,
according to which something may or may not make sense to us. If I say: ”may it
become you well” I am to a lesser extent adhering to a norm of conduct than if I
say ”velbekomme”.
The manner of investigation that Wittgenstein employs always seems to be
turned forward in a sense. Rather than explanation, what is being looked to is
making sense, that something fits, and that this manner of fit enables us to move on (in all
different kinds of endeavors). That something fits, however, can also be
spontaneous, it does not necessarily imply that here we are following a rule.
Wittgenstein gives some examples in PU when he talks about a game of tennis in
which there are a number of rules regulating how to play the game correctly, and
yet there are no rules regulating for example how high one can pitch the ball into
the air or which foot one has to stand on when receiving the ball. ”Es ist nicht
überall von Regeln begrenzt (PU I, 68).” Further, he imagines a ballgame in which
there are people merely throwing a ball around to each other or playing a game but

116
making up the rules ’as they go along’ (PU I, 83). What is more, one may imagine
that two players have a very similar style of playing (tennis say) but that one is very
good at it while the other is not (similar to Wittgenstein’s later thoughts on Gehör).
Just being good at following the rules of the game, so to speak, does not
necessarily make one good at playing that game (although sometimes it does, of
course). This particular aspect is of quite some importance when it comes to
considerations on concepts of psychology. For example, Wittgenstein poses the
question in MS 138, 27b/ LS 938, ”Wie lernt der Mensch, einen ’Blick’ für etwas
kriegen? Und wie läßt sich dieser Blick verwenden?”
What is hinted at here is important in all of Wittgenstein’s later philosophy,
whatever one wants to include into this conception. There is a connection between
his use of ‘language games’, his understanding of ‘family resemblances’, and the
vast number of images he uses to characterize important traits that he perceives
concerning language, without the inclusion of which any attempt at theorizing
about language has already run off track. This understanding is linked exactly to
these different manners of ‘use’. Wittgenstein’s use of the word ‘family
resemblances’ he describes as being a manner of characterizing that there can be
common trades between different games but none common to all. Hence, when
we might be inclined to want to define ‘language game’ as this that and the other,
there is a part of the point that goes missing or rather the central reason for the
need of a term like this is easily overlooked. Language games must be viewed
through ‘family resemblance’ and the acceptance that we are not going to strike
upon one common denominator that will help us define language in all its
manners of use (cf. PU I, 65 – 71). This is not the same as saying, for example,
that exactness is not an essential aspect of some language games, but that it is a
mistake if one wants to make it a common denominator for all language games.
If I say before I start consuming my dinner to some fellow English speaking
diners “may it become you well”, then they may or may not understand what I am
referring to, but in any case it is likely that my remark is not going to sound
familiar to them—there may be some confusion as to how to respond ‘correctly’
to it. On the other hand if I say to some fellow Danish, German or Spanish
speaking diners “velbekomme”, “guten Appetit”/ “Mahlzeit” or “que
aproveche”/ “buen provecho”, then it will fall into a context which is immediately

117
understandable to all—I employ a standard phrase which will be familiar to all
who share the language in question. The point is that there are ways of speaking,
manners of applying words and phrases in different games which make them
comprehensible to the spectators, interlocutors etc., and ways which do not
immediately show themselves as comprehensible but may be given a meaning or
charitably be understood. However, this is by no means a set way as such; manners
change, and although the riverbed constitutes a framework within which the water
flows, this does not indicate that the riverbed cannot change and thereby change
the course of direction (MS 174, 22r). However, without a riverbed there is no
river at all but only a bog in which all movement stops. Thus, on the one hand
there are standards, techniques, customs etc., and on the other there is the
realization that neither their richness nor their plasticity can be encompassed by a
theory of language—firstly, a such would always be insufficient (overlook the fine
shades of behavior and distinction etc.), and secondly, it would pretend a kind of
restriction which does not perceive the gradual or sudden change of meaning
(which language and behavior in this life-world undergo—”Ich sehe die Figur jetzt
als... (TS 232, 701, 377)” and the like.
In relation to psychological phenomena and concepts this is, of course, part
of the richness of the tireless return upon the same themes and images, which by
and large constitute these remarks. The distinction between the different kinds of
use will serve as a lingering reminder of differentiation and connection between
different aspects of the Lebensteppich or backdrop. There are certain considerations,
which seem to concern Wittgenstein particularly in relation to psychological
concepts. There seems to be no one more or less appropriate place to begin in this
respect. Joachim Schulte (1993) points to the fact that Wittgenstein himself seems
to start with ‘experience’ (Erlebnis) in the first paragraph in which he is explicitly
concerned with ‘delineating’ an area of the psychological (TS 229, 385, 1504/ BPP
I, 836). However, the problem in this, as Schulte perceives it (and evidently
Wittgenstein too, since this aspect is no longer mentioned in his next attempt at
something similar) is that there is no particular reason why one would claim for
‘experience’ to be in some way primary or antecedent to other psychological
concepts. While I certainly agree with Schulte that this would be problematic, I am
not sure that there is much to worry about here. I would rather take the difficulty

118
of knowing where to start—of making the hierarchy that Schulte draws up in two
different shapes (Schulte, 1993, 28, 31) (one ‘model’ predating the other slightly in
time in Wittgenstein’s notebooks)—as a strong indication that Wittgenstein is not
up to making a hierarchy at all. What is happening in the paragraphs in which
Schulte takes his point of departure is merely, I believe, a survey of psychological
concepts and elements, which is not the same as stating that one takes priority in
one way or another over other concepts.
In a later article, Schulte (Schulte, 2009, 27-42) is concerned with a similar
issue. Here he points to the fact that there seems to be at first in the earlier
remarks that make up BPP I and some of those that constitute BPP II an attempt
at saying something which would more generally count for psychological concepts
(hence the tables of emotions, experience, and expression which he analyzes more
fully in the aforementioned book, especially: Schulte, 1993, 24-36), whereas a shift
takes place that changes focus from some sort of correlation between phenomena
and concept to a manner of understanding these based on the backdrop of a
‘carpet of life’, interwoven with which the differentiations rather than the
similarities between psychological phenomena and their expressions are given
primacy.
Schulte writes on the matter: ”The earlier conception assumes a model in
terms of which we have psychological phenomena (experiences) on the one hand
and corresponding concepts on the other; the latter will be true of the former if
they satisfy a certain criteria (Schulte, 2009, 38).” And further ahead:

”If, on the other hand, we conceive of individual emotions as varying

patterns in the carpet of life, we need to notice slight variations and are
hence inclined to focus on the distinguishing features of these emotions.
That sharpens one’s eye for dissimilarities between various forms of what is
usually called the same emotion and between different emotions (Schulte,
2009, 39).”

It is undeniable that the metaphor of the carpet of life comes rather late, and it is
plausible that it indicates a change in some respect in terms of how Wittgenstein
views the possibility of asserting psychological concepts, nonetheless, I am
inclined to think that the understanding which Schulte ascribes to Wittgenstein’s

119
prior talk of such is too rigid, and indeed would seem to go counter even to the
understanding of language more broadly speaking that we find in PU. The idea of
correspondence in the tractarian sense is not restated in his later works (see e.g.
PU, 38) if at all, only in the sense that their meaning corresponds to a lifeworld of
sorts, but this can never be stated in the same solid form. Wittgenstein exactly
returns to a criticism of this manner of thinking and, indeed, this is one of the final
remarks of MS 138).
There are many elements to which Wittgenstein returns, but the most
prominent ones seem to be the following 53:
There are ‘situations’ (Situation) which normally have some kind of ‘occasion’
(Anlässe/Motiv) and are accompanied by a kind of ‘behavior’ (Benehmen) (e.g. TS
229, 383, 1496/ BPP I, 828). There are ways of ‘being minded’ (Einstellungen, e.g.
TS 229, 384, 1501/ BPP I, 833) and there are reaktions, some of which are ‘willed’
(Willkürlich) and some of which are ‘unwilled’ (Unwillkürlich)—and many more
aspects of psychological phenomena are characterized by being willed or unwilled.
It may even be more to the point to say that behavior is willed while most
reactions are unwilled (I turn red when people call me out on having said
something embarrassing), and then again much behavior seems just to be
spontaneous. Yet all the time when trying to clarify these features of different
psychological phenomena and situations, one must keep in mind that there might
be no such thing to Wittgenstein, as “eine allgemeine Beschreibung der Verwendung
eines Worts (MS 138, 31b/ LS, 969)”, and of course this goes also for the way in
which we are now talking about psychological concepts. This may serve to remind
us why (or one of the possible motivations for the fact that) Wittgenstein adheres
to looking at situations. Wittgenstein also talks about emotions (Gemütsbewegungen),
which have duration (Dauer) and are said (in TS 229, 385, 1504/ BPP I, 836) to

53 Again here, my reading, or at least those aspects, which have stood out to me in Wittgenstein’s

texts, owes a lot to the reading of Steen Brock. One thing to mention is Brock’s “table” of
“Wittgenstein’s basic anthropology” (again stemming from the aforementioned unpublished
paper), which underlines a number of the concepts that I will be paying some attention to in the
following. While reading Wittgenstein’s texts concerning psychology this table gradually became
more comprehensible to me, and there is no way for me to exclude the possibility that the elements
included in Brock’s table in particular have stood out to me in part due to this selfsame table
(which I have had access to before reading BPP I and II). What I particularly like about the table is
that it avoids (on my reading of it anyway) making a hierarchy of the psychological concepts.

120
colour thought, and convictions (Überzeugungen), which are said to be expressed in
thought. One thing that is said to be characteristic of psychological verbs is that
they differ from first person to third person (present). Such that third person is
characterized by Mitteilung (Beobachtung des Benehmens), while first person is
characterized by Äußerung (BPP I, 836 and TS 232, 615, 063/ BPP II, 63). This
latter distinction plays a particular role in these late remarks because it points to
the possibility of the inner/ outer divide—the idea of a privileged first person and
a disadvantaged third person perspective—the pondering of which many remarks
are dedicated to. Wittgenstein, it should come as no surprise, considering his fight
against the so called ‘private language argument’ in PU, is much engaged in
exploring what may be at stake when we talk like this (and again, not how is it
possible, how can we explain it, but rather what does it allow us to do, how does it
show that we know the Verwendung, in what ways does it allow us to move on (e.g.
TS 229, 278, 1043/ BPP I, 376). One thing, which is brought to the fore, is that
our assumption of knowing our own pain and merely ‘guessing’ or ‘assuming’ that
of the other, is somewhat off track. Our utterances—also about our own pain—
are never independent of the kind of language game that we are engaged in.
Consider the following quote:

”Ich kann nie w i s s e n, was in ihm vorgeht; e r weiß es immer.” Ja, wenn
man philosophisch denkt, möchte man das sagen. Aber welcher Sachlage
entspricht diese Aussage? Wir hören täglich, daß der Eine vom Andern sagt,
er habe Schmerzen, sei traurig, lustig, etc., ohne die Spur des Zweifels; und
verhältnismäßig selten, daß man nicht wisse, was in ihm vorgeht. So ist es
also nicht so schlimm mit der Ungewißheit. Und es kommt auch vor, daß
man sagt: ”Ich weiß, daß Du damals so gefühlt hast, auch wenn Du's jetzt
nicht wahr haben willst (TS 229, 224, 804/ BPP I, 138).”

Thus, the concern is connected with a kind of insecurity toward the other, and yet
exactly this paragraph tries to remind us, firstly, that it is quite rare that we are
unsure of the sincerity if the other expresses joy or pain for example, secondly,
how common it is, that the insecurity could just as well go the other way around
(that I could be unsure of my own sentiments in the past—I may have tried to
forget in some manner). Thus, as Wittgenstein points out here, we can easily

121
imagine a situation in which I remind you of, or insist on the genuineness of a
feeling that you used to have. In the present tense, of course, this is more difficult
and yet by no means unthinkable. I may be trying to convince someone that the
pain he has is ‘real enough’ or strong enough that he really should go to the doctor
and get it checked out. At the same time the inner/ outer distinction or issue does
call attention to the fact that insecurity toward the other is possible. I might really
doubt whether the pain you are uttering is real or not, but this is never unrelated to
the game that we are playing. I may know you for being ‘one who exaggerates’ or I
may be a doctor in the process of examining you, knowing that the blood running
down your face may be related to the fact that injuries to the head always bleed a
lot due to the heightened blood flow to the head, rather than it being an
expression of the severity of your injury. Yet, attending to the question initially at
hand here, the inner/ outer distinction, and the question of pain as an expression
of this concern, we must say that Wittgenstein takes great pains to demonstrate
how our emotions and their expression cannot be separated out as two different
entities (such as pain, and words or expression of pain). One may also think of the
remark in PU in which Wittgenstein says that when we teach a child to express
pain by saying “it hurts here”, for example, we are not teaching the child to name
an object of pain, but we are giving the child a new painbehavior (PU 162, 244). Rather
than crying or screaming, the child is taught a different type of behavior—and can
this be kept separate from some independent object of pain? The point seems to
be that we would never be able to make sense of this without the expression in
some form. Hence pain is not nothing but not something either (PU, 303-304).
In TS 229, 221, 795/ BPP I, 129 Wittgenstein writes:

”Nimm die verschiedenen psychologischen Phänomene: Denken, Schmerz,

Zorn, Freude, Wunsch, Furcht, Absicht, Erinnerung, etc. — und vergleich
das Benehmen, das jedem entspricht. — Aber was gehört hier zum
Benehmen? Nur das Spiel des Gesichtsausdrucks und die Gebärden? Oder
auch die Umgebung, sozusagen der Anlaß dieses Ausdrucks? Und wenn
man nun auch die Umgebung einbezieht, — wie ist dann das Verhalten
beim Zorn und beim Erinnern, z.B., miteinander zu vergleichen?”

122
Apart from naming a number of phenomena, which we may call psychological,
Wittgenstein points to some issues relating to considering these. That there seems
to be different kinds of behavior which may be expected or appropriate to the
different phenomena; that it is a question what one should include into the
understanding of behavior; that there may be difficulties involved in comparing
the different kinds of behavior corresponding to the different kinds of
psychological phenomena. Once more I think that a remark like this leads us back
to looking at situations, ways of behaving, and occasions for situations, because
the outlining of some ’general concepts’ of psychological phenomena takes us
away from and once more merely poses the question of how, where we wanted to
ask what does it bring about/ allow us to do etc. So from the general we turn once again
toward making distinctions.
There is something about differentiation (Unterscheidung) in relation to use.
Some things can be so different that it is hard to know how one would set up a
means of their distinction or comparison. Wittgenstein uses the example of when a
child learns “I know that now” and “I hear that now” (TS 232, 614, 055/ BPP II,
55). The two, he says, pertain to such different situations, are occasioned by such
different things that it is difficult to compare their use. Some things can hence
have such different roles in our language games that there is no apparent ground
for comparison. And yet they appear in such ways in our investigation that they
seem to beg for comparison. Hence the ‘tables’ of psychological concepts and
phenomena, I take it. Once they are lined up and we start imagining them in some
of their proper uses, then we can start looking for the distinctions that are
desirable to keep in mind if we want to keep up the fine points of differentiation.
This is what leads me to reconsider the beginning, compared to for example
Schulte, when I make this attempt one more time at nearing myself to the
investigation of what it is that the employment of psychological concept allows for
us to do. I will thus start (though not claim that this is in any vital sense a truer
kind of beginning), in order to finish off this section, with Wittgenstein’s notions
of Bewußtseinszustände versus Dispositionen.

“Ich will von einem 'Bewusstseinszustand' reden, und das Sehen eines
bestimmten Bildes, das Hören eines Tons, eines Schmerzempfindung,
Geschmacksempfindung, etc. so nennen. Ich will sagen: Glauben,

123
 Verstehen, Wissen, Beabsichtigen, u.a. seien nicht Bewusstseinszustände.
Wenn ich diese Letzteren für einen Augenblick ”Dispositionen” nenne, so
ist ein wichtiger Unterschiede zwischen Dispositionen und
Bewusstseinszuständen, daß eine Dispositionen durch eine Unterbrechung
des Bewusstseins, oder eine Verschiebung der Aufmerksamkeit nicht
unterbrochen wird.) (Und das ist natürlich keine kausale Bemerkung.) Man
sagt wohl überhaupt kaum, man habe etwas seit gestern ”ununterbrochen”
geglaubt, oder verstanden, Eine Unterbrechung des Glaubens wäre aber eine
Periode des Unglaubens, nicht z.B. die Abwendung der Aufmerksamkeit
von dem Geglaubten, oder z.B. der Schlaf.
(Der Unterschied zwischen 'knowing’ und 'being aware of'.) (TS 232, 612/
BPP II, 45)”

What is particularly interesting here in relation to what follows, concerning ‘seeing’

and ‘aspects’ is that there is a central element, which has to do with attention
(Aufmerksamkeit). Thus, Wittgenstein in the above quote makes the distinction
between ‘conscious states of mind’ as opposed to what he in a preliminary fashion
calls ‘dispositions’. He points to the fact that while the former may be interrupted
by one’s attention turning elsewhere, the latter is somewhat characterized by not
being interruptible in this manner. If I am disposed to think in a certain way,
convinced of something, if there is a knowledge that I possess and so on, I am not
likely to be no longer so inclined merely due to a change of (immediate)
attention—although one could of course argue that a more persistent change of
attention could become a disposition too, which in turn might change other
aspects of one’s dispositions. In any case, the aspects of, in part duration (and time
in a more prolonged fashion too), and in part that of attention are important in
relation to seeing aspects. What is more is that the above passage may help to
constitute a link between Wittgenstein’s considerations concerning psychology
more broadly to his remarks on ‘seeing’ and ‘aspects’ more specifically, since the
first example that he mentions of a Bewusstseinszustand is that of ‘seeing a particular
image’. This already hints at the idea that seeing something in particular can in
some respect be distinguished from ‘merely’ seeing, and that that which
distinguishes it has to do with the ‘level of’ attention. In what follows I will argue
that this is one dividing factor between the different kinds of seeing that

124
Wittgenstein investigates and the dawning of an aspect. Another interesting
element in the above quote is that forms of ‘conviction’ do not find expression
such that one could say “I have constantly believed since yesterday…” It is not
that we could not come up with a situation in which it might make sense, but
stated on its own it goes contrary to any use with which we are familiar. This in
turn also has to do with the significance of time and attention in applying such
concepts as Glauben.

”Wir sind an eine bestimmte Einteilung der Sachen gewöhnt. Sie ist uns mit
der Sprache, oder den Sprachen, zur Natur geworden.
Dies sind die festen Schienen, auf denen all unser Denken verläuft, und also
nach ihnen auch unser Urteilen und Handeln (TS 232, 763-764, 677, 678/
BPP II, 678, 679).”

There seems to be two features, which run throughout the manuscripts and
typescripts with which we have been dealing here. On the one hand, there is
something which we want to call adhering to rules, techniques, customs, being
familiar with techniques of Verwendung etc. (what is here said to have become
Natur), on the other hand, this feature will never be fully investigable as something
entirely subtracted from a context, whence it is continuously desirable to return to
the more careful scrutiny of situations and conduct in which meaning accrues. The
interplay between these two is quite intricate and it is easy to emphasize one to
such a degree that it excludes the other (there are ways of talking about the
importance of ‘use’ that may seem to prohibit the former aspect), as my exposition
might at times suggest doing. Indeed, I am not entirely sure how to avoid this
conflict, but it seems to me important to point out as we stride toward the end of
this section, that this tension does linger throughout, according to my
interpretation of the texts. It is in some basic sense the old question of the relation
between theory (generality) and practice (particularity), in a setting of one that
from the outset denies the opportunity of theorizing in a strong sense. As if there
were an ongoing dialectic between scrutiny and assembly; disparity and
organization. Yet the radicality of Wittgenstein’s manner of thinking is that the
ground is never as such entirely stable, and never in such a manner scrutinizable

125
that we should hope to arrive at “this is what it means when we say…” as such.
Thus a reminder from Wittgenstein to this effect:

“Vorsichtig, wie auf brüchigem Eis, muß man vorwärtsgehen; überall nach
Verwendung fragen, nirgends dem Schein des Ausdrucks trauen. Denn jeder
der geläufigen Ausdrücke legt eine andere als die tatsächliche Verwendung
nahe (TS 228, 44, 159).”

Philosophy, as our conceptual qualifier, is disarmed. This may be said, of

course, already with Hegel, but with Wittgenstein it takes on, perhaps, a different
radicality, which makes the descriptions fractured to the point of
unrecongnizability, but as such exactly re-cognizable in the sense that we
remember our words through them.

126
5TH SCENE
ON SEEING ASPECTS

The problem, or one of the problems, with the above scene is its want to create
some kind of overview that does not find a proper foothold. In this scene we will
dive into individual pieces of text. Rather than providing an attempt to say what it
is Wittgenstein is up to when talking about Aspektwechsel, as if this could be
accounted for in general, I will therefore read into different ways in which he
applies this concern, and thereby provide an idea of how this may be seen to be of
interest to the further challenge of this work—the plurality of perspectives in
Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings. What will be considered here are the
following: aspect blindness, seeing, seeing aspects, the dawning of an aspect, and
aspect-wechsel. The choice of this sequence does not lend more or less value to
one or the other; in different ways they are part of an investigation of grammar. I
shall on occasion reflect upon the relation between them, but likewise maintain
that there is nothing particularly gratifying to say in this respect. I chose to write
something about all of them, however, because the impossibility of their relation’s
exact decidability notwithstanding, they all shed light on this complex naming of
Aspektwechsel. I will also take into account, in order to position my reading, some
different secondary sources that approach the subject from differing points of
departure.
When going to the theatre, we say that we go to see a play; when visiting
someone at the hospital, we say that we go to see a friend; when going to an art
museum, we say that we are going to see paintings or sculptures; when stumbling
upon a strange scene in the street, we say that we witnessed something peculiar
taking place; when reading, we may say that we saw the intention of the book. In
each case we make use of different employments of the concept ‘to see’, and the
distinctions are important and show different practices revolving around it or in
which it makes sense. All these employments point to an aptness of use, which is
enmeshed in an understanding of a form of life that we engage in, or upon the
basis of which these different situations are meaningful to us. The distinctions are
reliant upon a fine pattern of analogy and differentiation. When I take something
to be ‘this’ rather than ‘that’, when I take a play to be a comedy rather than a

127
tragedy, say, my manner of seeing is related to the expectation that I hold toward
the play. And while one might have many similarities with the other—they are
both plays, they have certain characters, a certain story, some main ideas or
problems guiding the play and so on—the experience of either will be marked by
different shades of expectations.

Aspect Blindness
Differentiations in ways of seeing (grammars of seeing) come to the fore most
notably in the encounter either with someone who is blind to seeing things in the
way that we see them or in our own experience of a new aspect of the same
‘matter’ suddenly coming into view. It is an important point here that if there were
only a static grammar around seeing, nothing new would ever come into play, and
we would not be able to experience the kind of astonishment or uncertainty which
is a significant aspect of the manner in which seeing plays a role in different
language games. When someone is blind to certain aspects—when she doesn’t
know, for example, what it means to see the same thing (a drawing say) now like
this now like that—we have the feeling that something is missing, that there is a
kind of meaning (Bedeutung) which she is not able to experience. Wittgenstein
considers or uses the idea of blindness in a number of different ways—in relation
to Bedeutung, Aspekt, and Gestalt—the concern seems to be that there is a kind of
vagueness relating to meaning, seeing, and understanding which is not easily
delineated and flanked on all sides, but the lacking grasp of significance of which
we feel would severely alter a person’s understanding. Therefore, the examples go
from something that he is himself inclined not to call a blindness, like lacking the
sense of perfect pitch or color blindness to different ways in which he imagines
that someone could lack the ability to see a change in aspect; to see the same
drawing now as that of a face, now as lines on a piece of paper that make up this
face. There is something about the mood of experience that changes. He warns us,
however, not to understand it as a psychological kind of questioning, it is a
grammatical one, but the depth of meaning, due to the vagueness, is important.
Using the figure of blindness is a manner of pointing to that which it is otherwise
difficult to establish in the positive, the thought of a possible lack makes the
nuances of understanding here stand out more clearly.

128
 ”27.1. 27 Jan, 1949
[Es drängt sich [nun| uns| uns nun] die Frage auf:| Es erhebt sich nun die
Frage:] Könnte es Menschen geben, die nicht [etwas als etwas| das als das]
[sehen können| zu sehen imstande wären]? — oder: Wie wäre es wenn
einem Menschen diese Fähigkeit fehlte? [was |Was] für Folgen hätte es?
Wäre dieser Defekt vergleichbar dem der Farbenblindheit etwa, oder mit
dem Fehlen des absoluten Gehörs? Wir wollen ihn (einmal)
”Aspektblindheit” nennen — und uns nun überlegen, was damit gemeint
sein könnte. (Eine begriffliche Untersuchung.) (MS 138, 10a/ LS, 778).”

This quote is followed by a number of related remarks, considering the

significance of this so-called blindness. Wittgenstein, it should come as no
surprise, does not provide a definite answer to what such blindness might entail.
The closest he gets perhaps is to say that such a person might not be able to
exclaim ”now it is… ! (MS 138, 10b/ LS, 781)”, that is, to perceive or express the
sudden change of aspect. It is not a question, in other words, of him not being
able to see this or that, but to experience or express—as we do—the change, the
astonishment of seeing suddenly something different in the same. He then
proceeds to liken it to someone who is not able to experience (erleben 54) the meaning
of a word. “—Der z.B. das Wort Bank nicht einmal in einer, einmal in der andern
Bedeutung isoliert aussprechen könnte, oder der nicht fände, daß wenn man das
Wort zehnmal nach einander ausspricht, es gleichsam seine Bedeutung verliert und
ein bloser Klang wird (MS 138, 10b/ LS, 784).” The word Bank may, of course,
mean either a bench that one can sit on or the institution in which one can deposit
one’s money. What Wittgenstein is insinuating is that normally we would be able
to pronounce the word now with the one now with the other meaning or that one
would be able to experience the loss of meaning or the degeneration of a word
into a mere sound if one were to repeat it many times in a row. So the blindness to
aspects is not not to be able to employ Banks in one way or the other, but who
should not experience the peculiar change in meaning it one way or another. This is
significant as a grammatical observation in that our grammar of meaning could not

54 Note the entailed life in the German verb erleben, which is differentiated, of course, from another

verb that might however enjoy or suffer the same translation into the English, namely Erfahrung.

129
support such difference and all else remain the same, and it is particularly
important to the present endeavor because it hints at a manner of meaning and
seeing being interlaced.

Seeing

“Gewisses am Sehen kommt uns rätselhaft vor, weil uns das ganze Sehen
nicht rätselhaft genug vorkommt (MS 137, 23 b/ TS 232, 723 a).”

The above quote, which appears more than once in Wittgenstein’s Nachlass, is of
great importance to the problems being dealt with in this scene. Both in the TS
232 and the later MS 137 it appears as a solitary statement, but is followed by
identical considerations regarding aspect change and aspect blindness. That he
talks about rätselhaft (riddle-like, baffling, enigmatic, puzzling) in relation to seeing,
indicates that there is something about it—about its many uses and applications—
which we cannot get a proper grasp of. At some point, when talking about rätselhaft
in another context (TS 233, 26, 593-94), he says that we find there to be something
more puzzling about a burning flame than a table, and this seems to be related to
the fact that we feel that we cannot get a grasp of it in the same way. However, he
says, the bafflement is related perhaps to the desire to grasp the flame in the same
way that we grasp the table. It is important in this connection that there is nothing
called ‘seeing as such’, that we cannot in all given cases in which we employ the
word seeing or in which we consider what it is when we say that we see something,
understand it according to the same measurement. Seeing, like describing that was
discussed above, does not pertain to one practice—it is employed, rather, in a
manifold of practices. What makes seeing particularly interesting is that it is
involved with so many ways in which we are able to see those practices.
When I have chosen the starting point of Rätselhaftigkeit in relation to seeing
this is due to the desire to keep the insecurity in a prominent place. By insecurity I
mean that seeing is sometimes related to a certainty such that when asked by
someone “what is this?”, I may answer “this is a map of Europe”, and sometimes
to the insecurity of not being able to be sure that any description I might supply
will be to the point in this manner or the insecurity of being faced with something
that does not allow me to carry on in any given way (thus, for example with the

130
curlicue). Contained in what we understand when considering seeing is at the same
time a long training and involvement in different practices. When I say: “the duck
is moving through the lake”, I might be able to see the movement merely by the
fact that behind the duck there is a triangle, leaving the trace of water behind it
that is being pushed aside as it swims. Thus, this seeing is fitted into a greater
history of “what it means to see a duck moving” that is part of the way in which I
am able to see ducks—it forms part of the grammar of perception here.
Let us consider the manifold and the insecurity in relation to seeing in
another manner in which Wittgenstein puts it into play:

”Der Begriff «sehen» macht einen wirren Eindruck. Nun, so ist er. — Ich
sehe in die Landschaft; mein Blick schweift, ich sehe allerlei klare und
unklare Bewegungen; dies prägt sich mir klar ein, jenes nur ganz
verschwommen. Wie gänzlich zerrissen uns doch erscheinen kann, was wir
sehen! Und nun sieh, was eine ”Beschreibung des Gesehenen” heißt! Aber
das ist es, was wir so nennen. Wir haben nicht einen wirklichen, respektablen
Fall so einer Beschreibung und sagen: ”Nun, das Übrige ist eben noch
unklarer, harrt noch der Klärung, oder muß einfach als Abfall in den Winkel
gekehrt werden.
Es ist hier für uns die ungeheure Gefahr, feine Unterschiede machen zu
Wollen. Ähnlich ist es, wenn man den Begriff des physikalischen Körpers
aus dem «wirklich Gesehenen» erklären will. Es ist viel mehr das uns
wohlbekannte Sprachspiel hinzunehmen, und falsche Erklärungen sind als
solche zu kennzeichnen. Das Primitive, uns ursprünglich beigebrachte
Sprachspiel bedarf keiner Rechtfertigung, falsche Versuche der
Rechtfertigung, die sich uns aufdrängen, bedürfen der Zurückweisung.
Die Begriffsverhältnisse liegen sehr kompliziert.
Es ist immer zu trennen der Ausdruck von der Technik. Und der Fall, wenn
wir die Technik angeben können, von dem, wenn wir sie nicht angeben
können (TS 232, 718-719, 451-454/ BPP II, 452-455).”

In this long quote, we learn a lot about the difficulty that Wittgenstein perceives in
terms of seeing, our manners of talking about it or our want of deliniations relating
to seeing, and on a more general note, employing a technique in relation to seeing.

131
The first section of the quote is remarkable in the sense that Wittgenstein uses the
image of looking around in a scenery as an image of seeing in its complexity—and
the linked difficulty of giving a general impression of what we are able to say in
relation to seeing as a general notion. That is, the image of one kind of seeing
becomes the image of how seeing cannot be described simply within the bounds
of one manner of seeing. When looking around in a scenery some things will stand
out clearly and others will be less in focus, thus, I take it, when we want to fit
seeing within a kind of desription. Some aspects of seeing may be given a careful
and coherent frame (for example when describing what is involved in the
observation of certain phenomena through the lense of a microscope), while other
ways of seeing will lose their meaning by being attempted forced into a narrow
description of what seeing entails in a given situation (what it means to recognize a
gaze of true love, for example (MS 138, 27b/ LS, 937)). As is the case in that of
looking around in the scenery, it would not suffice to say that the latter—for want
of a clearer description—is not really a kind of seeing or that it is too vague for it
to be taken into concern. If we cut out the blurry aspects of looking around in the
scenery, then seeing changes (seeing in the way that we apply it, grammatically), as
if all we wanted to call seeing was something that could be assessed with the same
crystal clear clarity as the image of a plasma screen. But there are ways of seeing,
which resemble to a much greater extent the grainy image of an old black and
white TV.
In my reading of the quote, the second paragraph must be understood in
accordance with this kind of thinking. Hence, the extreme danger of making fine
distinctions is not the same as saying that fine distinctions are never in place, but
that to think that we can provide accurate coordinates in relation to all manners of
seeing is out of place, because it would leave no room for the cases in which
seeing is characterized by being unclear. In this respect I am in disagreement with
Gordon C. F. Bearn (2010) when he presents a reading of the middle section of
the above quote. According to Bearn Wittgenstein’s warning means that we should
always be weary of making fine distinction, and he relates this understanding to
Wittgenstein’s remarks on philosophy as being a kind of therapy, which is to free
the philosopher of the inclination to ask ’the wrong kind of questions’: ”The hope
of his philosophizing, throughout his life, was to release us from care and anxiety

132
to peace, to peace and security (Bearn, 2010, 339).” So Bearn builds his argument
around the assumption that Wittgenstein is establishing a prohibition in
philosophy in order to provide us peace and security from the discomforting
questions that we may think of asking. In this sense, the warning about
distinctions is read as a prohibition. However, when we consider the remark in its
context, as it is quoted above, it seems clear that Wittgenstein’s warning must be
understood in relation to seeing as an image of what is difficult about
distinctions—that some things lend themselves to much more accurate such than
others or, rather, that accurate and fine distinctions are as varied and wirre as the
experience of gazing around a scenery. The danger is fine distinctions that limit the
significance of that which is verschwommen or which insists on a Technik in cases
where possibly no real justification of the Ausdruck can be found. In another sense,
therefore, the fine distinctions are in order if we understand them as somehow
related to the feine Abschattungen des Benehmens (thus, for example in MS 137, 140b/
LS, 657). Fine distinctions not in the sense that we can make distinctions that will
make all manner of seeing clear or less rätselhaft, but in the sense that we are
challenged in our description of what we see to allow fine differentiations.
But what is meant by something not being in the need of Rechtfertigung, and
how can we understand the claim to show such back in some cases (where the
’primitive language game’, as it were, is said to be enough)? Perhaps it is a manner
of saying that there are ways in which we describe what we see where one might
be inclined to expect something more—a higher degree of presition and detail, but
there are ways of talking about seeing that does not gain anything—or rather is
entirely lost—if we ’transfer’ it to a requirement of distinctions relative to a
different kind of language game. This does not mean that one could not make of
the view of a scenery a number of different descriptions, say one wanted to
explore what colors in such a view that would stand out more clearly to the
spectator, but then one would be playing a different kind of game, which cannot
stand in the place of or be understood as more to the point or accurate in
comparison with the ’primitive language game’ in which the lack of fine
distinctions plays a prominent role. If no technique in this respect can be
provided, that is not to be understood as a lack, but that does not mean that a

133
technique could not be employed relating to the same scene for an entirely
different purpose.

Seeing as—seeing aspects

“Ich sage mir beim anblik der Photographie nicht “Das konnte man als
einen Menschen ansehen”. Noch beim Anblick des F : “Das konnte man als
einen F ansehen (TS 232, 733, 514/ BPP II, 515).”

When talking about seeing and the significance that it bears in Wittgenstein’s
remarks, two things are of importance. First, seeing something is not in the first
place seeing something as. One may be tempted to say, rather, that seeing
something is seeing something as such. This is not to be understood as exposing
an underlying ontology of the matter that is being seen, but to be understood as a
grammatical claim; when I see something, there is not something else that I am
ruling out in my seeing. And yet, what I see springs from an immensely
complicated history of seeing. The important point is that ‘seeing’ is not
immediately or equivalent to ‘seeing as’. Secondly, there is a whole variety of things
that seeing is accustomed to, and in this sense it may be said to be related to
Vorstellung. Hence, when we look at a photograph, we would not say that “this can
be seen as a face” if it portrays a face, and when reading a book we would not say
“what make up the words one can take to be letters”, because they are letters to us.
We do not teach kids to know that “this can be seen as a chair” but that this
is a chair. This observation, which is repeated in different ways throughout
Wittgenstein’s remarks, makes an important indication, not just about language,
but about a way of going about the world—about a life form, one might say. What
is at stake is not just this word relating to that thing or another or corresponding
to this element in a sentence and so on, but it indicates something about the way
in which we relate or, as Cavell would have it, the way in which we have or gain
attachment to words (e.g. Cavell, 2010, 86). It doesn’t just have a meaning, it
serves a purpose in a given context in which different players are present with an
‘attachment to words’. That is, there is a whole set of practices, language games,
and forms of life that revolve around the many different ways of that which we
call seeing. Or said in a different way, it is impossible for us to finally draw the line

134
and say: “this is Wittgenstein’s concept of seeing” (c.f. Schulte’s critique that was
mentioned at the beginning of this act).
A question that inevitably pushes itself on us here may be: what is the role
of seeing in Wittgenstein’s remarks? Must it be differentiated from ’seeing as’, and
if so, how? The above quote, of course, insinuates the need for such
differentiation. Another question, which is perhaps a bit less frequently asked is:
could aspects, or seeing aspects, be understood as in some sense primary to
seeing? My inclination to ask this latter question stems from the thought that in
order to realize ’seeing’ as something peculiar or as something around which one
might pose questions—in order to see seeing as seeing, so to speak, it may be
argued, it takes a change in aspect. Only in seeing a change in aspect do we realize
that there was an aspect there in the first place, to paraphrase Wittgenstein (TS
229, 288, 1083/ BPP I, 415), thus also perhaps, only in seeing an aspect about
seeing do we realize that there was anything puzzling about seeing in the first
place. What is accepted, our concepts, our comportment etc. has become ’nature’,
as is stated in paragraph BPP II, 678 (TS 232, 763, 677). Hence, in order to see that
there is anything seen, in order to see that there is anything there to question, what
is already there has to come forth as indeed being there (being in the sense of
grammar and life-world) and thus the question presupposes the dawning of an
aspect. This is how I also understand his comments on paradigm (TS 229, 309,
1191/ BPP I, 523), and on all seeing as opaque (TS 229, 415, 1633 and TS 232,
723, 471/ BPP I, 966 and BPP II, 472).
On the other hand seeing the way that we do, all the seeing that is
presupposed in our unassumed assumptions of seeing, not ’seeing as’ but seeing as
we do and do without question mostly, is primary in so far as we are taught to see
something—this is a chair, this is a book etc.—not as something but in some sense
‘as such’, without at all moving into some ontological claim about the constitution
of things. Seeing as we see what we ’naturally’ see (cf. the above reference to
language becoming nature) presupposes a lot of seeing that, tautologously
speaking, goes before. This is the case for all levels of grammar—all the meaning
that is contained in a situation, in listening to a piece of music, in seeing a wild
river flow etc. for the performance of which and the description of which we can
imagine no strict rules. When I apply the word coffee cup, this means that I see a

135
coffee cup, not a container of sorts that is capable of standing on the one side, and
I know what it means that something is a coffee cup—it means that I can pour
coffee into it and drink it from there or serve it to someone else. I do not pour
coffee on the table on which it is standing and I do not position it upside down if I
would like to drink coffee. All these other things that, given ’normal
circumstances’ I do not even consider doing or not doing with and around a
coffee cup confirms the thought that there is a kind of seeing which is ingrained in
and with our language, that serves as the tracks on which our usual train runs, so
to speak (TS 232, 764, 678/ BPP II, 679). Seeing here plays a major role, at least in
the forms of life that we may be able to imagine, and in this sense it would seem
that seeing is primary to seeing as or seeing aspects—since only by the ability to
see something ‘as such’ does it become possible to see that there can be aspects to
that seeing; that there may be variations on the theme.
This being said, and given the fluidity of the matter, it should be no surprise
that I have to arrive at a point in which I must say that the question of primacy is
in another sense very poorly posed. Of course, there can be no determination of
whether one or the other precedes the other. The question, however, so I hope,
can make a difficulty stand out which is not singular to that of seeing—the
problem of being on tracks or derailed. Both are central aspects of living the kind
of lives that we do with words; that is how one might be inclined to state it 55. With
this dilemma enters also the question of abiding by rules vs. engaging in something
novel, and perhaps also that of abiding by rules but doing so with feeling (when
playing a piece of music, for example, there is an adherance to the ‘prescription’ of
the notes but the music will only sound like it has been soulfully performed if
there is also something more which cannot be encompassed by rules (TS 232, 766,

55 This limbo of phrasing something the right way without being too static or substantial in one’s

choice of words, is perhaps part of what makes Schulte hold on to some of the, by some so
interpreted, tractarian point of a division between substantial vs. complete nonsense (Schulte, 1993,
92-94). If we maintain the thought that there can be such a divide, and that putting the role of
language on trial through language is in need of such a buffer, then we are somehow provided with
an excuse for violating not to think philosophically in this way (of posing questions that do not
have a place within language as we use it). The question then is whether we have hereby arrived at a
limitation to Wittgensteinian thought, whether there is a breakdown in interpretation or a lack of
possible consistency in ‘the method’? In other words what it means to let the fly out of the flybottle
philosophically speaking (PU, 308 (9)).

136
694/ BPP II, 695)). The latter of which resembles that of ’seeing as’, that is, there
is a manner of going along which does not see the rules, the rails by which it is
going, and there is a manner of seeing, which sees that going by like such is going
in a particular way—it sees the seeing, so to speak, and in so doing sees something
more or other which cannot be encompassed by the same selbsverständlichkeit as
mere seeing. By suggesting that this may be liked to that of playing music with
feeling, I am also returning to the first question posed above, namely that of what
role ‘seeing’ plays in the remarks by Wittgenstein. My claim is that seeing is not
merely an image of, but one aspect of the complexity of investigating language and
grammer, when these are understood as being irrevocably embedded in a life
world or the river of life (TS 232, 765, 686/ BPP II, 687). That is why it does not
make sense to thematically remove the question of seeing from the
Wittgensteinian remarks and treating it as if seeing were a phenomenon which
unlike all else in Wittgenstein’s thinking could arrive at a final conceptual
clarification and delineation. Hence, we have to assume the task of a slow walk (cf.
Schulte), which does not force a singular understanding of the role of seeing in the
Wittgensteinian remarks. The trouble is, of course, that already the above written
is in so many ways a systematic understanding of different, by this author,
perceived possibilities in understanding the remarks on seeing and seeing aspects.
Let us leave this potential problem lingering in the background as we proceed
through the remaining part of this scene.

Aspektwechsel
“Und nun der Aspektwechsel.
Das Erlebnis des neuen Aspekts. Oder: des Erscheinens des Aspekts. Und sein
Ausdruck ist ein Ausruf. Ein Hasenkopf! etc. (MS 137, 124b/ LS 474)”
“Das seltsame ist eigentlich das Staunen; das Fragen ”Wie ist es möglich!”
Der Ausdruck davon ist etwa: ”Dasselbe — und doch nicht dasselbe.” (MS
137, 95a/ LS, 174)”

The surprise. The same, and yet not the same. So what characterizes the change of
aspect? At first, and this is related to something immediate, the exclamation. Then,
the acknowledgement, of something being the same, yet different. When an aspect

137
(a different aspect, one might add) appears, what we see seems to change, though
no change as such has taken place. As is the case with the first quote, Wittgenstein
often talks about a simple image when dealing with Aspektwechsel. Here it is that of
Jastrow’s duck-rabbit, and the surprise that is uttered one of having suddenly
seen—in what perhaps at first one saw only as the face of a duck, that of the hare.
The element of surprise is telling, and the subsequent astonishment may be—how
is it possible? How can one see in the same simple lines two entirely different
images without the image changing? What is peculiar is that no decisive
explanation can be given, but that our way of describing what we see changes. The
Erscheinens or Aufleuchtens of an aspect is expressed in an exclamation—ein
Hasenkopf! But the duration of being able to see one thing now like this, now like
that, is that we describe it in different ways in either case. So what?, one might ask.
What interest could this possibly have other than that of a kind of curiosum?

“Wenn nicht der Wechsel des Aspekts vorläge, so gäbe es nur eine
Auffassung, nicht ein so oder so sehen.
Das scheint absurd. Als wollte man sagen ”Wenn ich nur immer mit Kohle
heize, und nicht auch manchmal mit etwas anderem, so heize ich auch nicht
mit Kohle”.
Aber kann man nicht sagen: ”Wenn es nur eine Substanz gäbe, so hätte man
keinen Gebrauch für das Wort «Substanz»”? Aber das heißt doch: Der
Begriff «Substanz» setzt den Begriff «Unterschied der Substanz» voraus.
(Wie der des Schachkönigs den des Schachzuges, oder wie der der Farbe den
der Farben.) (TS 232, 715-716, 434-436/ BPP II, 435-437)”

For want of better words, I am inclined to repeat those of Wittgenstein—if there

were no change of aspect, there would be no such thing as seeing like such or like
such. This is in some sense extremely radical for it takes any talk of seeing to be
dependent upon the ability to see differently. In a strong sense, we may say, that
seeing sees or describes its seeing by way of that which it could also be. “This is a
dog”, say taken in the context of someone showing a drawing to a child and
explaining the image, thereby holds the implicit character of having could been
seen differently. It is a dog, not something else. The radical aspect of it is the
otherness without which the explanation could not stand. Thus, for every

138
affirmation there is that indefinite of not being able to hold without the possible
difference. We may take this to mean a lot of things, but among others that the
description provided prevails because it is indefinite in its definition—indefinite
because it defines not as an end but as an opening that allows us to move on; to
do something with the description.
As Wittgenstein asks, is that not like claiming that if I always heat (my
house) with coal and not sometimes with something else, then I also do not heat
with coal? It presupposes the difference, we are told. The difference, which lends a
summon for differentiation.

”Erst durch das Phänomen des Wechsels des Aspekts scheint der Aspekt
vom übrigen Sehen abgelöst zu werden. Es ist, als könnte man nach der
Erfahrung des Aspektwechsels sagen: „es gab also da einen Aspekt!“ (TS
229, 288, 1083/ BPP I, 415)“

As an(other) aspect stands out, we see that there was an aspect there at all to be
seen. That is, that we saw something as something becomes apparent in the
moment we see something different in the same. That the aspect is set aside from
otherwise seeing means, perhaps, that the Selbstverstäntlichkeit that normally
surrounds our seeing is suspended in our suddenly being able to see otherwise. In
other words, that the difference of seeing is not something that normally colors
seeing. But now there seems to be a contradiction in relation to what was said in
the above when I claimed to read the quote on Aspektwechsel as being determinate
to our being able to see ‘as such’. The following quote, so I hold will illuminate
this apparent contradiction:

“Nein, das Paradigma schwebte mir nicht ständig vor; ich wollte nichts
Derartiges sagen --- aber wenn ich den Wechsel des Aspekts beschreibe,
dann beschreibe ich ihn mittels der Paradigmen (TS 229, 309, 1191/ BPP I,
523).”

It is a broadly speaking, then, a question of description, that is, of grammar. The

grammar is not beyond itself as a rule here, but is brought about in the case of
having to describe something in a way that brings about the awareness of a
paradigm, that is, as something that allows us to describe thus or so. This does not
amount to a substantial claim about what is seen or noticed or understood, but a

139
paradigm of understanding that relates to how we are able to describe. It is a
description, one might say, in accordance with use—in the sense of usual. Thus, to
return to the above problem, the contradiction is only in the expression that we
give, because I chose to phrase the issue as one of a negative—that we see
something (expressed in the manner in which we talk about it, describe it, in how
we behave in relation to it etc.) as being this rather than that, but this, as it were,
becomes apparent only in the moment in which that description is challenged. So
the paradigm is not constantly wavering before me, but it stands forth whenever I
am in need of relating to it in contradistinction. And in the paradigm that stands
forth as such a level of explanation may be found or sought, but the explanation
comes to an end.
Another aspect of the matter is how we talk about it in relation to thinking,
representation (Vorstellung), interpretation (Deutung), and perception (Wahrnehmung).
Wittgenstein puts in connection with or considers the relation to all of the above.
One difficulty is the seeming hiddenness on the side of the spectator—that is, the
aforementioned 1st person versus 3rd person perspective. In any case, the most
important part seems to be that the noticing of a change of aspect fosters a
different kind of action, a different kind of seeing, which is similar or related to
that of thinking when something surprises us, and we might not talk of a different
kind of Wahrnemhung, but of an Umschlagen des Aspekts.

”Kommt er aber darauf, daß man ihn so und so sehen kann, so wird er nun
nicht je nach dem Aspekt, den er gerade sieht, (auch) anders handeln.
”Ist es ein Denken? ist es ein Sehen?” — Heißt das [nicht eigentlich| nicht
soviel wie] ”Ist es ein Denken? ist es ein Sehen?” Und das Deuten ist ein
Denken; und es bewirkt oft ein Umschlagen des Aspekts (MS 137, 95b/ LS,
179)”.

Juliet Floyd argues that seeing aspects is a manner in which we are turned toward
certain phenomena, that we have an inclination, one might be tempted to say, to
look for the surprise or the peculiar pleasure in puzzle pictures, in mathematical
problems, in games of something hidden, and her point is that if a person could
not espouse such interest or curiosity, it would be hard to imagine that person
going about language in the way that we do (Floyd, 2010, 315). This, no matter the

140
difficulty of formulating it adequately, seems to me to be an important
observation. It is difficult, indeed, to imagine how we would express ourselves if
this element of novelty were not part of the way language also is to us.
Change of aspect may be understood in many ways, and here I have merely
pointed to a very few. However trivial it may seem in some sense, the surprise and
our ways of expressing it, seems to run as a strain through seeing—the
differentiation and the disruption of our usual differentiations. In the setting of the
stage that is here taking place, immanent to this work, this refraction between now
so, and now so in the manner of representation and expression, is significant. We
are exploring the individuality of perspectives, but in so doing what they relate to
is understood as relating to a manner in which an aspect can stand out to us,
requiring a different kind of expression. The individuality, then, is not sought in
inwardness inexpressible, but in differentiation that seeks different kinds of
description, and challenges thereby what we are able to see (and describe). Since
this endeavor is not exclusive—I do not want to take for there to be questions that
we are not allowed to ask, although there may be many a question that we cannot
make manifest to the point that would feel satisfying—this is understood as the
novelty of surprise. When there seems to be no accurate expression, it is the
expression that arrests us, but does so expressively—that is, we see the arrest, and
to this, perhaps, we can give a meaningful expression. The individuality, as novelty,
may then be understood to be decisive in the sense that we arrive at noticing it
through its breaking against ’the universal’ (or the paradigm), as the aspect
becomes apparent—both the aspect of what was and what has become visible as
aspect—in the surprise of seeing something different in the same. The characters
on stage stand out to us by way of this mantra ”Dasselbe — und doch nicht
dasselbe.”

141
6TH SCENE
VERSTELLUNG
“Erst in einem komplizierten Ausdruckspiel gibt es Heuchelei und ihr
Gegenteil. (Wie erst in einem Spiel einen falschen, oder richtigen Zug.) (MS
138, 28b/ LS 946)”

The interest in Verstellung that I here suggest will make but a small contribution to
the above, but one which has—possibly—a significance for how we may be able
to view truth in relation to Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works. The concept of
Verstellung, apart from the manner in which Wittgenstein talks about it, indicates a
kind of positioning—or dis-positioning, one might be inclined to say. That is, to
be oddly, wrongly or re- positioned, twisted, distorted or it may mean feigning or
pretense. In order for something to be oddly positioned, one may assume that
there is something in relation to which it can be so positioned or that in order for
there to be pretense, there must be something right or true in accordance with
which it is a feigning or a pretense. As the above quote tells us, ’only in a
complicated game of expression can there be feigning or its opposite’. The
question is what kind of role this fills or what it may tell us about a game that
something like feigning or pretense can have a role in it?
One aspect of the question of what pretense may be seen as standing in an
odd relation to is whether or not it may be said to correspond to something inner
that can be truthful or the opposite in relation to the expression given.

”Verstellung. Schmerzen heucheln. Es besteht nicht einfach darin, daß man

die Äußerung des Schmerzes von sich gibt, ohne Schmerzen zu haben. Es
muß ein Motiv des Heuchelns da sein, also eine Situation, die nicht [einfach|
ganz einfach] zu beschreiben ist. Sich krank und schwach stellen, um den
Helfenden dann zu überfallen. — ”Aber es ist doch da ein innerer
Unterschied!” Natürlich; nur ist ”innerer” hier eine gefährliche Metapher. —
Aber der ’Beweis’, daß ein innerer Unterschied vorliegt, ist ja, daß ich
gestehen kann, ich habe geheuchelt. Ich gestehe eine Absicht. ’Folgt’ daraus,
daß die Absicht etwas Inneres war (TS 229, 382, 1492/ BPP I, 824)?”

142
Here, as often times when reflecting upon the relation between inner and outer,
Wittgenstein uses the example of pain. Suggesting that there must be a motivation
for feigning pain, for example that one wants to achieve something, it is said that
what qualifies the feigning is the possibility of confession. It seems that
Wittgenstein wants to avoid the idea that the motivation for feigning is something
inner and hidden.

”Gedanken und Gefühle sind privat” heißt ungefähr das gleiche wie ”Es gibt
Verstellung”, oder ”Man kann seine Gedanken und Gefühle
[verschweigen|verbergen]; ja lügen und sich verstellen”. Und es ist die
Frage, was dieses ”Es gibt” und ”Man kann” bedeutet (TS 229, 319, 1238/
BPP I, 570).”

So the question here is what does it mean ’there is’? The answer, also taking into
account what else has been said in this act, would have to be a grammatical one, in
which case we would have to say that an expression like this has meaning because
it has a place in our language game. Elsewhere Wittgenstein suggest that it is
difficult for us to imagine what it would mean to have a kind of language (as in a
form of life) in which Verstellung were not a part of it, but he likewise says that it
would seem meaningless, according to our way of expression to question whether
or not a baby that cries may be feigning (TS 230, 122, 440). And he finds it telling
to ask the question why we would not say that feigning is possible to a dog (TS
230, 122, 439). Thus, much like that of pain behavior, pretense belongs in a
complex language game in which we have learned a kind of expression.
Accordingly pretense is not some odd inner Vorgang, but a way, perhaps, in which
we can position ourselves oddly in accordance to the game that is being played. In
other words, that the dis-position is related to a familiarity with the game being
played, which encompasses the possibility of being in some sense untrue to it. So
the motivation relates to the expression that can counter the game which at the
same time fosters it. ’Es gibt’ is then not an ontological claim, but an assessment
of grammar in game being played.

”Die größte Schwierigkeit in diesen Untersuchungen ist, eine

Darstellungsweise für die Vagheit finden (MS 137, 113b/ LS, 347).”

143
Another dimension of the question of Verstellung is in relation to Vorstellung (also in
theatrical terms). Wittgenstein wonders about the possibility of imagining the
representation of Verstellung on stage (MS 137, 64a), and whether it is possible to
imagine a story in which everything was set up as Verstellung (MS 137, 105b). And
then he affirms that Verstellung ’serves practical purposes’ (MS 137, 106a), that is, it
has a role in our language use, which could not be replaced by something else. It
allows for an insecurity in relation to the other, and it is a prime example of a
concept which has its meaning in a kind of vagueness. We may be certain that
someone is espousing pretense, but the reasons that we can give for this or the
description of what brings about this security are limited or relative to a sliding
notion of security (MS 137, 105b; MS 137, 68a). And were it different—would
certain evidence suffice to ’prove’ it—then it could not serve the same kind of
’purpose’. ”Ja, es könnte ein Fall eintreten, in welchem wir sagen würden ”Er
glaubt sich zu verstellen” (MS 137, 52b).” This goes to show that Verstellung is just
as much an assessment that we can apply in the description of the other, as it is
something applicable by someone. It is, in this sense, a kind of description or
expression of something being positioned in a way that goes contrary to the
positioning it gives off. And how odd is this, but how well we know the game that
it points to, without perhaps being able to delineate the image or sensation in
better terms that to demonstrate what the Verstellung might look like or situations
in which we would know to describe the scene with no better words. The
vagueness that is so difficult to represent here cannot show us back to a stronger
notion of truth in relation to which it has its insecurity. That there is something
called Aufrichtig is as puzzling as its seeming counterpart.
What is radical in Wittgenstein’s dealing with the question of pretense and
feigning is that in quite a strong sense it brings us to rethink what it means to be
honest; what lies in the element of confession. That like Aufrichtigkeit it is part of a
form of life that holds such expression as meaningful—elements without which
we could not imagine to live—but that this does not mean that we have to imagine
some inner state of sincerity or feigning to qualify it. They are interwoven elements
of the carpet of life.
While the stage is set, then, for the third act to make its arrival, let us keep
the vagueness in mind. The way the questions are posed is raised behind a

144
backdrop upon which the unscharfe Grenzen is the most accurate setting that we can
obtain. In every image that stands out clearly there is a return to the insecurity of
its representation, and a want for the light of description that makes another image
appear in the same.

145
 3RD ACT
A CHANGE OF ASPECT IN THE SETTING OF THE
PSEUDONYMOUS LIVING ROOM

The theater. Bustling. The spectators and audience in their seats. The lights go out.
A darkness of anticipation surrounds. Limelight. Out of the darkness and into it
steps the first character of the act. While our eyes are still busy trying to find the
right gaze, familiarizing themselves with the newborn atmosphere, the first actor
acts, speaks. He speaks as if into the darkness that is still anticipating, and only
gradually do we get a sense of the perspectives that open up with her. In the end, a
bit of darkness may linger still, not because the lines spoken or the moves made
were unclear, but because the darkness of existence spills over into the limelight.
And then the light goes out.

In what follows the pseudonyms will be explored in their singularity, with the one
common consideration in mind, namely how they bring into view different aspects
of the same thoughts, problems, concepts and so on. Not necessarily the same
among each other, but the same in each their way of representation. What
characterizes all their manners of presence, however, is a concern for existence—
this is the backdrop before which or the light within which they all stand out, and
stand out as themselves expressions of existence. The attempt will be to explore
the different perspectives as they are opened up to us, and to consider what kind
of implications this plurality of perspectives may have for the way in which
stagnation in thought and approach to that which commands us back to see the
poetically real challenges as real challenges of existence, is avoided.
The act is divided into six scenes: grammar versus existence (in which we
meet ‘the young man’ from Repetition and Vigilius Haufniensis); the unsettledness
of perspectives (Hilarius Bookbinder and William Afham); the question of truth
(H.H. and A.); inner versus outer (Victor Eremita and Nicolaus Notabene); the
poet (Anti-Climacus and Johannes de silentio); and ethics of incontinence
(Constantin Constantius). Each scene proceeds by way of a theme or a problem,
which I take to be illustrative in demonstrating, on the one hand the importance of

147
the setting of the stage of each appearance to the concerns with which they
present us; on the other hand the playfulness in representation that poses a
challenge to any systematizing attempt relative to the problems presented.
Underlying the themes of each scene are likewise the ideas to which we have been
presented in the previous act on Wittgenstein. They play along, sometimes as an
undercurrent, sometimes as an explicit manner of posing questions to the
pseudonymous appearances.
In the final scene we arrive at the question of ethics of incontinence with
Constantin Constantius. With him a light is thrown back on the previous scenes.
Not in the sense that it gathers their plurality in a unifying perspective, which by
and large it could not, but in the sense that the idea versus disruption of an idea, or
the systematizing perspective versus the individuating perspective is at once the
challenge and the problem of the act. That is, that a presentation is provided
through the presentation of each pseudonym, which resembles the idea of ethics
of incontinence. Namely, that a perspective is put in place, which in its disruption
reveals its homelessness. As such, we are brought on to the fourth act in which
Climacus is presented and lends us a possible key to asserting the confusion—by
communicating, such that in communication is made difficulties everywhere.

148
1ST SCENE
GRAMMATICAL VERSUS EXISTENTIAL INVESTIGATION

A first problem that must be addressed as the pseudonyms come up to present

themselves is the difference that it makes what kind of stage it is that they enter.
The one that has just been suggested, by bringing along Wittgenstein, poses this
question. It makes a difference, namely, whether we understand the singularity of
the pseudonyms, and the different aspects that they bring out, from the point of
view of language or from the point of view of existence. Nonetheless, as was
suggested in the previous act, there seems to be certain points of contact when we
consider the remarks by Wittgenstein in the light of a clarification of philosophical
problems and the tightly spun carpet of life from which the questioning seems to
be carried out. Philosophy at once poses a particular kind of problems in this
respect, and yet at the same time is exactly shown back to consider the problems
on the background of which they arise, not to invent its own new background,
which does not resonate in any given situation, actuality, or field of knowledge.
Understanding the investigation as a grammatical one might be seen in relation to
Wittgenstein’s remark in PU, 18 where he says: “Und eine Sprache vorstellen
heißt, sich eine Lebensform vorstellen.” Or again in PU, 23: “Das Wort
“Sprachspiel” soll hier hervorheben, daß das Sprechen der Sprache ein Teil ist einer
Tätigkeit, oder einer Lebensform.” Language is thus to be understood in the light
of forms of life—not merely as something that can be analyzed as if it had its own
life. This is not entirely unrelated to the understanding of existential questions as
being questions to someone whose asking thus or so springs from being in
existence. On the other hand, grammar, to Wittgenstein, is a manner of asking
questions which aims at a kind of ‘taking apart’ when making observations, thus
bringing about some level of clarity in relation to a particular game being played.
Although we can never ‘take apart’ to the level of arriving at some core or some
one way of ‘taking apart’ which will always hold for exploring the grammar of
every game. It is in this sense that meaning can be pointed to, not as substantial
and unalterable, but as meaningful in accordance with a grammar of use. Bringing
this into the contexts of the pseudonyms, it is clear that the focus is a very
different one, but nonetheless it is the grammar of each pseudonymous voice that

149
shall frame their entering onto the stage. In order to consider the problem of
language, let us begin by way of two characters who do reflect on this, and its
relation to the challenge of balancing between existence and communication or
existence-communication. We will now meet the young man and Vigilius
Haufniensis.
The first character to enter stage is ‘the young man’ in Repetition. He enters
here exactly in repetition, because we meet him for the first time in his own words
in the second half of the work from which he stands out, when he starts writing
letters to Constantin Constantius. In this way his entrance repeats our familiarity
with him from the first part, in which, however, we know him only through the
descriptions of Constantius, and therefore it is a repetition, which nonetheless
renews his presence. That he is the first one to enter stage may seem odd, since he
is but a character in one of the pseudonymous works, but somewhat like
Sganarell—who is also a marginal figure—at the beginning of Neither Head nor Tail,
he may be said to introduce a basic mood that is of importance to the entire play.
This mood is marked by a generalized puzzlement with existence, such as the
problem of the missing fifth act—there is something, which was supposed to tie it
all together, that has been left out. It is likewise marked by a dissatisfaction with
language, through which the young man finds himself unable to express his
perceived innocence in the whole matter. The stage is set behind him with an odd
kind of solitude; a solitude that reaches out for a silent witness. He blames
Constantin for his reasoned understanding of everything—his inability to make
anything of pain but a cold analysis. And yet the young man needs his absent
presence, his eyes that rest on him as he narrates of his hopeless solitude, of the
world’s incomprehension or his incomprehension of the world. He keeps himself
busy, so says the young man, working relentlessly, and yet at night when he sets
aside his instrument of labor, nothing has come of it. He is jealous of his own
pain, jealous to share it, and yet he would want Constantin to care only for his
sorrow, to be imprisoned with it and him, as the young man is (SKS 4, 58-59). But,
it is the young man who is imprisoned by Constantin, captivated by his reason that
holds all passion regimented to its idea, which does not quiver and is not shaken
by the slumbering of the mind (SKS 4, 59).

150
 In his letter simply dated “October 11th” we meet the young man in all his
exasperation with existence. We get the feeling that he is literally pacing back and
forth on stage, no one position on it is able to instill a perspective that could lend
meaning to his situation in a manner that would be satisfactory to him. His lines
are like a rant that wants to rebel at once against the conditions of existence and at
the same time against the language that cannot adequately express the
individuating perspective of his pain.

“Hvor er jeg? Hvad vil det sige: Verden? Hvad betyder dette Ord? Hvo har
narret mig ind i det Hele, og lader mig nu staae der? Hvem er jeg? Hvorledes
kom jeg ind i Verden; hvorfor blev jeg ikke adspurgt, hvorfor ikke gjort
bekjendt med Skikke og Vedtægter, men stukket ind i Geleddet, som var jeg
kjøbt af en Seelenverkoper? Hvorledes blev jeg Interessant i den store
Enterprise, som man kalder Virkeligheden? Hvorfor skal jeg være
Interessant? Er det ikke en fri Sag? Og skal jeg nødsages til at være det, hvor
er da Dirigenten, jeg har en Bemærkning at gjøre? Er der ingen Dirigent?
Hvor skal jeg da henvende min Klage? […] Skyld – hvad vil det sige? Er det
Hexeri? Vides det ikke med Bestemhed, hvorledes det gaaer til, at et
Menneske bliver skyldig? Vil der Ingen svare? Er det ikke af yderste
Vigtighed for alle DHerrer Deeltagere? […] Hvorledes gik det til, at jeg blev
skyldig? Eller er jeg ikke skyldig? Hvorfor kaldes jeg da saa i alle Tungemaal?
Hvad er det menneskelige Sprog for en jammerlig Opfindelse, der siger Eet,
og mener et Andet? (SKS 4, 68-69)”

In these lines we find a deep, yet flimsy, expression of unsettledness. The young
man cannot content himself not to be understood. It is as if the entire audience in
the theater were looking at him, and yet he is entirely alone. The interesting thing
is that the questions he poses here are of such general nature that it is hard to
imagine that one should go through an entire life without asking them in one form
or another. They express somehow a desire for an absolute systematizing
perspective, according to which this would all make sense. Nonetheless, the silence
from the audience, and the impossibility of the young man to stand still and utter
these questions in a coherent state of mind, bears witness to the trouble of posing
them in this universal manner at all. If there were a simple reply, the questions

151
would not be pertinent, and they would reflect ease in the grammatical structure,
rather than a frantic mood.
The questions move between the I, the world, customs, reality, the missing
director, guilt, the silent participants, and human language. The problem to the
young man is that despite their universality, the relevance to all the participants
that do not provide an answer, what is lacking for him is a manner of describing
his situation that would not have him stand out as the guilty one. The
individuating particularities of his story, in other words, are what seem to him
impossible to express. In this sense the problem is one of existence—his particular
existence, and that of being a particular existent, and yet it is a problem of
grammar. What looks like one thing, and may be described in one way—namely
that he deceived the girl and left her, wherefore he is guilty of having done her
wrong—is in the need of being described in a different way that would make it
evident that he is not guilty, that he is all as faithful as she, but unable to give this
faithfulness a universal expression in marriage. The language of and with which he
talks understands only one reply to love, that is, marriage, but his love, so he holds,
would not have been able to survive such expression—reality would have killed it
(SKS 4, 69). The contradiction then is manifold, but here clearly expressed as that
between the demand to know reality (who am I, what is this thing called the world,
how did I get forced to join this thing called reality? 56) and the petition to be set
free from it. The clash between the two is envisioned in language, which can only
describe reality in one way, according to the young man. His perspective is
therefore all the time blurred by a rigid understanding of expression, and a frayed
auto-impression of his own guilty innocence of participating, yet not really
participating, in this reality that he imagines to be talking into. His situation seems
to require a different kind of expression, which he cannot find, however, because
he is too caught up in the script that he perceives.
The young man’s problem with existence, then, is related to—or even more
strongly, inseparable from—a problem with language. There is something in the

56 These are questions of the kind that Wittgenstein would find problematic, because they question

their own foundation in such a way that it is impertinent to see them as a point of questioning (ÜG,
e.g. 35-37).

152
grammar of universality that does not allow him to express, let alone think clearly
how it is that he takes himself to be an exception—such as Job was the exception
to the idea that when all is taken away from one man it must be a punishment
from God. So he stands between the apparent reality of the spectators and the
apparent ideality of his own appearance on stage. Granted that the two confront
each other through the utterances of the young man it is difficult to distinguish
them. His ideality seems all the time dissolved into the reality that he imagines
before him (not least that of Constantius, whose non-present presence occasions
the letters).
John D. Caputo interrupts for a moment to ask a question about Repetition in
relation to Fear and Trembling. He asks about all the central elements in this work
that seem to be in the end but a jest.

“The story of Diogenes is a jest; the story of the trip to Berlin is a jest; the
stage show in Berlin is a jest; and now even the young man’s ordeal is a jest
[…], indeed his very existence is a jest, when we discover that he is a
fictitious character made up by Constantin (not to mention that Constantin
himself is a pseudonym) (Caputo, 2002, 18).”

The jestful character, it is suggested by Caputo, is part of the point of asking about
the possibility of repetition at all. In this, our first encounter with the young man,
the worry lies not in the role of repetition or the religious, but in the mood that his
general confusion with it all instills, and here some questions seem impossible to
ask, because impossible to answer, such as the young man himself shows us in the
opening lines of his letter from October 11th. The questions, then, that one might
ask to the setting of the work overall are exactly reminiscent of the questions that
the young man asks of existence. They seem hollow because they are spoken out
against an idea of reality that can find no proper foothold in their own manner of
questioning—an idea of reality that provides but one legitimate answer, marriage,
but the young man is unable to accept this answer, because aware that it cannot
reply to him as the concrete questioner. The possibility that it could all be seen as a
jest, as Caputo indicates, is perhaps part of the point. While reality to the young
man makes up an odd and unresponsive partner in conversation, partly because
reality to him becomes a wall of rigidity that he bounces against, it seems clear that

153
what he cannot be set free from is not some reality per se, but his own torment of
thinking a reality that judges him for being unable to speak its language. The jest
does not lie in being less religiously oriented than the concern of Fear and
Trembling, it lies rather in the ridicule of existence before the questions that the
young man raises. In this ridicule there is something religious, perhaps, since any
response is potentially like that of a prayer. Therefore if he is a jest, it is due to his
own measure of judgment, for the audience remains silent.
The second character to enter stage makes quite a different appearance. This
time it is Vigilius Haufniensis that approaches the audience, and his demeanor is of
a much more gathered and tranquil kind—the staggering subject of his treatise
notwithstanding. His first line is the following 57: “Efter mit Begreb gjør den, der
vil skrive en Bog, vel i at tænke adskilligt over den Sag, om hvilken han vil skrive
(SKS 4, 313).” What a grand observation that is. That the concept of concept is
introduced in the very first line does not appear to be a coincidence. It is
introduced here, of course, in the sense of opinion 58, but in such a manner that it
becomes apparent from his very opening line that conceptual distinction is of
importance to Haufniensis, however, such that what is meant by conceptual
distinction in itself becomes a question. This is so, not least when seen in the light
of the motto that comes before the preface in which it is said that the time of
distinction has passed, as a reproach to ‘the system’ of his time. It is interesting
that the mood of the preface seems in many ways jestful, while leading up to the
exposition of a problem that is very serious. Seen in connection with the painful
expression of the young man, whose entire existence on the other hand appears, at
least on some level, to be a jest. Haufniensis continues his remarks of entry by
reflecting on the thought, which is in so many ways extremely banal, and therefore
again somewhat humorous, that one should further make oneself familiar with
what else has been written on the subject that one wants to engage in, and then
behave as the best man at a wedding listening to the groom. That is, silently
indulge in the happy thought that someone else has achieved something, which

57 That is, if we do not count the motto and the dedication that come before, of course. I will
return to the former a bit further ahead.
58 This is also the translation given in Hong and Hong, CA, 7.

154
one therefore cannot achieve oneself without trespassing into the domain of
another. In this manner, a line is drawn between the universal and the particular—
we can all get married, but not all to the same person; we can all decide to write a
book, but we cannot do so merely by copying one written by another; we all have
our daily trouble, which in some sense we share with all human beings and every
generation, but we do not all have the same trouble. Therefore, he concludes, one
should not pretend to be laying a final word on anything, as if by writing
something one were able to answer to a problem transcending every generation
and every individual (SKS 4, 313). What is put into question, therefore, seems to
be that of human authority. No one is fit to say it all, nor to break through all
times with conclusions of eternal validity. This makes it all the more peculiar that
Haufniensis proceeds to present himself as someone who, without question, bows
down to any authority. He calls himself a fetishist who is ready to adore anyone
that has been proclaimed as authority, and lets us know that the decision
(Afgjørelsen) as to whom is authority is beyond him in whatever way it takes place
(SKS 4, 314). In this sense, and within a very few lines of text, we have two
radically opposed assertions, disguised in differing gowns, which both in their self-
contained imagery and in their subsequent clash instill a mood of lightness and a
proneness to release smiles. On the one hand we get the temperate recognition of
how ridiculous it can be if we assume too much out of too little, on the hand we
are confronted with his self-asserted stupefaction with authority.
When Haufniensis continues to the much more extensive introduction, the
tone of his voice changes. Here the importance placed on making distinctions is
brought to the fore from the beginning, and the criticism uttered in the preface
relating to thinking that one can solve all queries in one reply is given slightly more
concrete faces. In a sense it becomes an investigation into the grammar of science.
What it means that some field takes something as its subject, the obligation to be
aware which moves can be made within which fields of knowledge, what
distinguishes the scope of one from the scope of another, and so on, are markers
that are drawn in these introductory remarks. It is important to remember in
relation to this exercise in distinctions that the distinction yearned for in the motto
of the work is presented in the singular “Distinctionens Tid er forbi, Systemet
haver overvundet den. […] »thi Socrates var stor derved«, »»at han distinguierede

155
mellem hvad han forstod og hvad han ikke forstod.«« (SKS 4, 310)” In this sense
the opening line of Haufniensis may be heard in a different intonation—rather
than being merely an odd assertion of what is necessary before writing a book on
some subject, it may refer to the distinction that lies at the heart of any work,
namely to balance between what one has understood and what one has not
understood. What one has not understood cannot simply be subsumed inside the
frame of understanding, it cannot be provided an answer, because it presents a
negative. As such it may remind us of the best man, whose position in life cannot
be that of the groom. He cannot stand in his place, and therefore only understand
his position in the negative. When Haufniensis calls himself an author as a king
without country, this may point to the no-man’s-land in relation to the sciences, as,
for example, Darío Gonzáles suggests (Gonzáles, 2001, 15). In this case it refers to
anxiety as belonging to none of the, in the introduction discussed, fields of
knowledge but may be revealed in part through the psychology of the
phenomenon, touching upon the different disciplines. However, it may also be
seen in the light of its own beginning—that one should think carefully about that,
which one wants to write about—and this that turned out to be nothing, a void, or
if this that turned out to be uncalled for in the sense that the audience did not ask
for it 59, and will not leave the theater with a stronger sense of understanding,
because the actor proclaimed with authority to have none, if they chose to leave
after the opening lines, which, of course, we are invited to do.
The systematizing perspective in Haufniensis’ thinking does not properly
ensue until the introduction, where it nonetheless comes at us with such force that
the jestful problematization of authority in the preface is easily forgotten.
Now, having these two first characters on stage, let us once again return to
the question of this scene: grammatical versus existential investigation. As was
mentioned above, it is interesting that the roles between Haufniensis and the
young man seem somewhat inversed, relative to the manner in which the works
that they appear in respectively have been interpreted. One stands forth as a joker,

59 The whole line goes: “Hvad min egen ringe Person angaaer, da tilstaaer jeg i al Oprigtighed, at

jeg som Forfatter er en Konge uden Land, men ogsaa i Frygt og megen Bævelse en Forfatter uden
alle Fordringer (SKS 4, 313-314).”

156
while the other cries out in severe pain. One presents an exposition of existential
problems according to a relatively systematizing perspective, clarifying distinctions
in his field of study, and considering phenomena of existence in relation to this,
his speculative anti-speculative endeavor. His style is calm and his approach
complex but centered on specific problems. The other is torn in his existence, and
existence does not stand out as some abstract notion to be considered, but in all
the complex pain of an individual existent. In the young man’s pain there seems to
be no focus, except that he cannot escape the guilt that he imagines bestowed
upon him, and yet cannot find an adequate expression that would free him from it.
Every line that he articulates is therefore a disruption of his attempt at analysis.
The joker, on the other hand, takes one step at a time and carefully disseminates
the phenomena that he wants to illuminate through a somewhat distanced analysis
that draws distinctions. The grammatical investigation, insofar as one can talk
about that, lights up the stage between them as one that is at the same time
analysis and phenomenon. The one whose anxiety is seen is the young man, the
one whose vigilant gaze stakes out the limit-concept of anxiety as faced with the
abyss of freedom, is Haufniensis. The language that we meet by the young man
and the language that we meet in Haufniensis confront us with very different kinds
of challenges in talking grammar. In both relating to existence, they provide very
different manners of description. Both, so it seems, lend a perspective in which we
are able to find recognition, but to allow voice to them no one systematizing
perspective can be applied that would describe both equally well, and so a
grammar of different games must be applied here. One raises a voice that in
making distinctions, and as such holding some level of authority, despite his
insistence not to, gives his reflections a universal appearance. The other raises a
voice that battles with his particularity; at a loss before the demand to know
himself in a setting and a vocabulary that doesn’t make him find a home. The
former surveys the boundaries of conceptualization of the phenomena that the
latter seems to express in its vagueness and its contradictions. It seems important,
nonetheless, to hold on to the fact that in Haufniensis’ treatise there is something
that disrupts its neatness—that it, presumably, cannot claim in any way eternal
validity, that Hauniensis himself throws himself down to any authority, that he is a
king with no country whose voice is uncalled for. And that likewise in the outrage

157
of the young man, there is something that tames it—the story of Job, the poetry
that he takes to line up in order to have a response ready in case of being
questioned, the fact that he speaks, despite his dissatisfaction with the words
spoken. In different ways, therefore, our possible attempt at fixing our gaze on a
clear image is challenged by something that makes it not so clear. This may be
where grammar and existence meet—in our attempt to describe the one, we may
distill patterns that draw up contours of an image, but the image points back at the
same time to a background of existence, which is not satisfied with one description
or which is not able to provide an explanation. The challenge of this constellation
may therefore be how it allows us to see the need for a different description of the
same when it suddenly stands out as being able to reveal more than what we were
at first able to see. Though the young man and Haufniensis now leave the stage,
we may still be invited to remember their perspectives as more pseudonyms make
their appearance and through them the question is asked what role a change of
aspect may be said to play, and what it would mean, or how it would impair us,
were we unable to perceive or express such change.

158
2ND SCENE
THE UNSETTLEDNESS OF PERSPECTIVES AND CONCEPTS

In this scene we are introduced to Hilarius Bookbinder and William Afham.

Through their appearance, we will be pondering the unsettledness of perspectives
and concepts by way of the ideas presented to us with Wittgenstein of aspect-
change and aspect-blindness. Though it is only possible to bring onto stage a
couple of pseudonyms in this scene, it is worth noting that the challenge they hint
at is not one that is unique to their characters, indeed, the idea is to bring to light a
galloping Wechsel in the perspectives of these characters that allows us to get a
sense of the difficulty in wanting to grasp their perspectives and that which they
seem to bring into view. One thing that must be noted is the problem relating to
my use of Wittgenstein’s ideas in relation to reading texts rather than looking at
images or situations in which language in use shows itself, but they meet here, so I
hold, by being brought up on stage, where the words become imagery, and the
problems of thought become situations.
What was underlined in the previous act on Wittgenstein is that the idea of
Aspektwechsel is interesting to us mainly in the sense that we have an ability to
suddenly see something different in the same, which challenges us to describe
what we see differently from how we may have described it before. What it is that
enables us to do so is of lesser importance (it is part of our way with language, but
a better qualification is perhaps difficult or impossible to provide), that it seems an
indispensable part of how we go about experiencing the world, of greater. The
experience is the interesting part and related to interest. What is emphasized in this
way is not just that there are different perspectives in play in the pseudonymous
writings, but that these allow us to see different aspects of the same matter
(understood in sense of grammar, that is, non-substantially).
Now here to make his entrance onto stage is Hilarius Bookbinder. His name
alone, of course, makes us suspect something comical. The mood that his
appearance strikes is one of simplicity—he is a man whose life story could not just
be told in facts, but whose words are likewise those of facts. The bookbinder is a
man of trades, he is neither an intellectual nor weighed down by excessive
reflection, he is, in so many words, a bourgeoisie, whose concerns on value

159
concern merely that which might be expected of him as a bookbinder and as a
good citizen. His appearance is furthermore supported by the narration of other
characters that help him see, and express what he sees in given ways. In this
manner of support enter his deceased wife and the candidate of philosophy, who
comes to the house of the bookbinder in order to teach his son, so that the latter
may do well at school (SKS 6, 13). Each in their own way they lay the words of the
bookbinder into his mouth, and even though he is alone on stage, it is difficult to
imagine what he would have said had he not had these souffleurs behind him. He
is one, out of two pseudonyms, who is a married man (Nicolaus Notabene being
the other), and through the words of the young man in Repetition, we may think
that this is the symbol of talking according to a language that everybody
understands and abides by (with the exception of the exceptions, of course). Being
married is somehow being in accordance with the universal of society, and the
perspective of the bookbinder cannot well be separated from the perspective of
the voices of society that talk along with him.
The story that the bookbinder tells us is one of how the texts that he is here
publishing came into his possession. He relates: a literary person (an author)
brought him a number of books to be bound. Before the job was done—a job
postponed by the bookbinder for the concern of finishing other bookbinding
assignments first—the author died and the bookbinder returned the books to his
heirs via court (SKS 6, 11). Some time later he finds a stack of papers the origin of
which he does not know. It occurs to his wife that these papers may have
belonged to the ones that he had received from the now deceased author, which
had been overlooked and forgotten. The bookbinder finds it too late to return
them to the heirs, and supposes that they must not have been important, since no
one claimed them (SKS 6, 12). He binds them in a colorful cover, such as not to
have them lying around lose in his shop, as his wife says, and sometimes reads in
them at night, without, however, understanding much of their content. He phrases
it as follows: “Men jeg kan ikke sige, at Fornøielsen var stor, thi jeg forstod ikke
Stort, men havde dog min Fornøielse af at sidde og spekelere over, hvad det Hele
vel kunde være (SKS 6, 12).” This sentence is in many ways telling, both because it
corresponds in choice of words with his stratus (spekelere), and because it calmly
admits to something being beyond his understanding, something that is

160
characteristic of his whole appearance and at once adds honesty and ridicule to his
character. At times, so he tells us, he would let his children copy a page from the
book, because the handwriting in it is particularly nice or he would have them read
something from it to practice their reading skills (SKS 6, 12). Then, at some point
(presumably after the death of his wife), he hires a candidate in philosophy to
teach one of his children at home. This man one day becomes aware of the
colorfully covered book and asks about it. The bookbinder wants to give the book
to the teacher, but after three days he brings it back and proclaims that it is a very
important work that the bookbinder ought to get published, and in return for
having made him aware, he asks only some money, and wine with his meals on
Sundays. The teacher makes the bookbinder believe that the publishing of the
book will afford him a considerable wealth, furthermore. That this would probably
not be the case, one can only speculate, but that the bookbinder believes him and
feels much obliged to his good intentions, is expressed with much fondness (SKS
6,13).
The story by the bookbinder of his coming into possession of the work that
he subsequently publishes, may remind us—as spectators—of the changing
aspects of the book that we are allowed to see in relation to different perspectives
through which it is viewed. Before the bookbinder even begins his story, we can
only imagine that the author behind the work has had his struggles with the
writings—or the compilation of them, as the candidate in philosophy later
suggests that they may be the outcome of the work of a society of authors (SKS 6,
14). That is, the story has already begun before the bookbinder enters stage and
recounts it for his audience. Following this initial beginning of which we cannot
know, the book becomes a mere object of puzzlement when it appears in the
workspace of the bookbinder, then it is the work in the colorful cover, which
keeps the bookbinder speculating but incomprehensive, then the object of
schooling for his children in copying a beautiful handwriting and practice of
reading, then it gains the attention of the learned man who teaches his children,
then it becomes the object of publication, and finally it opens itself up to the
reader as the texts before us—the latter of which, of course, does not ensue while
the bookbinder is still on stage, recounting his story. The interesting thing about
this is the change of aspect revealing itself in the manuscript being described to us

161
in ever-new ways and ever-new functions. We are inclined to say with Wittgenstein
that nothing has changed and yet everything has changed (MS 137, 14 a). The
same thing can show itself to us now as a text to be bound, now as a piece of
entertainment, now as letters of beauty, now as letters of reading aloud, now as
something of literary value, now as something of potential monetary value, and all
the while it is the ‘same’ text in question, but different aspects of its being a text
become manifest and require different kinds of manifestation in the description
that is given to it, and different kinds of behavior surrounding it. What blends in
here is at once the many perspectives presented to us through the bookbinder and
the other characters of his narration, and the aspects of the text that stand out to
us in this manner. Neither the perspectives nor the object with which they concern
themselves provide stability. But the bookbinder utters no particular surprise in
relation to the different aspects of the texts that appear. He relates the happenings
in matters of fact. If we were to talk of a kind of blindness here, it would perhaps
be in connection with this lack of astonishment. He feels much obliged to the
fortune the teacher brings to his house, of course, but this is due mainly to the
discovery of the latter that promises to provide good fortune to his house—it is
related to the teacher telling him how it will be. He is not able to exclaim: it turned
out to be a great piece of work! –and not just the random papers of which I found
little understanding. For he does not have any opinion in this respect (SKS 6, 14),
he merely restates and trusts what he has been told. He does not experience the
astonishment of change, as we might suspect the teacher did.
In immediate succession of Hilarius Bookbinder enters William Afham, and
with him a very different level of reflection. Afham does not need the company of
anybody in order to express his thoughts, rather he searches the most lonely of
places to be alone with himself and his recollection (Er-indring). The lonely place
that he seeks out in the depth of the forest is a contradiction in terms—a corner
where eight roads meet (SKS 6, 23). Through the reflections of Afham we may
realize that we meet in him the antagonist of the bookbinder. Memory, which to
Afham is all that is uninteresting about life—remembering the exact details of how
something was and happened, that which can be the common project of many,
which indeed to the bookbinder it is, granted that his recounting of events
revolving around the book at hand is remembered not least through the

162
contribution of others, is to Afham mere lack of ideality. The illusion around
recollection, which can only ever in his understanding of things pertain to one
person, is what counts. His recollection is therefore sought in the solitude of the
contradictory corner of eight roads in the forest, where it is said that either one is
the last man standing or left behind in the noisy solitude that follows when
everyone else has disappeared along the eight roads, and left one behind who is all
the more alone for the vanishing voices of those who have departed (SKS 6, 24).
In this odd solitude that reverberates from the ones that have left, recollection can
rejoice in giving life back to that which had become otherwise a mere memory.
Whereas the bookbinder needed others to make his story as true to accurate detail
as possible, Afham needs solitude to brew the story as he wills. The text that a
moment ago was the object of ‘historical accuracy’ now opens itself up to the
spectator as being all but that. Once again the perspective has changed, and the
aspects of the imagery that reveals itself calls for a different kind of attitude.
Afham seeks out the mood of contradiction, rather than that of coherence.
If the story is wild and lively, what is needed to make it stand out as such is a calm
and unmoved background (SKS 6, 21). In order for the waves to break they need
to wash upon shore or encounter the steady and unmoved rocks. In order for the
waters to be moved they need the fiery wind and the undisturbed surface of the
bottom upon which the sea lays. Thus, unlike the calm accuracy of the
bookbinder, there is the search for that which brings about contrast and
disruption. The forest of which Afham speaks seems at the same time to be the
place of his recollection and the setting of the banquet—or the two are in this
sense melted together, such as we learn that recollection brings unity to the
scattered and contingent events.
The perspective changes with Afham from one in which reality—
unspoken—is what is revealed to the spectator as central, to one in which reality is
downgraded, not even mentioned as a matter of fact, and memory is made into a
mere handmaiden of recollection in which ideality brings forth the circumstances
as it wills. The poetic language of Afham likewise clashes against the factual
presentation of events by Hilarius Bookbinder—it lurs the spectator into a dreamy
mood. Afham paints the picture of the difference between memory and
recollection by comparing these two concepts to the attitude of a child and an old

163
person respectively. The young child remembers but does not have the ability for
recollection, because it lacks the distance to events, which this latter requires. The
old person on the other hand loses the ability to remember, but gains strength in
recollection. The elder, of course, has distance to that which is recalled in
recollection, and therefore finds ease in recollection, which paints a fuller picture.
This is, indeed, one of the aspects of recollection that Afham spells out to us—
that it creates continuity. Rather than getting lost in the every detail of contingent
gossip, it seizes life in a single breath (SKS 6, 18).
If we listen a bit more carefully to what Afham is saying about recollection,
what we may see is challenged by an apparent dithering of the concept.
Recollection seems to be presented on two different levels. On the one hand, it is
only to the one who recollects—hence the solitude, the silence, the intentional
forgetting or the intentional removing oneself from disturbing memory. On the
other hand, recollection is according to an ideal, which ‘shows’ whether or not it is
essential recollection—that is, something that will bring the one breath to all
contingencies of life. Although this is likewise said to be personal “Det Væsentlige
betinges ikke blot ved sig selv, men ogsaa ved sit Forhold til den Paagjeldende
(SKS 6, 20)”, it seems at the same time to be a measurement—something upon
which one may be judged: “her spørges om Facit: hvo har mest at erindre (SKS 6,
19)?” And the one who knows about recollection has ideality, though he may or
may not understand the need of recollection to be able to use memory against
itself, that is, not to remember (not to return to see), such that recollection may
prevail in its intentional forgetting (SKS 6, 21). Thus, as an ideal, it is something
that may be shared, it would seem—the internal movements of recollection are to
the one recollecting, but recollection needs the eight roads in order to find its
proper solitude. On a different note, it seems at once to be an attitude to
existence, which brings unity, and to hold a secretiveness, which is jealous of its
own totality; at once to be a perspective applied in order for the contingencies to
gain significance (that is, as a manner of relating to particular instances), and as a
perspective that has always already determined what it sees (that is, which allows
no room for novelty).
A turn in the road is provided, perhaps, when Afham reveals to us that the
art of recollection is the ability for illusion. Not to bring oneself out of illusion, but

164
to bring oneself into illusion (SKS 6, 20). Recollection does not have the simple
measure of remembering right or wrong, it requires, rather, the art of making
distant that which is present right before one’s eyes. The illusion into which one
brings oneself is not unaware, however, but intentional. And what does that make
of the one who recollects? A refugee. “hiin Flygtning, hvem kun den
dødbringende Kugle indhenter, der vel forklarer, hvorfor Hjorten nu blev stille,
men ikke hvorfor den var saa urolig (SKS 6, 24).” And now we seem to be in quite
a different place than where recollection was that which would create continuity in
someone’s “jordiske Tilværelse (SKS 6, 18).” The one recollecting has become,
rather, the one who flees in life and is brought to a lethal standstill—by memory?
In the depth of the forest, where the contrasting setting of memory is sought out,
the one who has placed himself in the corner of the eight roads suddenly seems to
find that he is slain for his unifying ideal rather than revitalized to a unity of
existence, and yet the forest is so harmonious, and Afham cheers on his riches of
recollection.
The perspective of Afham is, indeed, unsettled. From his corner in the
forest, the eight roads disperse the want for singular clarity in his reflections on
recollection. And while the factual reiterations of the bookbinder seem much more
calm and settled—as if the only thing important to him was really to remember
right or wrong—the unsettling aspect, perhaps, is that he seems unable to be set
aback by the astonishment of anything, that is, that he appears blind to meaning as
something important that may well at times surprise us. With Afham, the challenge
to us as spectators is greater, perhaps because the aspects of recollection that he
makes stand out to us give the want for a singularity that the concept cannot, or is
not allowed to, provide. Without this vividly contrasting exposition, one might say,
the concept could become settled in itself (grebet af sig selv) in a manner that would
do away with its opposition to the mere factuality, which holds no place for
wonder. That it is unsettled unsettles us in our seats in the theater, and invites,
perhaps, for the surprise that calls on us to pay different attention to what is
before us.

165
3RD SCENE
THE QUESTION OF TRUTH

In the previous two scenes we have been introduced to characters who, in

different ways, have brought into view the questions of reality versus ideality,
existence, and language. What we have witnessed taking place with their
occurrence on stage brings us closer to the question of truth. In the role of the
perspectives that have been brought to the fore in this approach lies inherent the
question of truth, since by insisting on the differences the whole problem of what
is at stake is somewhat postponed. What may be meant by truth and the different
ways in which it is treated by the pseudonyms will be the focus of this scene. As
was the case with the other topics that we have considered thus far, it is my
impression that truth exactly plays different roles depending on where we look.
Reality to the young man in Repetition seemed tied to a relatively strict bourgeois
understanding of reality as something shared in the norms of society, and his battle
with it was for a different kind of truth becoming manifest in his own struggle
with life, which may or may not be understood as real, comparatively poetically
real, in the light of his perceived identity as a poet. Reality to Virgilius Haufniensis
was in some sense not a problem, but may be viewed either through his
assessment that one author should not fool himself to think that he could have
spectacular importance for all generations past, present, and coming or, indeed, it
may be seen in his proclaimed proneness to throw himself down to any authority.
Neither touches directly upon the question of what is real, but both set it in
perspective in accordance with an understanding of the role that human beings
can be thought to play before each other. If someone can, respectively cannot, be
the authority before others, then what is understood as real may be said to change
quite dramatically. With the arrival of Hilarius Bookbinder we are once again
turned toward the bourgeois conception of facts and dragged through an
exposition of events that rests upon ‘circumstantial evidence’. Unlike the young
man, however, the bookbinder does not have any problems with this
understanding of things, but rather seems to embrace it—not just in the case of
this story, but in the manner in which his life is played out more broadly speaking.
What this has to do with reality might be said to be that he relates to it in a non-

166
philosophical, uncomplicated fashion. He relates to existence as something that
happens as a matter of fact. Following him enters William Afham, and suddenly
ideality, rather than reality, becomes the question of what is able to tie together a
coherent existence for each existing individual. With each of these personalities
and their respective relation to or indifference to reality, we may ponder the
question: is there in all of this a need to ask about the truth of their respective
perspectives or is it all the same to us what is said in relation to reality? In this
question lies, of course, also the problem of how reality and truth are connected or
whether this constellation is the wrong one to make. The setting of this scene
suggests that the two questions are in some way connected, and adds that they
may be seen differently and perhaps more clearly through the consideration of
Wittgenstein’s reflections on Verstellung.
The unsettledness or instability of perspectives and concepts that were
exposed in the previous scene are of importance in relation to the problem taken
up here. If a change of perspective, namely, is able to alter significantly the aspects
of something that we are able to see or perceive, then the question of truth
becomes pressing. One might be inclined to ask, accordingly, is there or is there
not one aspect of this matter that is more or less true? And what can true be taken
to mean if we seem to find ourselves in this fluctuation of perspectives and
aspects, in which not even the concepts that philosophy otherwise leans on can be
established in a firm manner that allows us to walk along them with relative
security? In the previous scenes we saw that this ‘lack’ does not invoke a total
restlessness. According to each perspective what is presented to us makes sense,
and we are not thrown aback to find no meaning at all. With each perspective
something stands forth as meaningful, but it is difficult not to ask about the
relative totality of the manner in which they make sense. Phrased otherwise, when
the story of each one can be subsumed in a story, is there not one language then
that ties it all together, and must we not say that in this language there is
something to which we relate as ‘true’, lest they would all be individual images with
no universal grounding?
When in the bustling commentary from our seats in the theater we concern
ourselves with such questions as subjectivity, the self, anxiety, despair, and not
least, faith, it is likewise the case that the question of truth seems to be an

167
underlying problem. When striving to expose and develop these ideas, namely, the
truth of the matter at hand is hard to avoid. This shows itself not least in
discussions concerning themselves with the question of authenticity. In saying
something like ‘it is not a matter of what but a matter of how’, the how does not
seem to escape the hope that there should be something coherent and truthful to
say about it. Though many of us in the audience would accept that there is a lack
foundations, perhaps, it is still difficult to fathom a response to the big questions
raised that would not somehow it its turn ask: where do we go from here? And do
we have any chance of going the ‘right’ way? In this sense Verstellung likewise has
its interest, as being a manner of expressing a basic insecurity, which cannot be
finally determined, but without which we would be stressed to recognize language
as we use it.
And now, to the characters of this scene: H.H. and A. Let us start where
truth is perhaps given the most explicit space of interest, namely in the little
treatise by H.H. “Does a human being have the right to let himself be put to death
for the truth?” 60 We meet H.H. not so much in terms of his own character, the
knowledge of which is limited to two circumstances, roughly. One being his first
words to the audience and spectators; that what he is about to present us with
requires that we should have the ability to let go of some of our usual way of
thinking—otherwise, so it is foreseen, we will likely not be able to follow what he
is about to say, because we think to have already surpassed it (SKS 11, 59). The
other is that he is, presumably, a poet. At least what is presented to us is
determined a ‘poetic experiment’ (SKS 11, 57). Neither of these two circumstances
occasion much familiarity with the pseudonym before us (and perhaps for this
reason his ‘name’ is as close to nameless as one might get without having no name
at all), but a little more information is lend to us regarding the other character,
presented to us by H.H., whose all absorbing concern in life is said to be the
content of this first treatise (SKS 11, 63). In some sense, therefore, when we see

60 The exception, perhaps, might be the extensive consideration on subjectivity as truth or truth as
subjectivity relative to the question of historic truth in relation to Christianity in Concluding
Unscientific Postscript. However, as was said in the first act, due to Climacus’ significant role in
interpreting the other pseudonyms, he does not enter until the fourth act—whereby I hope to give
more room to the different pseudonyms independently of his voice.

168
H.H. appearing on stage, what we see is reminiscent of a see-through character,
which merely reveals the outline of another—such as the question of truth in the
end becomes that of being a Christian in such manner that the truth is the love of
the other that can never allow itself to stand above or in front of the other (the
neighbor) (SKS 11, 92). What is interesting is on the one hand the re-doubling of
the character, which puts into question the origin of the problem as it is presented
to us, on the other hand it is the statement by H.H. at the end of this treatise to
the effect that he does not want to tell us more about the man whose trouble this
problem was, because all that matters is the content of the thought developed
(SKS 11, 93). H.H. in the same breath underscores his total power as a poet—that
he could make of the man anything that he wanted, and hence insists on the
thought that it is mere poetry—and that he uses his total power as a poet to leave
out any such detail, because it would merely divert our attention from the
importance of the content of the thought. One might ask, then, why he bothers to
invent a character at all when at the same time revealing the poetic nature of this
man, in other words that there is no one whose problem it was. Thus, in the
treatise on truth and whether or not one may allow oneself to be slain for it, we
are presented with the peculiar contradiction that while being the all encompassing
problem, at the very same time truth—if by this is meant what is real—plays no
role, and may be juggled around by some almost nameless performer who
poeticizes as he wills. Does this mean that poetry and truth are on a par? Or that
real and poeticized people come out to the same?
H.H. indeed does present himself as a storyteller, commencing with the line
of a fairy tale:

“Der var engang en Mand (SKS 11, 61).” But then the following sentence
brings us from the language of a fairy tale to the sternness of a Christian
upbringing, which has little to do with the mildness of fairies. “Han var som
Barn bleven strengt opdragen i den christelige Religion. Han havde ikke hørt
Meget af Det, som ellers Børn høre, om det lille Jesus-Barn, om Engle og
deslige. Derimod havde man desto oftere fremstillet den Korsfæstede for
ham, saa dette Billede var det eneste og det eneste Indtryk, han havde af
Frelseren; skjønt et Barn, var han allerede gammel som en Olding (SKS 11,
61).”

169
The shift from tale, which is inherently told, to the strictness of the unuttered
image that haunts this child, and later man, who finds that even the representation
of Christ on the cross in imagery is ungodly, brings about a peculiar dilemma of
the story. We are told, namely, that the one who is in truth decided does not find
the need to express this, but his actions will show. Whereas the one who speaks
about something that he wills to do, does so because in doubt. The one who is
decided needs no such deliberation of speech.

“[…] thi den i Sandhed Besluttede han er eo ipso taus. Det at være besluttet er
ikke Eet, det at være taus noget Andet; det at være besluttet er just at være
taus – som han var det, om hvem her er Talen (SKS 11, 63).”

The irony of this is difficult to overlook—he was silent, the one about whom the
speech is. By calling upon silence as the witness of truth, and doing so by speaking,
H.H. makes the listener wonder what doubt has then brought him to speak, and
what this means to the idea of truth as it is presented to us henceforth. If the one
who is in truth cannot speak this, then we may be forgiven for uttering some
concern regarding the truth that the treatise presents. Of course, the man whose
concern it involves does indeed end up with a doubt—the theme of the treatise, as
it were—namely, does a human being have the right to let himself be put to death
for the truth? But still we are told that it was an impossibility for him to talk to
anyone about it (SKS 11, 62). The content of the treatise must therefore be
understood as words not spoken or as the words of a poet that are indeed spoken
and therefore do not hold the truthful decision they themselves preach. On the
one hand we cannot think away the man whose existence is thus painted before us,
on the other we cannot ignore that the content of his thoughts, which is all that we
are allowed to know, by their own accord cannot be known to us in truth.
Toward the end of the story, which in another sense is not a story but a
treatise, of this man whose problem it was, we are first (in the section entitled “E”)
confronted with the quote on quote conclusion of these reflections of his. Then
we are drawn back once again, by H.H., to remember that what we have just
witnessed was a poetic experiment—somewhat akin to the moment in which the
light is turned back on in the theater. It was but a play, but if it were a good one,
the mood remains and lingers between the illuminated faces of the theatergoers.

170
The question that lingers to us is that of truth, and the difficulty of asking it is
underlined both in the ‘conclusion’ provided and in the reemphasis of its being a
poetic experiment, which sets the power of the poet above all, including above the
thus and so of the man that he poeticizes in order to give life to the question,
without, however, giving life to the person.
Truth, as presented to us in the finishing sections of the treatise, is
understood roughly as follows. Christ is the truth. Christ on the cross was slain for
the truth, and was the truth. That he died and let himself be put to death was at
once the truth and the absolute expression of love. Before Christ, so we are told,
truth in the absolute sense was not, nor was love in the absolute sense in which it
is always also a love of one’s enemies. Therefore man, who is not God, cannot
allow himself to be put to death for the truth, since out of truth comes the love of
the other (be it Christian or non-Christian), and out of love of the other and of
never knowing that one’s truth is absolute in relation to the other, one cannot
allow that the other should become guilty of putting one to death for the truth that
is true absolutely. However, before getting this far, the crucial point is revealed in
being found in the relation between human being and human being in relation to
truth. H.H. talks about the heterogeneity in relation to truth (SKS 11, 87), and this
is in some sense where the treatise stands and falls. In order to let oneself be slain
for the truth, and hence make oneself guilty of laying guilt upon the shoulders of
another, one should be able to know that one knows the truth better than the one
upon whom one thus bestows guilt. However, not knowing the other in this sense,
nor indeed oneself in relation to the truth that is absolute—something that man
cannot be—it is not allowable that one should let the other become guilty in this
manner based on one’s own conviction. It is not allowable, but we might even
add, not possible. Truth, in other words, is at the same time something that is
given to man through Christ, and withdrawn from man in his or her humanity.
Unlike Socratic truth, which was an unknowing, absolute truth lies in the absolute
difference between man and God, but what this knowing means is again relative to
the heterogeneity, which we cannot finally know, because we know not the heart
of the other (SKS 11, 79). What is alike for all of us is that we are all sinners, and

171
therefore no man can relate him- or herself to another as pure before a sinner, but
only as sinner before a sinner (SKS 11, 82) 61. The tricky part, then, is that one
cannot want to bestow more sin upon the other by letting the other become guilty
of one’s death, unless one has not understood the truth as being the absolute
difference, which makes wanting this for the other to prove oneself as closer to
the truth, the greatest expression of sin. Putting oneself above the other in this
sense is, namely, to assume oneself as closer to the truth in a manner that cannot
be.
What is interesting to us, granted that we are at the theater, is how this
understanding of truth relates to the question of ideality—a question put to us by
the pseudonym himself, furthermore. What does it mean to talk of truth and
absolute in the same breath, and what does it mean to insist on truth and our
inability to be sure before the other at the same time? Why does this
understanding of truth need to be wrapped in the gowns of a man whose existence
is but poetical experiment? To return to the question posed above; does this mean
that truth and poetry are on a par or that poetry is as close as we can get to the
truth when insisting to talk about truth, rather than living it? It seems that the
present poet, H.H., does not want to let go of our trouble concerning this question
when he says:

“Da det Hele er Digt, “digterisk Forsøg”, men vel at mærke, af en Tænker,
vil vel den tænksomme Læser finde det i sin Orden, at jeg intet siger om
denne Mands Person; thi just fordi det er Digt, kan jeg jo lige saa godt sige
det Ene som det Andet, sige lige hvad jeg vil (SKS 11, 93).”

Truth is in this sense made doubly doubtful—on the one hand it is presented to us
as and through poetry, on the other hand it is put into question whether it is
possible that one human being in relation to another should be able to be in
absolute possession of the truth. As such the meeting of the two is extended into
the space of the spectators in the theater. Remembering what was said in the

61 This problem is treated by Ettore Rocca, who reads the role of Abraham in Fear and Trembling in
relation to the understanding here exposed as all human beings being sinners. He suggests that the
exception of Abraham is connected with his being as not being characterized by an absolute
difference to God (Rocca, 2002, 247, 250).

172
previous act about Verstellung, a suggestion in relation to this meeting may be
attempted. Wittgenstein says that Verstellung is something that can only take place
in very complex language games (MS 138, 28b). We may get to doubt whether or
not the other before us is putting on some sort of pretense. In the theater, one
might say, the ability to play with some level of pretense is fundamental—what is
put before us is, and yet is not what we think it to be or take it to be, and it is not
uncommon that pretense among the characters is an explicit theme of the play.
That we should be able to engage in pretense holds another possibility—that we
should be able to reveal the pretense through admitting to it (Geständnis) (MS 137,
66b). The crucial point is, what is meant by either or, rather, what role the two
concepts may be taken to play. Now, in the work of H.H. we seem to find a tightly
spun web of the two. Some level of pretense is in play considering that he
pretends to do what he says cannot be done, at the same time hiding the
impossibility by seemingly doing it anyway, and admitting to it by openly giving
away his role as a poet. It is somewhat equivalent to an actor entering the stage
and proclaiming that the part he is about to play cannot be played and then
proceeding to play it anyway. So the pretense lies in telling the audience one thing
and doing another—in a way that is explicitly contradictory (in which, therefore,
lies also the confession or admittance). What makes it even more complicated is
the space or time that elapses between admittance and confession (the first
meeting with the character and the last ‘explanation’). In between the two the
problem of truth is explored as if the bracket of impossibility were not in place or
could itself be bracketed.
Wittgenstein says that it belongs to our concept of pretense that there
should be a motivation for it—it serves practical purposes (MS 137, 105a/ LS,
262, 261), and he uses the drama and storytelling as examples to investigate the
role that it plays. It is important that, being a part of an investigation of grammar,
it is understood as a problem of logic (MS 137, 104b/ LS, 256). In one sense, of
course, we are inclined to insist that the problem of truth exposed by H.H. goes
way beyond a problem of grammar—it deals with a question of truth, exactly, as
something that transcends language (hence also the reflections on silence). In
another sense, however, the problem reveals itself most clearly in the problem of
the logic that it on the one hand proposes on the other forfeits. What I suggest is

173
therefore to consider the role that the concept of truth can possibly be taken to
play, logically, if we relate it to the way Wittgenstein talks about Verstellung. It
seems to be, namely, the question of a kind of positioning. Of course, it is
extremely important to remember, as was underlined in the first scene of this act,
that there is a great difference between a so-called grammatical investigation and
an existential investigation. By and large the latter deals with problems
philosophically that Wittgenstein would possibly find dubious (like language
idling). At the same time, however, if we take the difficulty of H.H. in dealing with
truth into account, then it does seem that we could gain something in considering
the grammar of truth. In a sense the aim would be, then, to turn the gaze around
and look at the mechanism, which the concept engages rather than the ontological
or metaphysical question that it could likewise imply. Like that of Verstellung, it
may aim at a way of being positioned toward a problem, toward others, toward
oneself—a position, however, which implies no doubt, because this would
logically go counter to the way in which we normally understand truth. Say,
however, that we find ourselves before the stage in the theater, and the truth is
presented to us personified through a character who talks about truth through the
representation of deceit (Betrug). The confusion lies not in the question of what is
the truth or what is deception, but in how we would be able to position ourselves
in relation to one or the other. Truth does not call for the same weary attitude as
does deceit or pretense, given ‘normal’ circumstances. If I suspect that someone is
in the business of deceiving me, the way that I will relate to him and what he is
saying changes. On the other hand if someone seems to speak truthfully, things are
less complicated. When I stress the concept of Verstellung in this connection it is
both because—relative to being aufrichtig, as Wittgenstein says—it implies a high
level of complexity, and it quite literally indicates the kind of repositioning relative
to the situation that I find to be central when considering the use of truth in the
essay by H.H. What H.H. does by ridiculing his own endeavor is somehow to
point back to existence in which truth comes to be by being lived, rather than in
the abstraction of clarifying the concept—or the radical notion of the concept.
And here it shows itself to have verschwommenen Grenzen because of the
heterogeneity to which it relates. That is, the apparent contradiction of
representation is after all not so far from the truth.

174
 The problem is in a backward way spelled out to us through the insistence
of H.H. on the thought-content. The particularities of the man to whom this
problem was, are not important, but on the other hand the problem does not arise
but to an existent, and, as it is said in the beginning, can only become manifest in
the resolution in existence of the one whose problem it is. When spoken, the
resolution already imparts a doubt that brings itself into question (SKS 11, 62-63).
Thus we may say, that the problem is one of existence, but treated here as if it
were merely a problem of thought. But the resolution that thought seeks, the result
at which the man to whom the problem was arrives, is questionable because it
wills to give an answer that lies outside or above the realm in which it truly
presents itself. Christ did not die for us in theory; he died for us in flesh and
blood. Thus likewise the question of whether or not one can allow oneself to be
put to death for the truth arises not in theory, as something that can find an
answer in abstraction, but in existence, from which any given situation that would
demand for a single individual to let him- or herself be put to death for the truth
cannot be abstracted. Does that mean, then, that such a situation could occur? In
theory it could not. If in silent resolution, we cannot know, just as we cannot
know the heart of the other, just as we cannot know the truth beyond our own
awareness as sinners among all the other sinners in the world. Truth folds itself
over by being assumed as true, yet not knowable to us in truth.
Truth as presented to us by H.H., or the poeticized man whose problem it
was, is reflected in three ways that seem central. One, it breaks with its own idea of
how truth can be in someone (it is spoken, not silent). Two, the truth as it is
assumed is at once absolute and finally unknowable to one relating to an-other;
that is, no one can know that he knows the truth better than anyone else. Three,
the truth is poeticized, and the manner in which it is presented to us is entirely
relative to the all-powerful poet.
The second character that we meet in relation to truth has a somewhat
differently jestful approach to the matter, by and large because he does not
approach it, but is always already beyond it by having put himself in a position of
æterno modo, as he says (SKS 2, 48). The character is A from the first part of
Either/Or, in the midst of unfolding his philosophy about either/or—according to
which either one choice or the other will make the one making the choice regret

175
his choice. Hence, the choice of A is to make none, but always in the beginning
being beyond the beginning, and therefore ahead of or above any beginning.

“Jeg gaaer ikke ud fra min Grundsætning; thi gik jeg ud fra den, vilde jeg
fortryde det, gik jeg ikke ud fra den, vilde jeg ogsaa fortryde det. Skulde det
derfor forekomme en eller anden af mine høistærede Tilhørere, at der dog
var Noget i det, jeg sagde, saa beviser han blot derved, at hans Hoved ikke er
skikket for Philosophi; skulde det synes ham, at der var Bevægelse i det
Sagte, saa beviser dette det Samme. For de Tilhørere derimod, der ere istand
til at følge mig, uagtet jeg ingen Bevægelse gjør, vil jeg nu udvikle den evige
Sandhed, hvorved denne Philosophi bliver i sig selv, og ikke indrømmer
nogen høiere. Dersom jeg nemlig gik ud fra min Grundsætning, saa vilde jeg
ikke kunne holde op igjen; thi holdt jeg ikke op, saa vilde jeg fortryde det;
holdt jeg op, saa vilde jeg ogsaa fortryde det o. s. v. Nu derimod da jeg aldrig
gaaer ud, saa kan jeg altid høre op; thi min evige Udgang er mit evige Ophør
(SKS 2, 48).”

The eternal truth of the basic maxim of A has its truth in a logic that does not
accept the binary either-or, but places itself in an always already being beyond the
choice, including being beyond itself as a maxim. In a radical sense, then, A’s truth
is not or is only in contradiction, and as such as a kind of Verstellung. A displaces
himself according to how we may ‘normally’ conceive of a possible response to
positioning oneself in life, and ‘develops the eternal truth’ in a movement of
immobility. What is more, he hurriedly dismisses the possibility of being in
agreement with him. If the audience should be so inclined, they should thereby
merely demonstrate their inability in regards to philosophy. So the truth is the
truth that cannot be accepted by anyone, without thereby becoming untrue, that is,
the truth is but a pretense of meaning, that cannot be meaningfully adopted by
someone in his or her right mind. When A’s utterances nonetheless seem to make
sense, it is perhaps in relating to a reality with which we are all familiar—that of
having to make a choice (whatever that means) when no choice seems preferable
to another. In this sense reality plays the role of compromising facts that will alter
the reality of the individual in ways that may always subsequently be regretted.
That is, reality shows itself in the very concrete contingencies of life. However, this

176
conception is weighed against an ideal of accepting no such contingencies in a
manner that makes the ideal opposed to any idea that could manifest itself, except
from the eternal viewpoint of nowhere that disseminates itself in a maxim from
which its adherent never departs. A’s pretense is then to have a maxim that is to
admit to the eternal truth of there being no truth from which one can depart or to
which one may return, whence any movement is a deception in darkness. The
adverse of reality and its choices is not an ideal, then, but annihilation of
movement between the two. This is staged by A so that no room is left for the
audience to object—neither to real nor ideal—truth withdraws itself in the
pretense of the thinker who takes the word into his mouth and spits it out as
meaningless in a way that nonetheless disturbs our meaning.
The insecurity toward the other that has in different ways been hinted at by
the voices of H.H. and A. will now become a question onto its own. The problem
is here perceived as one of the inner/ outer divide or enmeshment.

177
4TH SCENE
THE INNER AND THE OUTER

In this scene different aspects of the problem of inner and outer will come into
play. The problem raises another one, namely to consider what fields of thought
we are thinking within. The two characters that we are here to meet are Victor
Eremita and Nicolaus Notabene. It may be said, relating to both, that the realm of
distinction between inner and outer is somewhat unclear, and this in itself is taken
to be part of the challenge in making our acquaintance with these two characters.
The relation between inner and outer is viewed in the first case as departing from a
problem of speculative philosophy and the relation between concept and content,
between phenomena and expression, and between contingency and necessity. This
is a point of departure, which is immediately challenged by the setting of the
questioning, however, whereby the question of the relation between inner and
outer is doubly put into question by way of the appearance of the questioning. In
the second case, the question of the relation between inner and outer is not raised
directly, but may be traced in the story that we are told by Notabene, and his
reflections on the relation between preface and the work to which the preface is
or, indeed, is not. The problem in both cases may be seen as indirectly relating to
the question of truth in the previous scene. The manner in which we meet the
problem of the inner and the outer—both in the company of Eremita and in that
of Notabene—seems to ask whether there is a core to the exposition, which is the
true answer; in both cases the response seems to be negative, but at the same time
not uncomplicatedly so. That there could be a question regarding the relation
between inner and outer may be seen and understood in many ways, and part of
the idea here is to open up to the possibility that it does indeed play with the
differences. Depending on where we look, the dichotomy or identity between
inner and outer may stress very different problems that will in their turn have
implications for the different concepts and problems that have been discussed
thus far by way of the introduction unto the scene of different pseudonyms and
characters. The inner and the outer, despite all else that may be said about it, is in
this sense also the role of the character relative to the audience before him—the
motivating factor of his appearance is part of what we seek to understand as

178
spectators. What this means is also that we cannot understand his presence
beforehand, but come to see the expression that he gives as we go along. Before
we invite the two characters to make their proper entrance, let us consider a
suggestion from the audience, which will be of some importance to this scene.
Jon Stewart (2003) introduces the problem of the excluded middle in
relation to the title of Either/Or. He asks whether the polemic with the Aufhebung,
that Hegel suggests in the place of the Aristotelian law of logic concerning the
excluded middle, may be understood as a criticism of Hegel or merely as an
insistence on the limitation of the Aufhebung when we want to talk about existence,
ethics, and time to come, rather than logic, necessity, and time past (Stewart, 2003,
199-203). It is interesting to note that Stewart takes the understanding of Hegel
concerning the logical, conceptual identity between a concept and its opposite (or
the positive and its negative), and the idea of these as being mutually
interdependent and therefore on an ontological level identical, and brings it into
the debate concerning these matters in Denmark of Kierkegaard’s time. Thereby
he adds the understanding of Heiberg, for example, to the effect that one must
distinguish between the realm of necessity and the realm of freedom, or between
the sphere of the speculative and the sphere of the empirical (Stewart, 2003, 197-
198). While the former allows mediation, the latter does not. Stewart argues that
Kierkegaard, or more specifically Judge Vilhelm in the second part of Either/Or,
does not have a problem with this distinction and the subsistence of both, but
merely holds that in relation to the ethical, to that which requires at every moment
for the individual to act, and as such to be minded toward the future, it is the
realm of freedom, that is, the realm of either-or that counts (Stewart, 2003, 199).
The Aufhebung does not predict the future, but makes the past comprehensible
according to its logic, but it does not help the person in the midst of deciding how
to move on and about his or her existence. The connection between the either-or
(as contrasted to the Aufhebung) and that of the inner versus outer may be seen in
the following light: the two problems are somehow placed side by side by the mere
fact of the title being Either/Or—referring, so it would seem, to the law of
excluded middle—and the first line of the work, which puts into question the so-
called ‘familiar philosophical sentence that the inner is the outer’ and vise versa
(SKS 2, 11). In two different ways, then, the thought of identity or mutual

179
interdependence between the concept and its opposite or the phenomenon and its
inner movement—in other words, the possibility of an annihilation of
opposition—is questioned. Though the two questions (the either-or and inner-
outer) are different, therefore, they nonetheless seem to be established in
connection, and in connection with a like concern regarding the Aufhebung.
Right before Victor Eremita appears on stage, we hear these words spoken
in the wings: “Er da fornuften alene døbt, ere Lidenskaberne Hedninger (Young,
SKS 2, 9)?” Thus, a mood has already been struck, one that takes issue, perhaps,
with the emphasis on reason (in philosophy?) This mood is stated as the motto for
the papers of A, but it is heard before we even meet Eremita. The role of passion
before or faced with that of reason seems likewise to be an important link between
the title and the opening lines of Eremita. Passion challenges at once the simple
either-or and the speculative Aufhebung, at once the inner of the Christianly
baptized and the outer of the heathen. Passion does not await explanation, and as
such it puts into question that of inner and outer, for in its movement it is already
beyond itself before such question has even been given any grounds to stand on.
Another, quite different, aspect of inner and outer that will be considered is
that of Wittgenstein’s reflections on this problem. In terms of loosely determined
psychological concepts, it is inherent that we operate with ideas of something
inner, the most extensively explored phenomenon in Wittgenstein of which is
pain, that is manifested in an outer expression. The locust of this problem is the
idea of a privileged first person and a disadvantaged third person perspective.
Wittgenstein seems to want to fight our intuition to insist on there being
something inherently personal and exclusive about pain, which is essentially
different from the expression that we are able to give to it (PU, 244-246). In
relation to the characters and the problems that they bring to the edge of the stage
in the following, these reflections are interesting because they may question what
we understand as communication—whether it be the impossible attempt of
making shared something that is inherently internal and hidden or whether there is
something to the expression that cannot be separated from the expression given.
Now on stage appears Victor Eremita, and proclaims the first question of
his speech: “Det er maaskee dog stundom faldet Dig ind, kjære Læser, at tvivle en
Smule om Rigtigheden af den bekjendte philosophiske Sætning, at det Udvortes er

180
det Indvortes, det Indvortes det Udvortes (SKS 2, 11).” He really does proclaim it,
because the question is not followed by a question mark, but by a further
questioning without it. You may have hidden a secret of which you felt that it was
too deer or too deep to allow others knowledge of it (SKS, 2, 11). Hence, he enters
as a puzzle, because the question from the audience could well be: what kind of
secret do you hide, since it seems to you appropriate to commence with such
mysterious words? The fact that Eremita starts by taking issue with the ‘well-
known philosophical sentence’ of the inner and the outer as being identical and
then proceeds to talk about, what would seem, personal secrets, holds the first
challenge to the audience, as was likewise pointed out in the first act. It puts into
question immediately, namely, where we are, philosophically and existentially
speaking. That the question is posed to us by someone who is, apparently,
successful in his solitude is not unimportant. In relation to the title of Either/Or
(remembering Stewart’s argument) it may indicate that here there is no mediation.
The character who appears before us, has been successful in his one-sidedness—
he is alone. On the other hand, he appears before us, and in that sense he is not
alone. Thus the contradiction seems apparent from the very beginning. Whoever
would proclaim his success at being solitary to an audience would seem to
undermine his own successfulness.
The mood instilled by Victor Eremita is one of many nuances—of ordinary
and somewhat irrational vanity and desire, of secrecy and mystery and a
concomitant tendency to detective-like work, of rich imagery in setting the stage
for his spectator, in attempted self-justification of his dubious involvement with
the secrets of others and the desire to impart this involvement to the public, of
wrapping insights within insights until the interior and exterior become so
enmeshed that distinguishing one from the other seems a hopeless task 62. That it is
an intriguing and mystifying introduction that is presented to us is of importance
in relation to the question of this scene concerning the inner and the outer,
because it establishes a game with the context of the initial questioning that leaves

62 The complicated setting of this introduction has been the object of scrutiny to many

commentators. Examples may be found in such works as the following: George Pattison,
Kierkegaard: the Aesthetic and the Religious (1992); Joakim Garff, Den Søvnløse (1995); and Rick Anthony
Furtak, Wisdom in Love (2005).

181
the spectator a bit dizzy and disoriented. Therefore when we want to ask, what
exactly is meant by the inner and the outer here and in what way is all the story-
telling of Eremita to be understood within a context of philosophy?, we are all the
time confronted with a content that resists the problem of philosophy, which it on
some level gives the appearance to engage in. It is almost as if this character before
us had commenced by reading one line of a heavy philosophical work, as the
justification of his appearance, and then proceeded to jump around on stage, now
hiding behind a piece of furniture, now behind other characters on stage, now
juggling a number of different balls in bright colors—all of which would lead us
further away from the opening line, but at the same time in every move exposing
an indirect problematization of the beginning.
The inner and the outer problem shows itself in a number of ways through
the words by Eremita. Once he has passed through the initial move of putting
speculative thought in relation to the question of someone keeping a secret, he
goes on to explain to us how he came into possession of the texts that he is about
to present to us. Before that, however, he indicates two important points. One is
the idea that hearing rather than seeing is what brings about the best condition for
gaining access to the inner, the other is the role played by coincidence in gaining
such access (SKS 2, 11-12). Both these points are significant in relation to the
initial controversy with speculative thought. The first relative to the thought that
there is something inward which can find more or less accurate expression in the
outer, that is, that the identity between inner and outer is not accepted,
interestingly because the ear, not any other faculty, is able to understand
something other than what appears. The second relative to the importance of
necessity in logic. Stressing coincidence as decisive is a manner of bringing
attention to all those little differentiating details in existence, which we cannot
control and the importance of which we may easily forget when talking in
abstraction from that which is played out before us all the while we are
contemplating the events from our seats in the theater.
Coincidence does not just take issue with the speculative Aufhebung (which
leaves a dubious room for coincidence) in terms of existence; it seems to question
simultaneously the Aristotelian logic, according to which only one thing can be the
case, not at the same time something and its opposite, and the Hegelian logic,

182
which has it that something can only be in effect of its opposite and vice versa.
What is suggested by Eremita in his recounting of how the papers that he is about
to present came into his possession, and in his subsequent interpretation of the
role of the two ‘authors’, hints at a principled undecidability in terms of particular
existences. Neither can the course of events be predicted, as also Hegel would
deny, nor can they be given logical necessity or definite meaning in hindsight, as
Hegel might argue. Neither can events, situations, and words be both something
and their opposite, nor can they finally be determined as merely one thing or
another. Both coincidence and passion play a vital role in any way that we may
attempt at establishing meaning, and the outer expression holds the peculiar
contradiction of not being sure what it means to express the inner motivation.
Hearing still the voice of Jon Stewart, we have good reason to be skeptical
before the idea that the text may be said to operate with a twofold of
understanding—one which grants thought the necessity of hindsight, the other
which holds the freedom and contingency of individual existence directed toward
the future. It would seem that these two perspectives or understandings cannot be
separated in the manner suggested, and that the allowance of the former would
pose unsurpassable issues for the latter. At least this may be taken to be part of the
point of confusion in the introduction by Eremita. If there were, according to the
either-or here presented, a distinct sphere of thought separated from that of
existence, then the eager attempt to tie together the inner-outer question of
philosophy with the basic notion of keeping a secret on a personal level, and the
story of the furniture revealing its innermost hiddenness, would be difficult to
justify. This confusion exactly mixes up what could be taken to belong to very
different spheres of ‘knowledge’, and thereby questions what it could possibly
mean to advocate identity (or mutual interdependence) between the inner and the
outer in matters as simple as a hidden compartment in a piece of furniture. That
this can be taken as an image of existence on a great many levels is clear, but that it
simultaneously questions the abstraction of thought from such profane and simple
matters seems no less clear. Likewise, it may be problematic to claim that
“Kierkegaard seems clearly to weight the argument in favor of Judge Wilhelm’s
position and not that of the esthete (Stewart, 2003, 194)”, that is, the argument
which has it that in terms of existential choices there can be no Aufhebung but only

183
a definite either-or. Through Eremita we meet this problem in a much more
entangled and complicated fashion, and end up with this very telling ‘conclusion’,
which is exactly not a conclusion in the sense of a result, that is, not an either-or:
“Naar Bogen er læst, da ere A og B glemte, kun Anskuelserne staae lige overfor
hinanden og vente ingen endelig Afgjørelse i bestemte Personligheder (SKS 2,
21).” Not only are we told, then, that no definite decision is to be expected as such
or in abstraction, one might say, but even more radically that no definite decision
is expected in any particular personality. They are perspectives, then, that open up
to us manners of understanding, which do not require a final resolution—that are
neither brought to unity in a higher conception of things, nor struck upon an
either-or. And still some elements of our initial meeting with Eremita seems to
confirm the distinction suggested by Stewart, but such that the distinction in
relation to the story played out before us is all the time made complicated to
maintain with consistency. This is perhaps part of the significant mood that is
struck by Eremita; that the arrival at a relatively clear conception (Begreb) of what is
going on is set to slide on thin ice, such that if we settle at any given point of
understanding the ice is likely to break beneath us. The insecurity notwithstanding,
we are able to follow him as he slides us around, and what makes for the grasp
(greb) that we get is the story told of concrete, if somewhat surprising, events in
which neither the Aufhebung nor the either-or settles to leave a unifying impression,
nor the inner and the outer show either identity or incongruence.
Now, in relation to the papers that Eremita finds within the secretair (the
piece of furniture in which he falls in love and which he later acquires) we find two
different aspects of the inner and the outer exposed, which tellingly seem to
contradict one another. On the one hand, the fact that the secretair contains these
letters confirms to Eremita his suspicion that the inner and the outer are not the
same—that a piece of furniture, which seemed to be just that turns out to contain
something foreign to and unexpected of itself (SKS 2, 14). On the other hand, the
papers that are thus revealed to him—and to us through his recounting of the
events—present him with an exterior that is said to resemble or expose in their
mere external appearance an internal difference that corresponds with their outer.
Thus, the papers of A are described as inconsistent and variable in style of the
handwriting, while the letters of B are written on a different, more formal kind of

184
paper and in a much more consistent and boring style of handwriting. Eremita
exclaims that the outer difference at a closer look reveals a similar difference in
content (SKS 2, 14). Further ahead we likewise learn that the papers of A seem to
have no consistent order, and are therefore left—to chance—in the order in which
they were found, while the letters of B presuppose one another in a given order
(SKS 2, 15). Once again, therefore, we are confronted with the idea of inner/ outer
versus contingent and necessary, and the kind of communication that seems to
correspond to either. The whole scene is set up as a guessing game in which
Eremita tries to work out the inner secrets hidden behind the papers, all the while
making his own secretiveness as a publisher more and more peculiar.
While Victor Eremita is in the midst of his extensive reflections on the
greater work that he is presenting to the audience, finding it, seemingly, difficult to
let go of the texts and allow the spectator him- or herself to make of them what he
or she wills, despite his reassurance of the opposite (SKS 2, 21), Nicolaus
Notabene enters the stage next to him, disturbing his victorious solitude with quite
a different story of a preface—one that is so free that it has indeed emancipated
itself from any further content. Nicolaus Notabene commences with a subtle
reflection to which he does not later return, at least not directly. His first words are
the following:

“Det er en Erfaring, der ofte har bekræftet sig, at man ved en

Ubetydelighed, en Smaating, en hensynsløs Yttring, et ubevogtet Udbrud, en
tilfældig Mine, en uvilkaarlig Gestus har faaet Leilighed til at stjæle sig ind i
et Menneske og opdage, hvad der havde unddraget sig den omhyggeligere
Iagttagelse. For at imidlertid denne ubetydelige Bemærkning ikke skal
vanarte og blive sig selv vigtig, forsager jeg øieblikkeligen at forfølge den
videre, og haster mit Forehavende nærmere (SKS 4, 467).”

It seems peculiar that he should introduce himself with a thought that is

immediately discarded and deemed as not being to the point. However, it is
likewise a thought that places Notabene well alongside Eremita. It seems, namely,
that once again we find a suggestion that something otherwise hidden can reveal
itself in an outward expression, and permit access to something inner, something
deeper that could not be perceived by otherwise careful scrutiny—in other words,

185
that it takes a coincidence to be allowed a sudden, privileged insight. “To steal
one’s way into a human being”, is this what is taking place with the appearance of
Notabene, is that what we should note carefully? The introductory remark seems
to lend a preface to the preface in which we are given the taste of a thought, which
is not, however, developed to its full scope, unless, perhaps, we pay careful
attention to the unimportant little details of what follows. He does not want this
little insignificant remark to indulge in its own importance, and therefore, so he
says, hurries on. Yet in the insignificant remark lies, according to its self-
understanding, perhaps the access into the other. As the audience, at least, we are
awaiting the self-fulfillment of this omen, without it being entirely clear what that
would mean, because the statement is sufficiently vague to be able to allow almost
any content into its fleeting shell.
In the exposition of Notabene’s whereabouts (somewhere between the
where and the about, the inner and the outer, abstraction and the extremely
concrete) that follow, there is an interesting abrupt change of scenery. At first he
presents us to some reflections on the role and position of the preface 63: that more
than anything else it has been the subject to changes in fashion, like the clothes
that people wear—being now apologetic, now overly convinced, now personal,
now distanced and abstract and so on (SKS 4, 467-468). He suggests that it would
be of interest to make this a proper study unto its own, but then leaves the idea to
arrive at a different point—namely the emancipation of the preface from the text.
The movement here suggested is a response to Hegel’s critique of the preface in
relation to philosophical texts, and the notion is that if one (the text) does not
want the other (the preface), then the preface must assume independence likewise
(SKS 4, 468). That is, the outer wrapping must gain importance independently of

63 It may be noted that there are two different terms for something introducing a greater text or

work, preface and introduction, in Danish forord and indledning, and in German Vorrede and
Einleitung. In Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works we find both—sometimes both within the same
text, sometimes merely one or the other. In any case, the preface, generally speaking—by being
before what is spoken—seems to have a more external position in relation to the text than does the
introduction, which supposedly exactly intro-ducere or leads into the text to come. In Hegel’s
Phänomenologie des Geistes, from which the rivalry between preface and text is taken, it is indeed on
the first page of the preface, Vorrede, that Hegel wages war on the preface in relation to
philosophical work (Hegel, 1970, 11)—in a preface, which is nonetheless some sixty pages long.

186
any presumption of content. From this thought Notabene gaily ventures into an
exposition of this newly gained freedom of the preface.
“Et Forord er en Stemning (SKS 4, 469)”, he proclaims, and then paints a beautiful
picture of what the preface is like. We may sum it up by saying that the preface is
like the beauty of anticipation, which is, however, independent of the occurrence
of any event. And the person who writes prefaces:

“han gaaer igjennem Livet som en Skomagerdreng gaaer fløitende igjennem

Gaden, selv om Den, der skal bruge Støvlerne, staaer og venter, saa maa han
vente, saa laenge der er en eneste Glidebane tilbage, eller det mindste
Seeværdige at opdage. Saaledes, ja saaledes er Den, der skriver Forord (SKS
4, 470).”

The mood surrounding this exposition of what the emancipated preface is like,
and what the one writing it is like is so light hearted, and at the same time so close
to concrete reality that you can almost touch the images portrayed, yet so idealized
that the concreteness of the imagery takes the listener to an abstract notion of
what the preface must be like. The one writing prefaces seems to be at one with
the mood of the preface of expectation—he is free from any concern regarding
the consistency of content, of any stringent notion of what must be or become.
Yet it seems, indeed, that reality is taken to an ideal, and then a swift change of
scenery takes place. In the following we learn namely that the carelessness of the
one writing prefaces, portrayed by the selfsame Notabene, is as far from his reality
as could be. The setting of the scene behind him, with the endless roads of the
countryside leading nowhere in particular, and the bustling streets of the city with
the gay youth running playfully through the streets without concern for his
destination, is replaced by a solemn and dull living room of a lawfully married
man. The light changes on stage. This is the reality of the man before us. His
concern with writing prefaces, then, does not stem from the ideal of emancipation
just portrayed, it stems rather from a necessity bearing on his relationship with his
wife. The case at hand for Notabene is that there is no case at hand—this is the
freedom of the preface—but his case at hand is that there is a wife, the reality of
which he cannot escape despite his most well-argued attempts at justifying his
desire to write books. “[…] min Frembringelse qvæles bestandigt i Fødselen”, he

187
tells us. In other words, it is not that he cannot find expression for his thoughts,
but that they are constantly taken aback by the uncompromising conditional of his
wife, that he cannot at the same time be a husband and an author. His case at hand
therefore becomes a negative that is in its non-becoming. The surprising element
perhaps, considering his proclamation about the emptiness of the preface, is that
he reaches the following conclusion: “[…] det blev mig klart, hvad tidligere aldeles
ikke var faldet mig ind, at det vilde være til ubodelig Skade for Menneskeheden,
om mine Skrifter ikke kom for Dagen (SKS 4, 471).” This, however, is presumably
a conclusion that he reaches before the atonement between him and his wife—
that he will be allowed to write but prefaces. The preface that pre-faces nothing
could hardly have a great impact on humanity, unless in its attempt at having no
case it brings to the fore the difficulty of communication in relation to any case 64.
The beginning or the anticipation of beginning is what is drawn to the
foreground, the relation to that which it begins or does not begin but anticipates,
the outer that is not sure of its inner or the inner that cannot find expression, the
infinite freedom of the young boy running down the street relative to the confined
household of Notabene whose imagination it is that puts the young man before us.
It seems that the stage is turned around a number of times while Nicolaus relates
his beginning, such that even the secrecy of Eremita faints, because at least, no
matter the complexity of figuring out how his representation goes—what is
appearance and what is content—there is a content of sorts. The understanding as
to the nothingness of Notabene’s preface may bring us back to his own beginning
of the first preface of Prefaces: the coincidence that gives access to a human being.
Or, we may ask, is it so that there is in Notabene’s conception of things something
inner and hidden, which can become manifest through a coincidental expression?
Considering his own story, it seems that there is something in him, which would
be lost to the world if he does not get to become manifest through writing. So it
seems that this something will only gain value exactly by being expressed. On the
other hand, the coincidence of which he spoke in his opening line, would seem to

64 The insinuation of the preface as having no real content at all is, of course, an exaggeration.
Prefaces deals with a great deal of philosophical and aesthetic subjects contemporary to its time. For
a literary reading that goes into more detail with the different topics, and, particularly, their staging,
see Henriksen (1999).

188
hold that something seemingly insignificant could be the proper entry into the
interior of another human being. That is, that not the careful scrutiny of which a
great work could be the expression, but the minor and unintended detail in
someone’s speech or actions could allow such access. The inner, then, of our
present character may be thought to be revealed through the little ‘flaws’ of his
reflections or through the fact that even his greatest strains to argue reasonably
against the intuition of his wife must resign, because they do not hit home. The
freedom of the preface and the ideal of its creator hold at the same time this
carelessness at the face of reason, reflection, and scrutiny. In its emancipation it
comes to be what it is—an expression of something that is not to follow or cannot
be followed through—it comes to be an outer of expression of something that
does not have any further content. The motivation of the young boy running
through the street could not explain to us more than what we see—an immediate
joy with life, and a lack of concern for what his deliverance of shoes is to bring to
the one awaiting them. Even if this image were to be followed by an entire treatise
of careful scrutiny, it should not bring us any closer to the state of the boy.
The question of inner and outer as posed by Eremita and indirectly by
Notabene, is of concern to us not merely as a superficial circumstance. It seems
important, namely, what role the inner is taken to play, and whether or not we are
able to gain access to it through an outer expression or, indeed, whether it makes
sense to uphold the idea of something inner which is exclusive and different to
what may be expressed. If there is something that retains itself, something that
resists communication from one person to another or from a text to its reader or
from the actor to the audience, then there will always be something decisive
missing from any communication—that which gives meaning to the life of the
individual, for example. However, if such a divide is simultaneously maintained
and questioned, through its own communication, then the expression may be said
at the same time to reveal and conceal the problem that is itself in the singularity
of each expression and the universality of a transparency that cannot transcend its
own expression.
Is, then, the inner and the outer understood in this manner comparable to
an internal dependence between the phenomena and what moves it? That is, a,
perhaps slightly misconceived, understanding of Hegel’s involvement with the

189
inner and outer. In different ways Notabene and Eremita seem to maintain a
coexistence of such idea with that of a more definite either-or—either inner or
outer, and an emphasis on the inner being the more significant. If viewed in the
light of Wittgenstein, we may say that it makes little sense to insist on an ‘object’ of
pain, for example—that the expression of pain cannot be meaningfully separated
from something that the pain is. But this does not mean that there cannot be an
insecurity relating to the pain of the other—I may doubt whether the pain that you
express is sincere or not (though mostly I would not), while I cannot meaningfully
(or at least it is difficult to imagine an example in which it would make sense)
doubt my own pain. That is, I may have a principled insecurity toward the other,
but this does not mean that there is something to which I do not have access—it is
simply part of how we apply this concept. That is, it is part of the way in which we
communicate on such ‘matters’. Thus, we may say, relating to our characters on
stage, that the inner is sometimes said or indicated to hold something more,
something significant in contrast to the outer, but at the same time we only have
their word for it, and their words oftentimes seem to indicate something different.

190
5TH SCENE
THE POET AS A CHANGER OF PERSPECTIVES AND A REVEALER OF
ASPECTS

The poet is ever present at the theater. He is present, perhaps, most explicitly
between the stage and the audience. His voice we hear as the one that seeks to
establish a substitution of the missing fifth act—a string of words between the
immanence of the theater and the transcendent beyond. The role of the poet is
ambiguous. Relative to existence, the poet at once is and is not, (s)he is at once the
hero and villain 65, the one who makes aspects of existence appear or become
differently clear to the spectator, but who is not able to bring into existence great
pains and promises, except poetically so. In this scene we will take a closer look at
the poet from two different perspectives. The poet brings into view (directly or
indirectly) the difficulty surrounding the question of communication, and the
relation between the one communicating, that which is communicated, and the
one to whom it is communicated or, indeed, individuated. The matter of the ‘that’
is part of what has been put into question in the previous scenes, and this leaves all
the more a desire to turn to the question of the one who puts ‘it’ before us. Of
course, each pseudonym has a role to this effect, but the poet as a separate
question is at the same time removed from the relative concreteness of each
pseudonymous voice that speaks to us with character.
In this scene we meet the poet in two different ways. The setting is slightly
different than in the previous scenes, because the pseudonym are introduced
briefly in the beginning, while the focus of the scene is subsequently twofold. On
the one hand, what is presented to us is the brief encounter with the poet at the
beginning of the second part of The Sickness unto Death, where the poet is discussed
concretely in relation to a form of despair, which Anti-Climacus determines in
relation to a pain (Qval) to which the poet hangs on with all his might in order to
retain his poetic productivity, yet in so doing thinking himself relative to God. On
the other hand, what will be considered is an entire work—Fear and Trembling—in

65 For a more careful exposition of this idea, see Kaasgaard (2013, 73-90).

191
relation to the idea of it being a poetic production that constantly unfolds new
perspectives to the reader and reveals new aspects of the same story to the
audience through a poetic re-staging, the babushka-effect of which is arguably
even more pronounced than is the case in Either/Or 66. It is thus the intention,
through these two examples, to examine quite different manners in which the poet
may be said to be at work all the time in the wings of the stage, and thereby
consider his role in introducing and inducing the systematizing and the
individuating perspective.
The two pseudonyms enter the stage together. Anti-Climacus, while
approaching his audience, is already in the midst of a clarification concerning his
own approach. It may seem too strict to be up-building and too up-building to be
strictly scientific (SKS 11, 117), he proclaims and proceeds to disclaim the latter by
saying that he has no opinion in this respect, whereas his opinion concerning the
former is that that is not the case. While we twitch at all this opinionating, de
silentio steps forth. He doesn’t have anything to say about opinions, although it
would seem that his opinion is that his time—the self-same speculative and
scientific time of Anti-Climacus—is selling out, since the doubt that used to fill a
life-time and the coming to faith that used to require a life-time have been replaced
by an over-eagerness of going beyond the doubt and faith alike. De silentio indeed
finds himself in a market of discount wholesale, where nothing seems to have the
value that it used to have, even the ideas have devaluated to such degree that he
worries if there will be any buyers left to place a bid (SKS 4, 101).
De silentio continues his reflections. Doubt and faith are put side by side—
and the problem of thinking that one has reached a conclusion on either, such that
one should be permitted to move on, is in both cases the point of wonder or
fainted admiration. How anyone can have a head great enough to move beyond
these by thinking the system, de silentio ridicules (SKS 4, 103). Doubt and faith,
placed side by side, are not established in explicit relation to one another, yet no
explicit distinction is made between them either. Rather, it seems that the
perspective is maintained: how is it possible to move beyond? While another

66 For this observation I am indebted—as also in so unaccountable many other respects—to my

colleague and friend Trine-Amalie Fogh Christiansen.

192
aspect of the same appears before us, the change in vocabulary concerning the two
is so slight that we are at first prone to think that he is merely repeating himself
(SKS 4, 102-103).
Anti-Climacus regains his speech, and this time without much concern for
opinion and doubt.

“Christelig bør nemlig Alt, Alt tjene til Opbyggelse. Den Art
Videnskabelighed, som ikke tilsidst er opbyggelig, er netop derved
uchristelig. Alt Christeligt maa i Fremstillingen have liighed med en Læges
Foredrag ved Sygesengen; om end kun den Lægekyndige forstaaer det, bør
dog aldrig glemmes, at det er ved Sygesengen (SKS 11, 117).”

We may therefore be excused to think that Anti-Climacus is talking about faith—

Christian faith—and yet faith is not mentioned by a word. What is in question here
is the manner of communication pertaining to the conference of what may be up-
building. Lecturing as the doctor by the sickbed, that is the form, the patient’s
possible inability to understand notwithstanding, but always keeping in mind that it
is by the sickbed. What does it mean to keep this in mind, though the patient
might not understand what is being said? Perhaps it means that whatever is said it
is for, to, and about the patient—the doctor is not lecturing in this case to show
how much he knows or to impress with his outstanding theoretical knowledge,
when it is by the sickbed it is this one concrete person to whom his reflections and
his speech are directed, taking into account this one particular patient whose illness
has brought him there. Anti-Climacus, then, is presumably not here to impress us,
but to build up, the way the doctor does when he is by the side of the bed. And
while the doctor knows, the art of his endeavor is to know that his knowledge is
not that of eternal truth, and his understanding of the patient does not go beyond
what he is able to detect in terms of symptoms. Still, when he is by the sickbed, his
role is to talk to this one particular patient with the concern of someone who
knows and cares, whose presence is itself serious, because he would not have been
called had the situation of the patient not called for serious concern.
Thus, Anti-Climacus proclaims, the form of his appearance or the
appearance of his words are not coincidental, but well thought through (SKS 11,
118). A style that would be more ceremonious (høitidelig) might not speak to us, he

193
says, because we are too familiar with its tune. That is, it takes a form that breaks
against what could be expected in order to pronounce what is about to be said,
such that we hear it—not merely as a reiteration. De silentio and Anti-Climacus
both take offence by the scientific (understood in Hegelian terms), but while our
latter character takes offence by pointing to the seriousness of life, which the
scientific distance passes by, our former character stages a ridicule of the system by
putting his own personality on the line. And what is the essence of this line is that
it cannot be cut up into paragraphs or syllables of equal length, that is, the attempt
to make him fit into the system will either be an assault or a misunderstanding
(SKS 4, 104). Anti-Climacus places himself outside science by saying that what it
does, does not come close to the aim of his endeavor, indeed, does not come close
to life (SKS 11, 117), while de silentio places himself outside the system by calling
himself an Extra-Skriver (SKS 4, 103), that is, someone whose writings are a
surplus, marked by being outside, ridiculing the idea of a system by making his
own person and his own writings appear as something that could not fit within.
And now, the poet. Two different dimensions of the poet may be seen—the
work as poetic production, and the poet as a concrete yet highly abstract character.
De silentio has spoken to us about doubt, the doubt, which was placed alongside
faith, and opposed to the scientific notion of having moved beyond. He tells us
likewise that he is not a philosopher—he doesn’t write the system. What then does
he write, what does he put before us? Say the doubt was a trial (Prøvelse) in the
basic sense of the word test (Prøve), so that the task of de silentio is to test over
and over again the doubt. Rather than moving beyond doubt to all the time move
into the doubt through a poetic re-conception of the same problem. Looking at
the contents of the work, we find the trial as test in this sense: the preface in which
the doubt is introduced as a genuine object of thinking selling out by wanting to
start after the doubt and after faith; the mood, which is introduced through the
story of a man to whom the problem of Abraham was or became the center of his
life and passion. Subsequently follow four moods, four poetic constructions of the
scenario with Abraham leaving home and heading off to mount Moriah with Isaac,
each followed by a different scenario of a mother who has to wean her baby from
the breast. Then follow the “Speech in praise of Abraham” in which doubt and
faith are once again placed side by side, but such that what characterizes Abraham

194
was faith without doubt, while the doubt lingers in the “var det ikke saaledes (SKS
4, 118)?” Then the “preliminary expectoration” of the “Problemata” of which
there are three. The question of Abraham is viewed from three different
perspectives or questions relative to the same problem, each of which reveal
different aspects relative to each question posed to the same. De silentio thus
poeticizes the audience into doubt, and the trial of Abraham inhabits the stage in
the form of a continuous test, re-opening in each step the faith to doubt and the
doubt to faith. That the perspective is not fixed to confine thought to a system,
but that another mood, another possible perspective on the problem is opened
through poetic re-positioning, facilitates that the audience may remain in doubt
relative to the problem of Abraham or may grasp the test of doubt as an
accentuation of faith, which nonetheless cannot in thought alone transgress the
possibility of doubt. In all this, de silentio may be seen not as a philosopher, as he
himself refuses in the introduction (SKS 4, 103), but as the poet who places the
doubt before us with ever renewed insistence. Doubt can be brought to us in this
manner, and faith?
In the “Speech in praise of Abraham” de silentio talks about the poet in
relation to the hero. The hero needs the poet in order to be remembered, the poet
needs the hero for his life is not the deed, but relating the deed, making
remembered the deed of the hero (SKS 4, 112). This idea stands in the midst of
the praise of Abraham, and as such seems to go counter to the manner in which
Abraham is portrayed—as the knight of faith and not as a hero, the former of
whose story is incommensurable (wherefore, presumably, the every comparison of
representation must return to be restated or restaged). Later in the same praise, we
find these words spoken by de silentio:

“Hvo styrkede Abrahams Arm, hvo holdt hans Høire opløftet, at den ikke
sank afmægtig ned! Den, der seer derpaa, han bliver lammet. Hvo styrkede
Abrahams Sjæl, at det ikke sortnede for hans Øie, saa han hverken saae Isaak
eller Væderen! Den, der seer derpaa, han bliver blind. – Og dog sjelden nok
er maaskee den, der bliver lam og blind, endnu sjeldnere den, der værdigen
fortæller, hvad der skete. Vi vide det Alle – det var kun en Prøvelse (SKS 11,
118).”

195
Who is this ‘even more rare one’ that narrates with dignity what happened? Who
but the poet, who but the one that in silence speaks with the doubtful mind of
always testing the trial by commencing in ever new ways the story of this knight?
Is he the one that gives Abraham the strength to keep his arm raised? He, at the
very least, changes our perspective to see that what is seen, is seen through the
eyes of someone whose praise it is not to let us forget. In a radical sense, then, the
trial of Abraham is not without its being to us through the poet 67.
The poet appears throughout The Sickness unto Death as a theme and a
fleeting image. But at one point in particular, Anti-Climacus halts and lingers for a
moment with the figure of the poet. At the beginning of the second part of the
work entitled “The despair is the sin”. As Anti-Climacus in our first encounter
with him placed himself in opposition to or outside of science, because science has
a distance to life that the Christianly up-building cannot allow itself, thus we now
meet the poet in a position that has worrying similarities to this characterization.
Similarities, at least insofar as there is in the poet also a distance to life, which—if
we were to draw the consequences of the scarcely unfolded criticism of science in
the beginning—disqualifies the poet as one whose manner can be up-building.
“Christelig betragtet er (trods al Æsthetik) enhver Digter-Existents Synd, den
Synd: at digte istedetfor at være, at forholde sig til det Gode og Sande gjennem
Phantasi istedenfor at være det, det er, existentielt stræbe at være det (SKS 11,
191).” And while the perceived fault of science is perhaps in many ways different,
what seems to be a common denominator is not to be able to grasp the
seriousness of existence due to the distance that lies either in being concerned
primarily with knowledge that is disinterested or primarily with phantasy that
departs from existence rather than strives to be in it. We may wonder, therefore, if
it is possible, according to this logic, to represent the troubles of existence without
falling into a passionate phantasy that in its distance to events (from which it gains
its overview and fantastic insight) makes itself guilty of communicating ‘that’, as if
it were a matter of knowledge, as if it were a science of sight. In other words, is it

67 Anne-Christine Habbard provides a reading of Fear and Trembling considered through the

significance of testimony (Habbard, 2002). She sets it in relation with time and the importance of
contemporaneity with the event through narration. As such, the reading here provided is inspired
by her.

196
so that by posing the problem of the poet as despair, the whole treatise on despair
despairs with it? Yet the role of the poet is exactly ambiguous (in a manner that
lends itself to existence, perhaps). While the poet has a distance to existence,
namely, that places him at odds with what he poeticizes, he is able better than any
to bring the image to life, that is, to make real before the spectator the scenarios
that he conjoins. Anti-Climacus says: “Men som hiin Digters Beskrivelse af
Elskov, saaledes har denne Digters Beskrivelse af det Religieuse en Fortryllelse, et
lyrisk Sving, som ingen Ægtemands og ingen Velærværdigheds. Det er heller ikke
usandt hvad han siger, ingenlunde, hans Fremstilling er just hans lykkeligere, hans
bedre Jeg (SKS 11, 192).” The poet is in this sense between existence and non-
existence, between the religious and the profane, he puts before us love or the
religious in a manner that not even the one whose life it is could do, but is at the
same time incapable of living according to his own representation. The similarity
that we encounter with de silentio is the ability of the poet to bring to life that
which he himself cannot live—to re-present without ever having been himself
present. But the poet about which Anti-Climacus speaks does not have his ‘better
I’ or his ‘better being’ relative to another human being or a hero as the idea (SKS 4,
112-113), but relative to his idea (Forestilling) of God, in the representation
(Fremstilling) of which he has his ‘better I’ (SKS 11, 192). Rather than the God-
relation (Gudsforholdet), as would appear to be one of the central concerns of The
Sickness unto Death, the poet then has merely a forestilling, it seems. The question is,
is this his thorn in the flesh—that his relation to God is but a re-presentation, that
is, a fantastic positioning before God that he cannot place as decisive in his
existence? But the even more decisive question to us is, where does that place the
poet relative to Anti-Climacus? Is his production poetic, and is his relation but a
re-presentation? That is, how is Fremstilling and Forestilling different to a Forhold?
The difference seems to lie in something being placed before, rather than set in
relation to. That is, being on stage, Anti-Climacus places something before us, but
the ‘real’ task seems to be to establish a relation (a presence) that cannot leave the
spectator untouched, nor the communicator unmoved. So he moves around, in
order for it not to be the case that we should fix our gaze upon him, as if he
represented knowledge that could be maintained, irrespectively of his trouble in
being before us as someone who seems to find that he should really be among

197
us—that he lies in the bed of the sick also. As spectators how do we relate his
productivity to the question that he likewise poses of existence and the proximity
to it that apparently we should not lose? It seems that the odd position of the poet
is to be the one who opens up the perspectives through which we are allowed to
contemplate at close range aspects of existence that are otherwise only palpable in
individual existences. This, however, does not seem to remove the difficulty of
Anti-Climacus, and with him the question of communication. What it means to be
on or off stage is a problem that lingers.
In all of this the question seems inherent: what is the relation between
poetry and existence, and what the relation between poet and poeticized? Anti-
Climacus and de silentio stand before us on stage, and their speech reaches us in
the audience. What they place before our eyes in their narration, they seem to
insist, is not that upon which we should fix our gaze, rather, their presence is a
transparency of the difficulty of communicating concerning existence. The
perspective lend to us by Anti-Climacus is by and large a systematizing
perspective—he places before us an analysis of despair in the becoming of the
self—but something like the note on the poet or the image of the doctor by the
sickbed appears to break against the systematizing effort and reveal a breach in the
endeavor. This breach is perhaps a reminder to the effect that we may always ask:
with what right does Anti-Climacus stand out as someone entitled to build-up?
The perspective of de silentio is to a different degree individuating, since he
relentlessly presents us with other possible approaches to the same question, and
in so doing allows for the doubt to remain. Neither de silentio, nor, and perhaps
especially not, Anti-Climacus present themselves as poets, but the poet as a
problem of representation in their works, as a problem of the relation between the
one who sets something before our eyes and his existing entitlement to do so,
brings them both to a point where it must be said that this problem pertains just as
much to their own productivity. That from which they stand out as
communicators is perhaps not a standing out from something, but an immanent
movement within the setting in which they speak. The silence of de silentio has
many words, and the role of Anti-Climacus as a doctor seems itself in the need of
treatment, but when they speak they reach us in the audience. That is, whatever

198
the role of their speech, their presence is audible and as such as palpable as
anything that we may want to understand by existence.

199
6TH SCENE
THE CHALLENGE OF AN ETHICS OF INCONTINENCE

When the last scene of this act begins, a whole number of beginnings have already
taken place. Each pseudonym, with the exception of Johannes Climacus and
Constantin Constantius, has entered the stage in one way or another. The
perspectives that their presence bring along have only just been touched upon, but
even in this touch we sense something of an irreducibility of their characters.
Irrespective of the problem at hand, there is something upon which they have
fixed their gaze, and the fixing and fluctuation of the gaze is what has had our
particular attention in this act. The differences bring into view not just a possible
question concerning the constitution of a perspective (the moods, the
contradictions, the situations to which they pertain), but of the existential merit
with which we engage in problems of any kind by providing one description or
another. In all this the question likewise arises: how do we live with the
differences?
In this last scene, we will be looking back (not it order to reiterate what has
been said, but in an attempt at maintaining the difficulty of the plurality that has
been opened up to us). We will be looking back in the oddly forward-facing sense
of repetition, and indeed, the point is not to recall, but to ask how we are able to
move on. The pseudonym who plays the lead role in this scene is Constantin
Constantius, but the voices of all other characters and pseudonyms that have
entered and left still resound from the wings. Between the meaning espoused and
the cracks in the same; between the singularity of the characters and their
perspectives, and the communication of their voices, we are now looking for a
manner to fathom the challenge that it may hold if we do not wish to do away
with that which possibly confronts any systematizing perspective we may come up
with, but also do not want to eradicate the notion of their presence being
meaningful. That the categories seem blurred (that is, philosophically impertinent)
is not a mistake, but taken as an indication of existence—from which something
or another may stand out more or less clearly, but such that the background upon
which it does so remains an image that does not lend itself to be grasped fully

200
(think here also of the image provided by Wittgenstein with the zerstreute Farbflecken
on a canvas).
So, here comes Constantius. Unlike the young man with which this act
began, he does not enter in repetition, he enters, rather, with the unconcerned
movement of Diogenes in the midst of demonstrating that there is such a thing as
movement. In this same simple manner, so we learn, Constantin is intending to
demonstrate to himself that repetition is possible. He intends to do so by going
back to Berlin where he has once before been. Constantin is convinced that
repetition will become a significant category in philosophy (SKS 4, 9), and goes on
to qualify his thoughts on the significance of repetition by way of a mixture of
argument and imagery. Already in this, the contrast between the concrete location
of Berlin and the abstract notion of philosophy—relating, so it would seem, to the
same idea—we may suspect that we are in for a ride. We are told that repetition
distinguishes itself from recollection by being “den samme Bevægelse, kun i
modsat Retning; thi hvad der erindres, har været, gjentages baglænds; hvorimod
den egentlige Gjentagelse erindres forlænds (SKS 4, 9).” What it means to recollect
in a forward movement is by and large the concern of Constantius, and although
he speaks with much authority—as he does also to the young man—it does not
cease to be a faltering speech. In this sense, the category of repetition becomes the
idea by which Constantius lives—it is what holds things together for him, in all its
vagueness and inconsistency, and yet, in eventually finding dismay with its
apparent impossibility in terms of his concrete attempts at practicing or achieving
it, it brings him to wander, but this time not in the careless manner in which he
entered stage, but in a restless pacing back and forth in his homelessness at home,
where everything has been placed in its place in order to resemble his idea of
repetition. Toward the end of his presence on stage, and before he introduces us
to the young man whose letters follow in repetition, he reveals his contentment
with the new idea of his—that repetition is not possible. Or rather, he claims to
have returned to his previous idea of life. Such as he left Berlin with the ironic
acknowledgement that repetition is not possible by having had this experience
repeated over and over again, such he now proclaims to have returned to his
previous idea of life by way of having been dissuaded of the possibility of

201
repetition (SKS 4, 45). For the time innumerable, we may therefore wonder what is
or was meant by repetition in the manner in which Constantius stages it.
To stay in the terminology, however, let us return to a few points that
Constantin does provide in relation to how he understands repetition. We are
presented with questions of what is significant or essential relative to what must be
understood as contingent. Of course, the essential understanding of life is brought
about by way of one’s ability to live according to repetition (SKS 4, 10). Repetition,
that is, this apparently aspiring significant category of philosophy in which the
two—essential and contingent—seem to be constantly interlaced. In other words,
that the representation of repetition takes place as much in terms of what may,
according to Constantius’ own logic, be determined contingent as it does in terms
of what would be essential. Another aspect is that it renews what has been, or
rather, that repetition allows the same to be repeated in ways that always revitalizes
it: “Gjentagelsens Dialektik er let; thi det, der gjentages, har været, ellers kunne det
ikke gjentages, men netop det, at det har været, gjør Gjentagelsen til det Nye (SKS
4, 25).” In the end we meet an antagonist to the idea of repetition, which seems no
less illuminating. Having regained his old idea—or ideal—of repetition not being
possible, of life being like that of a play, the end of which no one knows; like that
of a fleeting river, he proclaims that his instrument is the postal horn. It can never
be played twice such that the same note rings from it. Yet, on this note, one might
wonder, does that not qualify it for the category of repetition? Is not the playing it
always the same and thereby renewing its sound not also a kind of repetition? In
any case, it is not entirely clear neither how the idea nor how the disruption of it
are to be distinguished. Perhaps this is so partly because the idea itself is
sufficiently vague to allow it, partly because the seeming contingent little details of
Constantin’s narration seem to play such a vital part in the exposition of it, whence
the possible confusion is inherent.
And now, let us turn to the repetition of the third act, and the suggested
ethics of incontinence. The idea of Constantius that turns out not to be able to
find a proper home in the river of life, gives us an impression of the difficulty of
the themes that have guided the act. At once his idea is guiding to his presence on
stage, what he talks about, and how he talks about it (the essential), and it seems to
be by way of everything that speaks against it (the contingent). Without the idea,

202
there would be no backdrop upon which the inconsistencies could stand out, but
the backdrop cannot lend itself to us in a coherent unity, that is, its ideal cannot
transcend the difficulty of being an idea that pertains to the immanence of its
setting. Likewise, the distinction between essential and contingent seems essential,
so to speak, but in the setting of Constantin it becomes apparent that such
distinction is not easily maintained as a contextless endeavor. This does not mean,
however, that we would have any trouble mostly to determine what we find to be
either one or the other, but it does cast a different light on the way in which we
may be inclined to apply this distinction—as self-evident. The plurality of voices
that resound from the wings remind us that Constantin’s voice was not the only
one to be heard. What they make us see, what their descriptions revealed to us, is
meaningful, but not meaningful unto itself. That is, they are not foundational (such
as the ideal of Constantin turns out not to be). In this sense, ethics is the ethos of
where the wild horses are, the homelessness of establishment. When they run wild,
the horses, they disturb, perhaps, the idyllic tranquil of the open fields, but without
their untamed galloping, the fields would be unmoved—there would be nothing to
reveal their usual, unconcerned quietness. The homelessness becomes home when
the disruption of its calm surface disperses as a crest that rises from it. The
difficulty is not to see this, the difficulty is to see this and not go blind—either due
to the particular that allows nowhere for the eyes to rest or to the universal that
paints its picture wide and bright. The incontinence lies in not being able to retain
judgment in matters of existence, that is, that what stands out (in any way that we
do when we go about existing), stands so that a description may hold it as
something. But the incontinence lies also in the possibility of such judgment to be
surprised—by the encounter of a different aspect of the same standing out,
requiring other words, other ways of relating to it. This does not give way to a
theory of ethics, but ethics of incontinence that does not tire of returning always to
the same, by way of the many voices, by way of an ideal that silences some of
them, but does not choke them altogether. Every expression given to this,
however, seems to be in danger of establishing itself as true, as if beyond all thus
and so. And now the question may well arise: from which perspective is this
spoken? What does this say about the theater, and the communication that appears
to have established all of this so self-assuredly? Is this too a kind of blindness, like

203
the one Constantius experienced on his trip to Berlin— that in his want to find the
affirmation of repetition had become so overshadowed by the idea that, indeed, he
was unable to enjoy all the details of the trip, even to notice and appreciate
anything in all in his want for the self-fulfillment of what he sought to find (SKS 4,
43)?

204
 4TH ACT
THE FIFTH ACT HAS GONE MISSING

In the third act we were introduced to the many different pseudonymous voices,
but one is still missing (apart from some other authoring characters that will be
introduced in this act as well)—that of Johannes Climacus. This last act is in many
ways dedicated to him, although he appears with all the other voices alongside
him, and although other characters will make their entry onto stage in this act
likewise, they are now heard or they now appear also in the light of Climacus’
appearance. The third act was meant to open up to the plurality, to leave the
differences stand out in their difference. The fourth act is concluding but not
conclusive. It takes up—with Climacus—the challenge of communicating when by
so doing the wish is not to arrive at a result, that is, when communication is not
aiming at communicating that, but at communicating despite the lack of some-thing
communicated or, perhaps better, when that which is communicated can only be
presented in at the same time putting itself into question. The fourth act is a kind
of meta-act on stage, the role of which is to consider different aspects of the
problem at arriving at ‘the end’, and in this the problem of not arriving at the end
while still communicating. It would seem that in the description and expression
inherent in the act there is something definite, but the question is—with
Wittgenstein in mind—how definite we may understand the expression. What
meets in this question is, among other things, the meaning conveyed to us as
spectators through different descriptions and expressions as something
understandable, that is, as something the meaning of which can be made shared,
and the individuality with which expression is given.
As expressed in the first act, I do not wish to quench the other pseudonyms
in a unifying perspective, but the claim here will be that the individuality of the
different voices may be seen as arising out of the breakdown of the idea of indirect
communication, and in this sense the voice of Climacus may be heard as giving
expression to a quest for formulating concisely an idea that is established by the
inter-punctuation of its own impossibility.

205
 Allowing this perspective to enter the stage with Climacus is complicated by
the fact that it is a perspective that relies on blurring a clear view—or to make
difficulties everywhere (SKS 7, 172). With Climacus we may therefore underline
two aspects of the previous act, which resonate in different ways: a perspective is
always given, granted that any question arises to an existent; the attempt to
encapsulate a perspective may always be disturbed, granted that the perspective is
in existence. Therefore, the difficulty of his ‘method’ shows itself in being
constantly disrupted by the contradictions of its own design—contradictions,
which at the same time affirm and deny the idea of thinking the necessity of
existential differences in existence. Climacus therefore provides one perspective,
which allows us to see the weaknesses in having but one ‘systematizing’
perspective, which is—even by its own ‘definition’—constantly challenged by the
individuating perspectives for which it tries to make room. I do not wish to say
with—or against—Climacus that his ‘systematizing’ perspective can help us to
understand and settle the individuality of all the other pseudonyms. What I do
wish to claim is that in the systematizing perspective of Climacus is contained the
downfall of its own systematization, that is, that in the breakdown of the
perspective arise the plurality of individuating perspectives that cannot be
contained within one perspective, one manner of thinking, one existence that
explains or makes palpable all existence.
We may in this see a certain parallel to Wittgenstein’s attempt to avoid a
theory of language. The difficulty is how to make such an attempt viable without it
resulting in yet another theory of language.
The act is divided into six scenes, and based upon the following themes: the
missing fifth act (in which enter Climacus and Johannes the Seducer), a deliberate
confusion of spheres and a deliberating attack on the confusion of spheres (Frater
Taciturnus and Climacus), the fifth act and indirect communication (Climacus),
what arises out of the breakdown of indirect communication (Climacus—and the
indirect presence of the other pseudonyms), aspects within a perspective (William
Afham—and indirectly the guests from the banquet—and Judge Vilhelm), trapped
on stage (Climacus). In the last scene we return to consider some of the major
themes that have been sketched out, and to the question of ethics of incontinence.

206
1ST SCENE
THE FIFTH ACT HAS GONE MISSING

In the first scene of this act Climacus appears on stage. He is a thirty-year-old man
from Copenhagen. One as people are most, as he says (SKS 7, 25). In this scene he
does not appear to present himself, but to present a problem, which is a condition
of the last act of this play and a concern that involves on some level the different
problems of the play as a whole. While uttering his concern, he walks patiently
back and forth on stage, while his gaze is fixed directly at the spectators who glean
the harvest of this seed that is planted but never becomes ripe.
The fifth act has not gone missing, the fifth act is missing as a condition of
our existence. But thinking in abstraction from existence or thinking abstractly
about existence seems to compel the idea of something being in place as the end,
which we can reach with our minds and thus explain the darkness of existence by
way of a finalizing moment from which it all makes sense. The fifth act is brought
about three times by Climacus as an image. It is not made out to be a problem
onto its own, but is an indication of a problem that is taken to underlie or be the
point of critique of other problems that Climacus perceives. Unlike Sganarell,
Climacus is not looking for the missing act, but taking it as a point of ridicule to
certain ways of thinking that try to ignore that they do not have knowledge of the
end that would grant the certainty of the beginning and the trajectory as well. The
setting in this scene changes four times, such that the problem of the missing fifth
act appears on different backdrops. The first three take place while Climacus is still
walking back and forth at the edge of the stage, while the last change of setting
likewise introduces Johannes the Seducer as an example of an existent who makes
the grandeur of the fifth act the leading motif in his whereabouts and his
reflection, and not least, in his relation to other human beings.
The first setting upon which Climacus mentions the fifth act is that of
philosophy and speculative thought. More precisely, the background is that of the
system and the twofold consideration that: a system of logic can be given (SKS 7,
106ff.); a system of existence (Tilværelse) cannot be given (SKS 7, 114ff.). It is the
latter, which is the immediate background here, but of course the two are

207
connected or the reasoning behind them is. The idea is that in logic there is no
movement, whereas existence is characterized by it. And, connected with this, that
there is no conclusion to existence which lends explanation to existence in
existence.

“Abstract seet lader System og Tilværelse sig ikke tænke sammen, fordi den
systematiske Tanke for at tænke Tilværelse maa tænke den som ophævet,
altsaa ikke som tilværende. Tilværelse er det Spatierende, der falder ud fra
hinanden: det Systematiske er Afsluttetheden, der slutter sammen (SKS 7,
114).”

What is emphasized by Climacus in this thought is that no one—be it a speculative

thinker or not—can put him- or herself outside this lack of finalization in
existence. Even that which is gone can still only be understood from within
existence by an existent and not as such, not as if existence could be thought as
annulled by being thought systematically. In this sense Climacus takes issue with
the idea that an acumen of knowledge can bring us closer to understanding
existence—that a system of existence can be thought out in other words, by one
or by many (SKS 7, 115-116). Saying that existence is det Spatierende, which falls
apart is the image to keep in mind here. If there were an end to it, something
definite, then meaning could be gathered that would reveal a connection between
the fragments, but the end is not outside of its own puzzle. So the issue taken here
is with speculation, more specifically with Hegelian speculation (SKS 7, 106), but
likewise with any speculative endeavor ‘in general’. The speculative project is in
other words taken to presuppose a clarity of its scope and a completeness in its
striving, which undermines the fragments of existence and upholds a necessity in
things past.
Climacus now exclaims the following: “Spekulativt-phantastisk og
æsthetisk-phantastisk har man en positiv Afsluttethed i Systemet og i Dramaets
femte Akt, men en saadan Afsluttethed er kun for phantastiske Væsener (SKS 7,
117).” In a play the fifth act may be expected to reveal the puzzle-pieces that make
it all fall into place, but this, as it were, is not the condition and a resolution
possible to existing human beings, if we take Climacus’ word for it. That we may
or may not take Climacus’ word for it is, of course, a problem of dimensions that

208
have repercussions throughout our acquaintance with him. We will return to this
problem later. To be fantastic is something other, then, than being an existent, and
when we exit the theater we are still confronted with the life that lies before us
from which the fifth act constantly seems to withdraw itself. Climacus makes a
connection between the ethical and the constant striving, which he takes to stand
in the place of the missing fifth act (SKS 7, 116-117). To be constantly striving is
understood as an ethical attitude accepting that one is in existence, that is, that the
deed is never done no matter what is done, because the finalization does not ensue
while in existence. That this should be ethical is also to say something about the
ethical—that pertaining to existence by being in the striving of the existent, ethics
is likewise subject to the subject whose striving it is, and as such not an ideal per
se, but an ideal per persona in existentiam.
Now, the backdrop changes. This time it is not that of the system, but a
bleaker one, which does not hold the promise of resolution but an impenetrable
darkness. It is a background which seems to promise an end, namely that of death.
However, the end that awaits us in death is no less complicated than the end of
the system, because it is an end that we shall never know—while in existence. In
bringing along death as a topic, Climacus is making an effort to demonstrate how
“det simpleste Problem forvandler sig til det vanskeligste (SKS 7, 153)”, wherefore
there is no reason to strive to find more complicated matters to worry about—the
ones that may appear to need no particular attention soon show to hold infinite
concern, because they are never finalized to us who are able to ask. Death, then, is
an example of such a problem, perhaps the example par excellence. Climacus
starts listing what he knows about death—“hvad saadan Folk i Almindelighed
veed (SKS 7, 153)”, as he says. Oddly enough he starts by listing things that we
know would kill us: taking acid, jumping into the water, and sleeping in carbon
fumes. In some sense, this is perhaps the most obvious antagonism to staying
alive—if we want to avoid instilling death upon ourselves, we have to avoid such
things. Said differently, he starts by factual knowledge in order to show how little
is said by stating the facts about death with which we are all familiar, and ends the
exposition of facts with the following words: “Men see, trods denne næsten
ualmindelige Viden eller Videns Færdighed kan jeg ingenlunde ansee Døden for
Noget, jeg har forstaaet (SKS 7, 154).” Again therefore, what constitutes the

209
difficulty is ‘the end’. In the case of death it is something that we can know in the
sense that we all know we are going to die. But this knowledge, if taken merely as
such is something that we are soon done with. Climacus is trying to bring to the
fore how radical it is, however, the thought that I am going to die. A thought which is
connected with the utter uncertainty of death, that I am unable to know when or
how and what it means that I am going to die. The certainty of the fifth act of a
tragedy, nonetheless, is that the hero will die. We know this even before entering
the theater, and the tragedy is that it cannot be evaded. By virtue of knowing this
we already see the beginning in a different light. Knowing the end is knowing the
beginning differently too, and this is exactly what we are not granted relative to
our own existence. I know that at every moment I could die, but I do not know
the moment and I do not know what that moment wants from me, and this is
where existence holds something against me that I cannot understand. The fifth
act of my existence is not to me, but must at every moment be present as part of
what it means to exist.
Once again the setting changes behind Climacus. This time the stage
receives a sacral backdrop, and the last mentioning of the fifth act is in relation to
Christianity. Christianity, says Climacus, “har nu selv forkyndt sig at være den
evige væsentlige Sandhed, der er blevet til i Tiden, den har forkyndt sig som
Paradoxet, og fordret Troens Inderlighed i Forhold til hvad der er Jøder en
Forargelse og Græker en Daarskab – og Forstanden det Absurde (SKS 7, 195).”
What is the challenge of this offence to understanding is that one must believe in
lieu of understanding. Any attempt at making faith probable in making that which
is to be believed likely, such as to satisfy the mind, is in the context of faith an
offence. This means, to Climacus, that objective thinking and understanding can
never bring us one step closer to faith, but only be instantiated as an abstraction—
both as abstract thinking, which removes us from existence and our own
individual existence in which faith has its place, and as an abstraction in the sense
of distracting our efforts from that which is at stake by leading our minds to other,
seemingly related but nonetheless contingent, circumstances. Climacus talks of a
distinction between subjective and objective and holds (and in so holding
somewhat lecturing the spectators) that only by maintaining the objective
uncertainty of Christianity in infinite subjective passion can one gain faith, and that

210
this is a movement which is never finalized; it requires a great and ongoing strain
of each one striving to have and to gain faith. This is the arrival at the enigmatic
assertion that subjectivity is the truth (SKS 7, 195).
Turning the spectator’s gaze away from and then back to this statement,
which all too easily resembles a true proposition that may therefore be memorized
and restated ad infinitum until its enigma may be forgotten for the total
stupefaction with how well it rings in the mouth of each individual pronouncer,
who nonetheless becomes lesser of an individual for each excited pronunciation of
it according to its own problematic content, Climacus now says the following:
“Inderligere kan det ikke udtrykkes, at Subjektiviteten er Sandheden, end naar
Subjektiviteten i sit Første er Usandheden, og dog Subjektiviteten Sandheden (SKS
7, 195).” It is in connection with this added perspective that Climacus initiates a
longer list of ‘what if’s’ in relation to Christianity, and the first one to be stated
includes the last mentioning of the fifth act. “Sæt Christendommen var og vil være
en Hemmelighed, saadan en Hemmelighed tilgavns, ikke en theatralsk
Hemmelighed, der bliver aabenbar i femte Akt, medens den snedige Tilskuer
allerede gjennemskuer den i Expositionen (SKS 7, 195).” We are thus invited to
hold together a number of different elements here: that of truth, time, paradox,
understanding, the absurd, inwardness, subjectivity, untruth, Christianity, secret,
theater, the (missing) fifth act, the spectator, and the exposition, which initiates the
play—in relation to the fifth act. The relation between them all seems to be,
granted that the fifth act is missing, that faith relates to uncertainty, there is no
resolution except to accept the end that is not given in every moment that we
confirm our existence through faith in that which cannot be given to us in
existence—the fifth act. In this sense the secret, the truth of Christianity becomes
the missing fifth act, according to the lack of which we are challenged to believe.
In this belief subjectivity is the untruth, which can find no other truth than
believing in that which it believes, despite its own inability to know the truth
beyond faith.
Another way of putting it is that subjectivity as truth and untruth are two
aspects of the same thought. One is said to be primary, presumably because it is its
untruth that qualifies the other thought. In being untrue, truth is maintained in the
fifth act, which doesn’t ensue. And subjectivity, insofar as it is true, is true to the

211
secret that doesn’t reveal its fifth act, and therefore its only exposition lies in a
description that can just as well express its truth as its untruth, since neither can be
qualified beyond it—relative to an end that is more and other than a secret. ‘What
if’ is in this sense not rhetoric, it is the means of description by which the missing
fifth act is not sideways included by being after all knowable somehow.
At this point we hear one of the spectators moving about uneasily in his
chair. It is Arne Grøn who has a point relating to the matter that is pressing him to
interrupt. Grøn wants to stress the concern of ‘relating to’, that the individual is in
truth when it relates to the truth in truth (Grøn, 1997, 315). But in this thought
about ‘relating to’ lies already a claim on truth, which anticipates something about
the missing fifth act. It is thus a radical change of aspect to stress the void by
reformulating the ‘description’, saying that subjectivity as truth must have as its
prior that subjectivity is untruth 68.
Behind the setting of every utterance on the fifth act resonates still the fight
against the system, as that which finalizes by knowing. It is set in relation to the
speculative want for a finalization of the system, in relation to the uncertainty of
death, and finally in relation to Christianity, and for each move our gaze wanders
to consider the same difficulty from different perspectives that in each their way
maintain the latent and complicated view that we cannot know the end of the
road, wherefore any attempt to justify our every step is fractured against the
darkness of existence. This darkness of the missing fifth act is the setting of our
fourth, and we shall consider the remaining scenes, and the suggestion of an
enlightening perspective by Climacus (in relation to our third act too) in the light
of this darkness.
As a final gesture let us briefly consider a character to whom the fifth act
seems to constitute his whereabouts in existence. The setting changes for the last
time in this scene to the mild spring tones of Copenhagen, and unto stage comes
Johannes the Seducer. He is, as it were, in the midst of a story of seduction. His
category is that of the interesting, and that lends a special challenge in relation to
the subject of this scene as that of the missing fifth act. Johannes presents himself,

68 This question is given thorough treatment in Grøn (Grøn, 2006).

212
namely, as an individual who immensely enjoys the immediacy of the interesting,
but at the same time takes pride in shaping it—with his vigilant gaze and his
intuition of subsuming what is interesting around him partly in relation to his
ability to watch and by watching making the minutest little details of his
surroundings stand out as interesting, and partly by setting up the stage of life
surrounding him continuously so that he can make of the stories what he wills. In
this sense his presence is at the same time guided by the interest in the unknowing
of what appears and his curiosity for bringing it into his further reflections that
make reality and dream converge (SKS 2, 334), and by the desire to control the
moment of highest interest in which reflection sets off to fly high above the world
and let go of reality to a point of completion and perfection of the dream and the
plan that much resembles the clarity of the fifth act (SKS 2, 431).
Johannes appears in all glamour as a man of the world, a man who knows
how to make the world bend down to him, how to control even the fiery winds to
the inclination of his thought. And yet, there seems to be a (hidden) insecurity in
his stallion-like superiority to the lowly people who go about existence, and
particularly erotic love, as people do most. We may look at Johannes the Seducer
and just as well assess that his manner of existence is indeed the most open-ended
that one might be able to imagine, since he never seems to want to finalize
anything but merely remain in the sphere of possibilities. However, his encounter
with Cordelia wages a story in him that is all about arriving at the final moment,
the climax, in which reflection gives way to the enjoyment of immediacy, where
both he and Cordelia give themselves up to each other in freedom. A moment,
which to him can be only that, because that is the expression of the utmost of
interest. On a smaller scale he likewise has the world before him as a storybook
that lends him constant surprises (mainly of young girls that appear in his wake
and stir the enjoyment of a storyteller who has the means to know their destiny),
which by means of reflection he fits into a story that has its own explanation and
reasoning. Thus, we are reminded that having a fifth act is not just an explanation
at the end, but that it lends a different light to the whole story.
Johannes says of Cordelia: “Hun lever nu hen i al sin stille Fred; hun ahner
endnu ikke, at jeg er til, endnu mindre, hvad der foregaar i mit Indre, endnu
mindre den Sikkerhed, med hvilken jeg skuer ind i hendes Fremtid (SKS 2, 324)”,

213
and from this point on the appearance of Johannes tends toward the end that he
establishes, the completion of his love story according to his own ideal of a such,
the fifth act in which it all comes together as planned with all the right moods in
place, and then the curtain drops. The last words from Johannes are to let us
know—or let himself know—that the story ends here (SKS 4, 432). The love that
he wanted has been done. In between there are other stories and moments that
catch his curious eyes, but the completion of this one is the completion of the
play. There is something almost frightening in the manner in which he wants to
change the constitution of Cordelia so that she may fit—yet fit in freedom, as he
says—the fifth act that he has in mind. He is a poet, one might be inclined to say,
whose relation to the world is Verstellung. He doesn’t just go to the theater, he
makes of the whole world his stage, and tries to arrange everything around as if he
were the director of a great play. Why, however, might this seem frightening to us
as spectators of a monologue that wasn’t meant for the world? Does it not count,
remembering Grøn’s utterance before, as a way of relating in truth by Johannes
being true to his ideal category of the interesting? Is it not possible that we should
tend toward a goal and shape the world around us as we strive in its direction? Can
we establish a fifth act in our existence and relate to it, and to ourselves in it, in
truth? The problem of these questions was indirectly raised in different ways in the
third act, and the main one is what it means to live without a fifth act and whether
it be possible. This brings us to the next scene, which asks about spheres and the
confusion of them. The open-endedness of the play thus far holds the danger of
confusing categories by not locking anything properly into its place. And the
introduction of Johannes the Seducer in this scene might have us ask whether or
not it is to confuse categories to bring in a character who seems to live for the
moment and the interesting in life in relation to the question of the missing fifth
act. We turn toward the categories.

214
2ND SCENE
A DELIBERATE CONFUSION OF SPHERES AND A DELIBERATING
ATTACK ON THE CONFUSION OF THE SPHERES

The first thing to be considered in this scene is the title that it proposes. Aside
from all the other words, two of them might stand out as peculiar in light of the
insistence on the individuality of the pseudonyms and the attempt to consider their
internal and external contradictions without pointing to one particularly
authoritative voice within them. Deliberate and deliberating. In order for
something to be deliberate, one would expect someone to whom it was so. The
question nonetheless begs the question. The question is namely thrown back upon
the thought that the importance lies in that it arises to someone who is an existent
in existence, and the existent (or indeed existents) relative to each work is at the
same time a reminder of the existence of the one asking to the work by way of
reading the text. Indeed, akin to the actor on stage and her or his performance
being to the audience. Therefore, deliberate in this context is taken to mean that it
is in the text or in the performance that it holds something before our eyes.
Something, which reflects in thought existence, from which the former cannot but
in confusion depart and due to which it must retain a kind of confusion. In other
words, I take it that the critique of ‘speculative thought’ arrests itself if unable to
allow the kind of confusion with which existence confronts us in having unclear
bounds in signification. This, however, stands alongside a critique of a confusion
of categories in which the ridicule is to simultaneously want to uphold categories
as if separable from existence and confuse them according to their logical form.
The deliberating attack on confusion is easier to see, because it is an explicit theme
in several of the pseudonymous writings, while the deliberate confusion is
reflected in the manner of presentation, but not in the same way explicated.
The choice of the concept of spheres here is due to the following
considerations: spheres have been a returning point of discussion in literature on
Kierkegaard and the pseudonymous works. Sometimes they have been understood
in relation to the so-called existence spheres of which different pseudonyms make
mention and case (for example Judge Wilhelm, Frater Taciturnus, Climacus, and
H.H.). Accordingly, a line has sometimes been sought drawn between the different
215
spheres (primarily the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious—sometimes also
including the ironic and the comic). While the spheres are irrefutably present in
different ways in the pseudonymous works, it is quite a task—and quite possibly a
confused task—to attempt keeping them rigorously apart. Spheres, furthermore,
seem to be set in relation with existence rather than categories, which are of
‘abstract thought’. When I nonetheless use the two concepts more or less
interchangeably here it is to stress the point relating to existence; that thought has
a commitment to relate to it, because neither can be divorced from the other in a
meaningful way.
Furthermore, the thoughts of this perceived opposition (between deliberate
and deliberating) is inspired by Genia Schönbaumsfeld (2007), who operates only
with one side of the coin—the question of a confusion of spheres relative to
Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. Her concern with this question is dedicated to the
question of religion, but the idea that she espouses has been decisive to this scene.
It was in relation to her considerations on this subject, namely, that the thought of
a different kind of (deliberate) confusion present in the pseudonymous works
occurred to me. The basic outline of her argument is posed against the backdrop
of other commentators whose views she presents and then refutes based on her
reading of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. The thrust of the matter is that one is
derailed—or in the midst of a confusion of spheres—if one wants to argue for or
against religion as if it were just another field of knowledge, the arguments and
probability of which can be discussed and assessed like those of any other kind of
knowledge (Schönbaumsfeld, 2007, 172). Contained in this objection to
intellectualization of faith lies also the reflection that faith requires something
more and other than mere knowledge; to have faith is a way of life that colors the
existence of the one who has it (Schönbaumsfeld, 2007, 174). This, she says, holds
for both the manner in which Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein understand
(Christian) faith. So, the confusion that she refers to aims at wanting to understand
belief according to categories that do not allow on the one hand doctrine—as
something that one knows as a believer—and a radical change in (or impact on)
one’s way of life without which this doctrine becomes empty chatter. In other
words, as ‘intellectualizers’ we run the risk of confusing categories by confusing
spheres of existence.

216
 What I wish to show in this scene is that despite the fact that we do find in
the different pseudonymous writings an accusation of a confusion of spheres or
categories (and that not only relating to faith), we likewise find a deliberate
confusion of them. The point of this confusion, so it seems, is related to existence.
It is one thing, namely, to keep categories clear and neatly apart in ‘abstract
thought’, in which the aim may be in different ways to gain clarity in relation to
problems that are easily confused. It is yet another how this kind of clarity plays in
when thinking engages with existence in a manner that is concerned with not
letting go of the thought and the reminder to the existent engaging in this kind of
thinking that he or she is all the while in existence. In existence it is a complex
matter to separate what often appears in a great mess, and part of the point here is
that just like the possible confusion in any given situation, a level of confusion is
maintained by the pseudonyms in their writings (and their present appearance
before us). In other words, the confusion consists in an insistence on the
inseparability of thought and existence. While avoiding confusion of categories in
some sense therefore is a means of clarity, in another it may be a misunderstanding
of just how much clarity we can obtain while insisting that existence and thought
cannot be separated.
We may see this twofold confusion also in the light of what Wittgenstein
says about philosophy and language. Philosophy, has a manner of asking questions
in which language is taken out of the context from which it gains sense. Thus, part
of the challenge is to avoid language that simply runs idle, engaging nothing in the
engine as part of which it could have a function. At the same time, there seems to
be a critique of thinking that we can equally stringent define the delineation of
every concept, whereas Wittgenstein stresses that to different concepts apply very
different measures of exactness. We may think of the image that he paints in PU in
which language is presented like the locomotive of a train (PU/ TS 227, 12). Here
we have a number of different handles that all look similar but serve very different
purposes. Now, it is one kind of confusion to think that we do not need to know
the individual functions of each handle in order to operate the train, it is quite
another, however, to think that by describing the similar appearance of all the
handles we have described the entire function of the whole train, but it is not
irrelevant to be able to see the similarity of the different handles in order to

217
understand what it means to operate a train. If we confuse one handle with
another, it may have fatal consequences, but if we do not understand that it can
have that because it is part of a bigger machinery, which is much more complex
than simply the handles, then our understanding of the handles will likewise be
misplaced.
A question that one might ask relating to the matter of situation and
confusion as here suggested is whether there be anything left for philosophy to do
if we take away the construction of a meaningful conceptual framework within
which a clarification of some problem or another may take place? If the confusion
which on some level is instilled in thought by way of existence or the other way
around is granted, then what is the task of the existent thinker other than to admit
that he or she does not have the capacity to provide a perspective from which the
clash between particularity and authority can be given any expression that does not
in the same instance contradict itself? Given the fact that we are writing and
reading, the difficulty is at least on some level provided expression, and in this
particular case the stage is constructed such as to present a setting in which
situations can be played out and allow us at once participation and some sort of
contemplation. However, if the stage gains a unique explanatory power, it has
likely failed what it was set up to bring into view as problematic. A confusion of
spheres and categories can be many different things, depending on where we look,
but the important part in this respect is perhaps that just as we may want to say
that questions relating to an existent can be confused with the answer of
objectivity, just as the poetic can be confused with reality, just as the religious can
be confused with the pathos of the aesthetic, thus the confusion can be to think
that these are worlds apart and therefore unrelated or un-relatable in existence.
Let us turn to the stage upon which Frater Taciturnus makes his appearance.
He enters in a small boat with his friend, the scientist. They are in the same boat
but sailing along on different premises; Frater Taciturnus in the name of
friendship and curiosity, his friend in the name of science (SKS 6, 176). With the
instrument of scientific research, which Taciturnus takes to playing around with
for a little while, while his friend is studying his own findings, he soon contrives to
pull out of the water a wooden box containing, among other things, a notebook.
Much else is not given for us to understand in this our first encounter with the

218
frater, than that there was a notebook in a box, the content of which is what
follows. However, it is not entirely clear whether F.T., whom we meet in the boat
is the same as the Frater Taciturnus who returns some time later to provide a
postscript to the diary of the young man, the Quidam, who exposes his heart and
his love story in the space between these. One peculiar remark, however, is the
following: “Thi en psychologisk rigtig Tegning, der ikke spørger, om der har levet
et saadant Menneske, beskæftiger maaske mindre vor Tid, hvor selv Poesien har
grebet til det Middel at ville virke som Virkelighed (SKS 6, 179).” Perhaps this is a
remark to pose a problem of his own appearance. For in our encounter with
Taciturnus we meet at once the one who discovers, by way of quote on quote
scientific terms, the content of what is later presented, and yet the content, so we
later learn, is an experiment by Taciturnus. In other words, it is brought about in
thought and poetic production, but pretends to be real by having us see it in the
arrival of the boat, on the lake, in the name of science, friendship, and curiosity.
Confused is therefore from the outset the story of Quidam and the relation to
Taciturnus and the opening scene. And yet the Frater has an agenda of
distinctions. Firstly, in that he and his friend are present in the same setting with
an approach to the same pool of water that makes them discover very different
things, and that the finding of Taciturnus makes no impression on the scientist,
since he assumes it not to be in the name of science—indeed, when asking what
he has found, he expects no reply for it makes no difference to his business (SKS
6, 177). They are, in other words, in the same world yet worlds apart. Secondly,
when the Frater makes a little theatrical spin around and turns back to us after the
many painstaking words by Quidam, he reveals his business with Quidam as being
toward the religious (SKS 6, 369), and following his first little reflection on the
matter, in which again the religious seems to vanish in aesthetic reflections he
proceeds to state 6§§ in which distinctions are drawn and again blurred in relation
to the problem of the poetic, erotic love story and the religious toward which it is
said to tend. The details of these accounts are not so much the point of this scene,
but the setting of it is. Taciturnus operates with different means of keeping
categories apart, and therefore not confused, such as poetry, love, pathos
(passion), the immediate and reflection (§1), the tragic, the comic, reality, ideality,
the erotic (immediate), and the ethical (§2), and so forth through the different

219
reflections. However, if despite his efforts of keeping things apart, so that their
relation may stand forth more clearly we do not see that the love story of religion
is one of confusion, and that this confusion has been pulled out of the same depth
as that of science, then his efforts would wither away in an unsurpassable amount
of inconsistencies. Before he turns around to leave the stage, we receive a last sum
of considerations in his words of closure. If it was difficult before to keep his
position relating to the whole exposition straight, now it seems impossible, and
when he leaves the stage with the following words:

“Saa bekymrer Eder slet ikke om ham, lader Eder ikke forstyrre af ham, han
har ikke kunnet legitimere sig som Befuldmægtiget i Tiden, han er ikke
Mand for at hitte paa det Allermindste, som Tiden kunde fordre, ikke istand
til at gjøre et eneste Forslag, eller med positiv Alvor at træde frem i en
bekymret Stilling ved Tanken om Øieblikkets store Opgave; men hidser ham
ikke, thi saa kunde han muligen blive farlig, lader ham gaae for hvad han er,
en Spotter og en Sværmer in uno, en Spidsborger in toto, en Bedrager, den
rene Negation. Gjører I det, saa er han ingen Forfører.« Ak! Ak! Ak! hvilken
Lykke, at der ingen Læser er, som læser heelt ud, og hvis saa var, den Skade
at man faaer Lov at skjøtte sig selv, naar det er det Eneste, man ønsker, er jo
ligesom Molboernes Straf, der de kastede Aalen i Vandet. Dixi (SKS 6,
454).”

It is not even possible to be sure, whether he is talking about himself or Quidam

or both or someone else entirely. What is apparently clear is that the religious was
his task or his concern, and that he has found in this task only so much clarity as
to know that it is a task of a lifetime, and that he is a sophist, as he says, for
although he sees the religious from all sides, he does not become the religious
(SKS 6, 447-448). But he falls from this back into his city and back into his
language, which provide for him the vast plurality of life and expression (SKS 6,
448-451), that is, from the distinctions and the categories of thinkers and his
thinking he is tied to the existence that it must reflect or to the ideality of the stage,
which he then leaves with the words “I have spoken”, not knowing if there was
one single audience left in the theater to hear.

220
 Climacus makes his appearance once again, briefly. He enters the stage this
time with a passionate demeanor, talking in passion about passion or pathos:

“I Forhold til en evig Salighed som det absolute Gode betyder Pathos ikke
Ord, men at denne Forestilling omdanner den Existenrende ham hans hele
Existents. Den æstethiske Pathos udtrykker sig i Ordet og kan i sin Sandhed
betegne, at Individet forlader sig selv for at fortabe sig i Ideen, medens den
existentielle Pathos fremkommer ved at Ideen omskabende forholder sig til
Individets Existents (SKS 7, 352-353) 69.”

What Climacus is approaching here is a warning against a confusion between

reality and ideality by a confusion of the spheres of the aesthetic and the religious.
More specifically, Climacus talks of the ideality of reality in relation to eternal
salvation and existence—not that this makes things much clearer, but let us try to
follow his moves as he moves around on stage. When pathos is not words but a
reconstitution of a manner of relating to existence, then in this existence-
recognition there is something that repositions a person in relation to it or to him-
or herself in existence. That is, there is an ideality, which doesn’t relate just to what
is possible (the aesthetic ideal that hinges on phantasy), not, therefore, to the word
that can bring about only fantastic change, but to what is real—as a matter of
changing one’s existence. The poet, Climacus says, with no hick-ups of auto-
reference, may in relation to love, aesthetically understood, have reality merely as
an occasion, and from that depart to an ideality of love that is greater than any
love, because it makes everything possible. But in ethical terms this kind of
relationship to reality is not viable, since in ethical terms reality is what is affected,
not merely what occasions, and the relation of a poet to it would therefore be the
expression of a confusion. Climacus now builds a ladder, through the steps of
which a gradation between lower and higher is painted before us, such that what is
highest in one sphere has no place in another. When it comes to the religious,
which has passed through the ethical, as he says, then poetic production relating to
phantasy can only be an aesthetic production (otherwise it would not have the

69 In what follows we are constantly dealing with merely these two pages, wherefore no further

references will be added.

221
relation to reality established by the ethical nor to the ideal of the religious, which
goes by way of reality). If the poet all the same produces as a religious individual,
then the production must be coincidental and the poet know that what is essential
lies in his own existence or in that he is an existent, which by and by belongs to a
different passion than that of the word, so we are told—in his words.
The confusion, which we are here warned against is one that has to do
exactly with faith and existence, as Genia Schönbaumsfeld also pointed out to us
at the beginning of this scene. In this particular scene that we have just witnessed,
Climacus does not relate the problem of existence to that of knowledge tout court,
but with passion; to not confuse the passions of poetic ideality with the reality of
ideality of the religious. The danger that he perceives in this is to think that the
words of the poet can correspond to the real challenge of existing in religious
terms, and in order to avoid this we must be clear about our categories. That this
cannot stand on its own is almost painfully evident, but that it cannot be explained
without a bit of confusion likewise so. Recalling once again Wittgenstein when he
talks about exactness (e.g. PU/ TS 227, 69), and reminds us that we cannot insist
on exactness independently of a measure or by comparing different measures that
have exactness in each their way, we may say that relating to the religious the
measure of exactness is one with rather unclear bounds.
In this manner we are brought to the problem of the next scene, namely that
of communication. For in the wake of spheres being confused or separated,
relative to thought and existence in unison or in opposition, floats the question of
what it is that we do and if and how we are able to communicate without
authority, such that the particulars of existents and situations may likewise speak.

222
3RD SCENE
JOHANNES CLIMACUS ON THE FIFTH ACT AND INDIRECT
COMMUNICATION

Indirect communication is here taken as the place in which all the pseudonyms
come together, and the question of their possible togetherness arises with an
uncertain rigor. The question of communication seems to be one that cannot be
avoided, or that lies below the surface, in what has been put before our eyes so far.
It is also one in which the concern for existence versus grammar is brought back
into play, because the matter of how language—and our possibility of expression
and understanding this expression—and existence relate is emphasized.
The purpose of this scene is not to go into a discussion about what indirect
communication (so-called) is. Many attempts at making this more or less clear have
been given, but the problem seems to always come back to something of this sort;
why do we bother to try to understand and refute or justify an understanding of
communication which is, in one way or another, contradictory and therefore
slippery beyond grasp? This scene opens up with Climacus in the midst of
explaining the origin of his efforts and ideas, and that moment from which the
indirectness gave itself as an almost vain impulse to make difficulties everywhere.
That no one particular place or passage in the Postscript or elsewhere can be
introduced as ‘evidence’ of the point of indirect communication seems clear,
granted that contradictory passages and explanations may be found in abundance.
That the beginning, as it is introduced here in what we may call poetically-real
circumstances, may nonetheless be a good place to position the difficulty is noted
not just because it does indeed in itself appear theatrical, but likewise because the
contradictions here exposed seem to be of some importance. Not least in the light
of the desire to keep the voices of the other pseudonyms speaking along. A
definition is a kind of closure; a scene at the theater may as well be an opening to
another scene and more characters that will cast a light on the problems at hand
with different perspectives and different levels of clarity.
This scene is at once ambitious and humble. The idea is to keep together the
missing fifth act from the first scene of this fourth act and some of the questions
raised with the different pseudonyms of the third act. It seems, namely, that the
223
question of truth in particular is unavoidably raised with the idea of indirect
communication, which is again related to the problem of the missing fifth act. The
idea to which is given birth at the cemetery is born in contradictions (SKS 7, 214-
219). The contradictions of day giving way to night, of a father visiting his son’s
grave, of a child being made to swear an oath like an old man, of noise broken by
silence, of sincerity broken by lies and lies uplifted by an honest, dishonest vow
(SKS 7, 213), and by the desire to make difficulties everywhere already having been
born time before as a contentless goal of a weaning youth in the desire to be
someone (SKS 7, 172). The scene is thus ambitious in wanting to bring into view a
number of problems raised before in relation to the humble desire not to provide
thereby an answer to the puzzle of contradictions that seem to constitute the need
of indirect communication.
The curtain is drawn to a scene in the Frederiksberg Garden. Climacus is
sitting by the confectioner smoking his cigar. His first reflections relate to the
place of his presence—how it may be perceived by the child, the youth, and the
elder with vanishing degrees of enchantment (SKS 7, 170). Already the garden,
then, the place of occasion, is something that is described to us not for what—
perhaps naively—one might say that it is, but for how it may be described from
the perspectives of those to whom it is. To Climacus it is the setting in which he
takes to contemplate his life. He has been a student for a half dozen years, so he
tells us. Content with his studies of other people’s thoughts, with thinking and
drifting about or drifting about thinking, but to his own production he has still not
arrived, nor come to serve society and his time in any other way. Now, he is asking
himself the question: in what way may I make something of myself? He is living in
a time, so he says, in which everyone is striving to make things more simple—by
the invention of omnibuses, railroads, telegraphs, overviews, and the system,
making everything gradually more significant—“hvad gjør Du (SKS 7, 171)?”,
Climacus asks himself, but is then interrupted by his cigar having come to an end,
and forced to pause to lit a new one to allow his auto-contemplation to continue
(cf. 1st Act, 66). He arrives at the conclusion that it is impossible for him to make
things more simple than they have already become, and the only thing left for him
to do in order to serve his fellow men is to try to make things more complicated,
in sum—“overalt at gjøre Vanskeligheder (SKS 7, 172).” Climacus pays tribute to

224
his own inertia for having left him with this task as the only one still to be taken
care of. He is not without vanity in these reflections, and contrary to his own
exclamations in the preface of Philosophical Fragments and Concluding unscientific
Postscript both, seemingly quite interested in gaining his place within the greater
whole, in receiving credit, and relative to those who make things easier (aka ‘the
speculative thinkers’), he finds himself willing to receive a bit of money from them
if they should find that their project likewise benefits from the difficulties he
decides to stir (SKS 7, 173). In other words, the initiation of his resolution is a far
cry from the opposition that he establishes between his own thinking and that of
‘speculative thought’ in other many moments (including some that go before this
our meeting with his self-perceived task). The irony is, of course, thick and lucid,
but the vanity of his striving to find himself a place ‘within’ should perhaps not so
easily be discarded as mere ridicule. Rather, the contradiction between this and the
solemn resolution of which he speaks elsewhere in the Postscript (cf. SKS 7, 73ff.),
indicates something important about the task of communication that holds also
the possibility of pretense, but such that it is part of the challenge to hold onto a
clear distinction between sincerity and pretense, or admit that we cannot—neither
in relation to the communicated, the communicator or our own reception of
either.
Following his newly gained resolution to find himself a place in life,
Climacus sits a bit taller in front of the confectioner in Frederiksberg Garden, and
he considers the impression that he might have on those to whom he now—in
theory or ideal—stands in opposition.

“Om da engang De, der gjøre Alt let, skulde indsee, at de i Sandhed have
Gavn af min Smule Vanskelighed, at Letheden ikke skal blive som et
Blikstille; om de bevægede og rørte ved saaledes at have forstaaet min
Stræben, maaskee medieret ind i deres, skulde beslutte dem til underhaanden
at understøtte mig med Pengebidrag, da skal disse med Glæde blive
modtagne, og lover jeg ubrødelig Taushed, at ikke Menneskeheden, hvem vi
i Forening have Gavn og Profit af, skal faae det sande Sammenhæng at vide
(SKS 7, 173).”

225
The difficulty that he thinks himself able to cause is therefore one, which unlike
the (speculative)—of him so characterized—ability to make things more and more
significant, that will stir the waters, so that the stillness or the significance shall not
become stale. It seems that by this statement the entire enterprise of Climacus may
be put into doubt, for is his intention then merely to fool his audience, so that we
shall think he brings about something new, while really merely stirring the stagnant
waters of speculation? At this point James Conant interrupts with some excitation
from his seat in the theater. “Yes!”, he exclaims excitedly, that is just what I have
been trying to demonstrate—we must take the refutation at the end of the
Postscript seriously, the whole work is but a prank to make the reader aware of his
or her own inclination to be fooled in this manner. The refutation in the end is
only here confirmed by Climacus admitting to the senselessness of his own
arguments. However, the fact of the matter is not so clear. The deliberation of
Climacus that brings him to this decision to find his own niche in life is vain
perhaps, but that might not lead us to assume that his resolution is in vain. Until
now the idea is still empty, in the sense that difficulties may be created in many,
many ways, and the only thing that is for now clear is that that will be his goal, but
not what difficulties he wants to bring about or indeed how.
As a response to this vacuum the setting behind Climacus changes, we are
moved slightly forward in time—a couple of months, so it is said—while the
scenery is now that of a cemetery at dusk, and Climacus is upright, walking in the
shadows of the vanishing day through the garden of the dead. He is contemplating
the loneliness that one seeks in the company of those that speak no more, except
perhaps from those one-liners on the tombstones that speak with a passion as if to
burst out from their rest.

“hvilken Inderlighed i Ordet netop ved Modsigelsen; thi at den Mand, der
kommer imorgen, siger: vi sees igjen, er ikke rystende. At have Alt mod sig,
intet, intet ligefremt Udtryk for sin Inderlighed, og dog staae ved sit Ord, det
er den sande Inderlighed, og Inderligheden i samme Grad usand som
Udtrykket i det Udvortes, i Aasyn og Mine, i Ord og Forsikringer strax er
ved Haanden, ikke just fordi Udtrykket selv er usandt, men fordi
Usandheden er, at Inderligheden blot var et Moment (SKS 7, 214-215).”

226
The contradiction in the word “we shall see each other again” from a dead is that
it is choking in its un-affirmable insistence. As long as the stone stands the word
will stand by the dead, and while the living may seek the stone, and the dead
thereby every day of his life, he will never gain the certainty of the meaning that it
holds. He weaves on the untruth and the truth of the word and the inwardness
that it contrives or simulates, but the sentence closes itself around itself. The truth
of its words is untrue if the passion or the inwardness does not correspond, and
yet the passion cannot be in death as to the one still standing, and yet the passion
that is not or could not be mere appearance perhaps is not until death. The final
word in which all that was said in contradiction meets a final contradiction in
being pronounced by someone whose inwardness can no longer speak. This is the
mood of the cemetery at dusk in the silent contemplation of Climacus. He gets
tired, finds a bench to sit down, and witnesses the setting of the sun with words
playing from his mouth that ring the tune of a thousand sunsets.
This is when the idea of difficulties finds its content or is called upon,
though uncalled, and unlike the deliberation that brought Climacus to his
resolution of making difficulties, the idea that now comes to give it direction is not
brought about by him in thought, but brought about by a surprise, a coincidence
from another existence that appears, though not strictly speaking before him. He
suddenly realizes, namely, that a scene is being played out on the other side of
some trees next to the bench upon which he has sought rest. Hidden from the
characters of it as he is to them, he decides to remain where he is in order not to
disturb the words uttered that catch his attention (SKS 7, 215). The conversation
between an old man and his very young grandson is now reiterated to us by
Climacus, and ends by an oath sworn by the child, occasioned by the elder, to
never lose faith no matter what the world bids him of change, deceit, and illusion.
The oath relates to the destiny of the child of the father, before whose grave they
stand, who in all his wisdom lost his faith to the promise of a certainty that seemed
greater than faith yet was but a vain fata morgana of the mortal (SKS 7, 216).
What now triggers Climacus to give his silent oath is the following: he is
moved by the faith of the old man, whose simple mind makes it impossible for
him to accurately explain the blame of speculation in relation to his son having lost
faith. This “tiltalte mig som et indviklet Criminal-Tilfælde, hvor meget krydsende

227
Forhold har gjort det vanskeligt, at komme efter Sandheden (SKS 7, 219),” and in
this manner he is spurred on—by his dissatisfaction with the distractions that life
has to offer, by the intrigue of the story of the old man and the child—to
“udfinde, hvor Misforstaaelsen ligger imellem Speculationen og Christendommen
(SKS 7, 219).” In other words, his task is spun between the intricacies of a life that
seeks aim from its apparent aimlessness, and the seriousness of a sorrow of
another; it arises from within the contradictions of an unfulfilled existence and its
secret encounter with the nearing, yet unfulfilling, end of another existence.
The difficulty has now been pronounced, though never uttered to a single
human being, so we are told by Climacus who seems to think that giving expression
of a resolution is the opposite of bringing it into existence. His battle, the
battlefield of which we have already somehow been made familiar, now begins as
to how to bring the difficulties to clarity without making it into a mere intellectual
exercise. “Speculationens Misviisning […] ligge deri, at man overhovedet ved den
megen Viden havde glemt hvad det er at existere og hvad Inderlighed har at
betyde (SKS 7, 220).” From here on opens up the trouble of how to communicate
that which does not lend itself to be communicated as if it were a matter of
knowledge and results. The outset of this preoccupation seems to be the following
recognition: “ – og det var jo dog muligt at Christendommen var Sandheden (SKS
7, 213).” It was not likely or probable or extremely probable, but possible that
Christianity were the truth. In this sense the matter is brought back to the missing
fifth act, back to the unknowing of existence, and the challenge of inwardness with
which this possibility is brought to life through faith in a fifth act that doesn’t
ensue and therefore cannot determine, except as the silent exclamation from the
grave that is to the living, to the existent, but a paradoxical question mark. The
difficulty of communication arises, then, out of the silence of the fifth act, out of
the possible confusion of every human resolution to seek out the truth. Since if
neither the communicator, nor the communiqué, nor the communicated can find
the foothold of certainty in any form, then the task of communication seems to be
sliding on the same unstable ice. But now all the concepts seem to be sliding
around too freely, so let us take a step back and try to recall what has been
presented before us.

228
 At the outset of this act, I called the perspective of Climacus systematizing.
Now we are at the threshold of its standpoint, and it seems all but systematic. It is
conceived as a deliberation of someone who is leisurely contemplating his place in
life, as a response to his perception that nothing to speak of is left to be done in
the spirit of his time, which, as he says, is a multifarious effort to make everything
easier. He therefore concludes that all left to be done is to try to introduce a bit of
difficulty. Despite his ceremonious proclamation to want to serve his fellow
human beings in his strivings, he has no scruples to subsume this idea to the
unified fooling of man alongside his self-proclaimed opponents of speculation
(SKS 7, 173). The difficulty that he later finds to pursue is handed to him by
chance when day is giving way to night, and he finds himself witnessing a scene in
which the outposts of existence bring to the fore the grim face of forgetting that
we are but humans who are so easily sidetracked by thinking that a guiding
mainland has revealed itself as the anchor of our journeying (SKS 7, 216). In these
scenes of approximation to the difficulty, there is a fluctuation of perspectives,
which open up our view to ever-new aspects of difficulty within the same. These
make it difficult, perhaps even impossible, to create a clear view of what it is that
Climacus is talking about when talking about indirect communication, but how
then can I talk of his perspective as in any way a systematizing one if it is borne by
the rupture of individuating perspectives?
Let us consider a proposition by Climacus, which has been given some
weight in establishing his indirect communication as a method:

“Da jeg havde fattet dette [that excessive knowledge has made us forget
what it means to exist and what inwardness has to say], blev det mig tillige
tydeligt, at dersom jeg vilde meddele Noget desangaaende, maatte det
fornemlig gjelde om, at min Fremstilling blev i den indirecte Form. Dersom
nemlig Inderligheden er Sandheden, saa er Resultat kun Skramlerie, man
ikke skal besvære hinanden med, og det at ville meddele Resultat en
unaturlig Omgang mellem Menneske og Menneske, forsaavidt ethvert
Menneske er Aand, og Sandheden netop Tilegnelsens Selvvirksomhed,
hvilken et Resultat forhindrer (SKS 7, 220).”

229
Then what is the perspective of Climacus is one of form primarily, although as any
attentive spectator will affirm, there is much knowledge, as it would seem, to be
found in Philosophical Fragments and the Postscript both. But how may we relate to
being told that inwardness is the truth by someone whose inwardness seems
blurred beyond recollection? His character shows us the immense difficulty—not
just of judging this in relation to others, which in any case seems to be besides the
point, but in relation to oneself. If inwardness means to not let oneself be
disturbed by all the outward turmoil of existence, but to patiently draw on the
assessment of truth in relation to the eternal by each one on his own before God,
then the perspective seems not to be a perspective, but an auto-contemplation.
However, that the point in question here is a question of communication, lets us
know that it is about making shared what is ultimately particular, and therefore not
decidable, since that which may be decided may also be subsumed into (universal)
communication. The lack of result is not perhaps that there is nothing to be
communicated, but that communication itself may always be initiated again in a
different manner, according to a different description, which holds truth not as
relative to anything, but relative to a perspective from which it may be described
meaningfully, without laying claim to the finality and the result of the final act. The
difficulty is that we cannot be given one manner in which inwardness ultimately
makes sense and makes truth, nor can we avoid that there is in the mere wording
of truth a striving for meaning, which is nonetheless denied finality from a human
perspective. What is more, the interruptions into the perspective of indirect
communication are not just interruptions but just as much the presupposition and
condition of it.
Truth cannot be given, unless it is either relative to a fifth act, which—as we
learned in the previous scene—it is not according to Climacus, not even in relation
to Christianity (therefore also are the words on the tombstone so sincere, because
they promise what to the living can never be a promise beyond the known but
unknown death) or relative to communication in which the missing fifth act is
nonetheless continuously pronounced by meaning given from one perspective,
and then again perhaps disrupted by another. However, without some level of
meaning, which casts a glace back upon all else of which it speaks, nothing could
be said at all. The problem is trying to assume a standpoint from which meaning

230
per se is meaningful. And yet, “Det var jo dog muligt, at Christendommen var
Sandheden (SKS 7, 211)”, is therefore radical in the sense that it cannot be
pronounced more clearly than that, without faith losing faith, and yet it is different
from other truths that we may wish to suggest in the sense that if it is true, then its
truth lies in being absolutely beyond us, accepting therefore the ‘if’ as the truth of
which any pronunciation will only ever be in the form of an if. This ‘if’ is at the
same time the bounce of communication when it comes to existence, and the
solitary pronunciation of the existent when he or she believes that the ‘if’ is being
met beyond its own initiation.
The stance of indirect communication, relative to the thoughts and
occurrences that brought it about, may then perhaps be seen in this manner: that
communication is never as innocent as it may seem, that the ideal of pronouncing
directly anything that pertains to the ‘if’ is in its very idea mistaken, because it may
as well—or perhaps may not escape to—be pronounced by a scoundrel, so that
the claim of inwardness is already turned by and turned to an existent whose role it
is to hear that the purity of resolution is never untouched by the cigar, by the old
man, by the sunset. As such the difficulty lies not only in the opposition to making
things easier, but in opposition to the idea that there could be any such a thing as
stating directly what holds itself back in the missing fifth act, that is, in the result
of existence that says only ‘what if’? What if will only ever be a question that
prepares the one asking to look once again at that random day in the park where
existence was at once inhaled and blown out as smoke, and the only direct
description of it that could be given would be ‘there is a man in front of the
confectioner smoking a cigar’. But this would only be understood by someone
whose existence was also in smoke, that is, who could find in this expression
infinitely more—‘what if he were thinking about the castle where the king lives
with his queen?´, ‘what if he were thinking about the limits of existence?’, ‘what if
he were thinking about what to make of himself in life?’
Communication, nonetheless, in its pronunciation, may pretend the kind of
directness relative to objectivity and science, in which part of the point seems to
be to keep categories apart, to know by way of deliberate distinction. And when
indirect communication is understood as a method, the emphasis seems to be
placed, automatically, on such ideal of distinctions. The problem is that by being

231
concerned with existence the method as method is itself by its very own token
brought into doubt. For existence, by lacking the fifth act, cannot be made into a
separate field of knowledge, and as such any method that wants to free it from
strict contemplation is always already assuming too much.
At this time, Climacus reintroduces the other pseudonyms back onto stage.
This time they are viewed from his perspective of indirect communication, relative
to truth when truth is the unrevealable of existence. Let us consider this
reintroduction, and how it may possibly be seen as a perspective introduced, which
is in its scope systematizing but in its inherent downfall that which at the same
time allows that the individuating perspectives be seen in the debris of its
vanishing construction.

232
4TH SCENE
WHAT ARISES OUT OF THE BREAK-DOWN OF INDIRECT
COMMUNICATION

Is it possible to maintain a systematic perspective in relation to a problem of

existence that insists on the difficulty of the missing fifth act?
The stage is now set with the backdrop of a contemporary menagerie of
literary production 70. Climacus reveals his concern with how his own striving is
confirmed and strengthened by the publications of other writers, or pseudonyms
as he calls them, and the simultaneous production of Kierkegaard. When Climacus
repeatedly throughout his current appearance underlines that he cannot say about
the content of the works, because it is mainly the ‘manner in which’ that interests
him, in bringing out the outline of his problem, then this could lead us to think
that the form is all that is of importance. While this is undeniable in relation to his
so-called method, it is likewise clear that the form is important insofar as it shows
itself as always being insufficient, because there is no-thing that it wills to
communicate, wherefore it always withdraws itself from its own appearance. The
no-thing of the method is subjectivity, truth, Christianity, inwardness so-called,
hence there seems to be a something after all. But the thing is that it cannot be
established, because its establishment is taking away the question, the uncertainty
relative to which these things stand. As such it may be seen that the categories
according to which Climacus brings out his understanding of the pseudonyms—
the aesthetic, the ethic, the religious, irony, and humor as something to be viewed
in light of existence (that is, relative to the darkness surrounding the limelight)—
are not constitutive but constitute perspectives that cannot be emptied out by
pointing to a category. The category itself is namely not immovable, but is moved
by the existence through which it is brought out as descriptive.
As a preliminary remark to this scene, a restatement of some previous
concerns of this play may be useful to pronounce. It seems of the utmost

70 In this scene the primary concern is with the part of Concluding Unscientific Postscript entitled ”A

contemporary effort in Danish literature” in which Climacus considers the other pseudonymous
publications and the simultaneous publications of Kierkegaard in relation to his own ideas.

233
importance, first and foremost (though earlier only touched upon indirectly), to
hold the question in mind: is it possible to deceive someone into the truth? And
what could this possibly be taken to mean? In some sense this question falls
outside the setting of the current play, since it was pronounced by Kierkegaard in
his posthumously published The Point of View for My Work as an Author (SKS 16, 35-
36), yet the reflections of Climacus may be taken to entail something like this idea,
and we are interested here in asking is this what Climacus takes himself to be
doing, particularly when he takes on the task of analyzing the works of the other
pseudonyms in relation to his idea of the indirect form of communication?
Another concern is that of a change of perspective in relation to distinctions. This
was the subject in different ways in the second scene of this act and the previous
one respectively. James Conant talks about both these issues in his article “Putting
Two and Two Together”, and his commentary on the course of events from the
audience relates to these matters. Basically his reflections on the latter problem
establishes a parallel between Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein in claiming that both
fall into an inheritance from Lessing and Kant, according to which confusions may
arise when it is not clear whether a concept is applied in the context of religion as
opposed to aesthetics, for example, and he points to the fact that the
understanding of use in late Wittgenstein is based on a similar striving to avoid
confusion by confusing spheres and contexts of use (Conant, 1995, 276). The
relation between confusion and indirectness may in this sense be taken to indicate
that indirect communication has its merit not in taking issue with a content of
thought that must be argued with or against, but in that the aim is to make the
listener realize that when applying concepts in certain ways they have no content.
The confusion therefore bears on a kind of conceptual emptiness that takes itself
to be meaningful (Conant, 1995, 275-277). This, then, relates back to the idea of
deception, in which what is revealed through it is not a something but rather a lack
thereof that the listener can only come to see by being brought to see the bearings
of her or his own utterances. That is, the truth does not pertain to some particular
conceptualization but in seeing that he or she has been under the impression of
expressing something when in fact this something is not by being expressed in
such manner.

234
 The second audience to bring his account to be heard here is Philipp
Schwab. He holds onto indirect communication as a method and as such the
“notwendige Form seines [Kierkegaards] Denkens (Schwab, 2012, 12).” His stance in
relation to indirect communication may be seen as contrasting the understanding
provided by Conant, since he argues that in order for the indirectness to have any
merit it must not be possible to afford the ‘message’ directly, that is, that the
indirectness does not express deceit, but is a vital part of the communicated.

“Somit sind die Kriterien für die Bestimmungsform des indirekten

Verfahrens präzisiert: Sie muss nämlich zugleich das Ausgreifen und das
Verfehlen in sich aufnehmen und reflektieren; und sie muss dies derart, dass
beide ,Momente‘ zugleich und irreduzibel in ihr enthalten sind. Die
Bestimmung des indirekten Verfahrens muss also eine spannungsreiche
Doppelbewegung in sich fassen – und diese Doppelbewegung ist der
Rückstoß der Methode (Schwab, 2012, 15).”

From this point of view, then, indirect communication is at the same time a
reaching out for and a failing to grasp—the recoil of the method. Taking on this
latter understanding, what this scene wants to suggest is that from this recoil of the
method, in which the method as method shows itself as problematic, arise the
singularity of each one who is at the same time grasped for and who slips away in
the movement that it entails.
Now, Climacus appears before us in his newly gained resolution to make
difficulties everywhere, with the aim to ponder the misunderstanding between
speculation and Christianity (SKS 7, 226), and to do this such that it becomes clear
that the confusion he wants to create does not pertain to the aim of bringing about
more or a different kind of knowledge. This is why the form is said to be of such
importance. One of the problems contained in this, of course, is that Climacus
wants to bring about communication relating to this ‘matter’, not like Socrates by
living it and statuating by his manner of existence a critique, but like a poet
poeticizing it. In any case, this is how the stage is set when suddenly his intentions
start to become materialized, manifest, and clarified in the appearance of other
authors who, so it seems to Climacus, share his hesitation to pronounce in any way
directly what is the correct interpretation of their texts (SKS 7, 229), and who in

235
this hesitation allow a doubt of existence to resonate without which the thoughts
in which it so resounds would belong to speculation and the system and not to the
existent to and from whom it speaks. The pseudonyms are all back on stage, lined
up toward the background, and only one by one and then gradually in a tangle do
they enter the limelight through the words of Climacus. Here we shall not await
them all to be invited into the light, but consider a few and the almost mechanic
assessment with which they enter and leave. The light is shed on their bringing
into production and words what Climacus wanted to have done. In the words of
Climacus: “Hvad skeer (e.g. SKS 7, 228, 232, 237, 238)?” What happens is in some
sense nothing or it is something that brings attention to a basic complication in the
desire to talk about Christianity as existence without confusing it with speculative
abstraction away from existence. That is, by a gradual pronouncement of
distinctions, which Climacus finds to be lacking in the systematic thoughts of his
time, distinctions that point toward a lesser confusion in relation to existence, by
being perhaps in the above suggested manner more confusing or differently
confusing (also relative to the thought of making difficulties everywhere). The
pseudonyms return to leave the light by the remark repeated at little variance from
one to the other that Climacus does not know and does not care about the
content: “Dog, som sagt, med Skriftets Indhold har jeg Intet at gjøre (SKS 7, 273)”
and “om min Opfattelse er Forfatternes, kan jeg naturligvis ikke med Bestemthed
vide (SKS 7, 229).” That is, the interest in these works lies elsewhere. This seems a
peculiar contradiction, of course, for the comments that Climacus provides are
related indeed to details of the work of each author. However, it may be said that
the concern of Climacus is not with the individual pseudonyms (and therefore in
one sense not with the content of their works), but with the spectators. If the
mantra is to always say the same about the same and yet thereby say something
different, then this can perhaps be related back to the idea that what arises from
the pseudonymous voices is not the question of abstract existence, but existence
that in its concreteness cannot ask for the content. The content allows a fixation,
which establishes such that existence in its disquiet may be forgotten, but the
spectator moves to see again and again a beginning to that which does not come
to an end. The works of the pseudonyms are then seen as returned to the one
engaging in the view by which it has itself. That is, the view that does not bring

236
about a prescription for what it brings into view (by not taking on the decisive
authority of what is to be seen, cf. SKS 7, 229, as if the one standing on stage
could at the same time be in the seat of the spectator and in this sense determine
the gaze). This is not a coincidental reminder of the relation between author and
reader, between actor and audience, it is a diminishing contrivance of the method,
which assumes the disappearance of all singularity by making it impossible as a
methodological task, and thereby in its downfall invites all singularity to reappear
with a view that cannot be contained in any existence- or speculative motivated
notion.
Victor Eremita is, naturally, the first pseudonym to be introduced. Of ‘his’
work Climacus says: “At der intet Resultat og ingen endelig Afgjørelse er, er et
indirecte Udtryk for Sandheden som Inderlighed, saaledes maaske en Polemik
mod Sandheden som Viden (SKS 7, 229).” The introduction by Eremita is in this
sense important, because more than anything it leaves the question open—with no
fifth act that answers the question of the curious whether the standpoint of one
won over that of the other and so on. And Climacus thoughtfully says about the
work as a whole that if it has any merit it must be that of not providing any result:
“der existeres i Tanke, og Bogen eller Skriftet har intet endeligt Forhold til Nogen.
Den Tankens Gjennemsigtighed i Existents er netop Inderligheden (SKS 7, 231).”
In this sense what opens up the audience to the difficulty is that like the
transparency of thought in existence, the thoughts of the book relate to no one,
and exactly for this reason relate to the particular of each one in the audience. It
cannot provide result, for in inwardness there is none to be found—it always
opens up to the simplest truth of words becoming immensely complicated when
the one who is to live (which is everyone in the audience and on stage alike)
stumbles away in the darkness of existence. What we should like to consider here
in relation to the problems indicated from our particular spectator and from
Kierkegaard is whether or not the notion of having no result is a mere platitude of
someone communicating exactly that in disguise.
When Eremita exits the limelight with the words of Climacus—that what is
of interest is not the content—the latter’s reflections on the development of the
matter, which is no matter, are interrupted by the appearance of yet another
pseudonym with the repeated words “I was then ready to move on”, and then

237
“what happens?” Upon which accord enters de silentio, Constantin, Haufniensis,
Notabene and so forth. The development of thought to which Climacus refers in
his reflections on each one is repeatedly said to be that subjectivity is the truth and
that people or the time has forgotten what it means to be a Christian, that is, the
qualified content of the indirect communication, which has the peculiar conflation
with “not being about the content”. The last work to enter the limelight is that the
publication of which appears between the two separate publications of Climacus
himself, that is Stages on Life’s Way. Tellingly here different characters are brought
into view—the ones repeated from other pseudonymous productions: Constantin
Constantius, Johannes the Seducer, and Victor Eremita, and the Judge, further the
Quidam and Frater Taciturnus, whereas Hilarius Bookbinder is not mentioned by
a word. The book, as Climacus says, has such striking semblances with Either/Or
that the impatient reader might be inclined to disregard it as boring—mere
repetition. However, like all else, the challenge is to say the same about the same
and yet say it with renewed passion—such as also the challenge of existence (SKS
7, 261). In the mere manner of presentation provided to us by Climacus as he
brings one pseudonymous author after another into the limelight there is
something that reflects in itself the point to this effect. It is a slight modulation
pared with repetition in the wording and the perspective held. What is more, the
stage on which they all stand changes in accordance with the stages that Climacus
discusses in relation to each modulation with respect to existence as it is brought
into view with the different pseudonyms. However, from the different stages they
all enter the same stage from the same perspective differently—namely to
differently demonstrate the existence-relation, which calls for not providing result.
It is the concern of a very concrete existence of everyday human being,
which nonetheless always withdraws itself before it has ever been pronounced.
The concern is therefore with everyone, but everyone who becomes someone only
when the matter and manner of deciding what this means falters and shatters. The
individual is not in opposition to the many of everyone, it stands out as singular
when the attempt to capture the plural in its plurality gives way by giving up. But
in the attempt lies something shared without which the singular could not show
itself as singular—in being ungraspable by any perspective that understands.

238
5TH SCENE
ASPECTS WITHIN A PERSPECTIVE (THE STAGE REVEALING BUT

NOT ITSELF)

This scene is set in a forested area outside of Copenhagen. It takes place at

dawn—in that first quiet moment of the day in which everything is awaking from
the rest of the night. The characters that partake are a band of night-owls who
have not revitalized in sleep, but have spent the night eating, drinking, and giving
speeches on the crest of their insobriety. When we meet them they have just left
the shelter of their festivities, which is in that same moment transformed into a
latent ruin—the ruin of that which cannot stand the light of day. While they await
the bands of horses to be tied to the carriages that will carry them back to
wherever, in a return to the reality from which they had temporarily escaped, they
take to squander their time by a little walk through the morning air.

“Medens der spændtes for, spadserede de natlige Gjester et lille Stykke hen
ad Veien. Den friske Morgenluft luttrede deres hede Blod med sin Kølighed,
i hvis Forfriskelse de ganske gave sig hen, medens deres Skikkelser og
Gruppen, disse dannede, paa mig gjorde et phantastisk Indtryk. Thi at
Morgensolen skinner over Mark og Eng og over hver en Skabning, der i
Natten fandt Hvile og Styrke til jublende at staae op med Solen, deri er kun
en velgjørende gjensidig Forstaaelse, men et Natteselskab, opfattet ved
Morgenbelysning i en smilende Naturomgivelse, virker næsten unheimlich.
Man kommer til at tænke paa Spøgelser, der ere blevne overraskede af
Daggryet; paa Underjordiske, der ikke kunne finde Ridsen, gjennem hvilken
de forsvinde, fordi denne kun er synlig i Mørke; paa Ulykkelige, for hvem
Forskjel paa Dag og Nat er forsvunden i Lidelsens Eensformighed (SKS 6,
80).”

Such is the stage set that the quietness of the morning encounters the briskness of
the night, and the characters that it meets with its gentle light are at once many and
one—their individual appearances, and the group that they constitute. They seem
out of place, exposed in a scene that the secret of their meeting did not anticipate,
like the inquietude of the light when it comes back on among the spectators in the

239
theater, and the reencounter with the others and with oneself that one knew to be
present is almost ‘unheimlich’. The light takes away the comforting hiddenness of
being but a spectator, and reveals that one is, after all, just this one person and not
all the fantastic stuff that took place on stage while the darkness was hiding all that
which now seems trivial in comparison with the greatness of the stage that allows
us to follow destinies in a shortened perspective (cf. SKS 7, 383), in all the passion
of a lifetime played out in the course of two hours.
The characters that are now walking along have all been allowed on this
night to instate the abstraction of lovers that have never loved, of men that are not
tied in their reflections to the existence against which their words bounce. Now, in
the morning light their treason against the world seems so painstakingly clear.
What was spoken by them at night could not be pronounced again in this light. In
this sense every word seems to alter what at night it showed so clearly.
Our nightly creatures are still scouting, however, and their curiosity leads
them to a small pavilion in which, they realize, some people are present. As they
scurry over to surround the pavilion and make their observations they realize that
it is Judge Wilhelm and his wife. “De bleve overraskede – ikke hine Tvende, hvem
Løvet skjulte, hine tvende Lykkelige, der vare altfor fordybede i huslig Lyst til at
være Iagttagere (SKS 6, 81)”, but the observers got surprised. The scene that they
now watch unfold is between the Judge and his wife who are unknowing of being
observed, and as such undisturbed. The content of their conversation is minimal
but involves a recurring theme, which we have also met during the night in the
company of the observers—that of what a man can make of himself if he is alone
spurred on by a muse, but does not commit himself to marriage (SKS 6, 60-61).
This issue is raised by the Judge’s wife (or by someone else, whose identity is not
revealed “Du veed nok i Anledning af hvem (SKS 6, 82)”) who wonders, and does
so in mere fantasy, of course, since the judge is now a married man, what could
have become of him had he not married her (SKS 6, 82-83). Something great could
have become of him, is the conviction of his wife who now, so it would seem,
stands in the way of such greatness. The Judge refuses to take her attempt at such
speculation seriously, and while she exposes her, to us unpronounced, thoughts in
this direction, the Judge merely taps his fingers on the table next to him and hums
a little tune of which we are offered a line (SKS 6, 83). As a prelude to this

240
dialogue, of which we are offered mainly the lines of the Judge, falls the careful
preparation of tea by the wife. When she serves it to her husband Afham places
the remark: “var det nu Spøg eller Alvor (SKS 6, 82)?” And just this is the question
that arises between the Judge and his wife. Is that seriousness, the tea served for
this one man who has become her husband or the fantastic possibility of a life in
which she were not, in which the steam from the warm tea would not rise before
him, but his mind be puzzled by greater matters, that is, by matters that would
concern the greater humanity—for is that not what it means to become a great
man, to gain significance for something that transgresses the life of the singular
individual? She lights his cigar with amber from her fire, and while he puts his arm
around her waist he turns his head to blow the smoke in the other direction. Is this
jest or is it seriousness? In this simple movement by the Judge an aspect of
concrete familiarity ensues, and then the scene continues: “nu hvilede hans Øie
paa hende med en Hengivenhed, som Blikket kan forklare den, dog smilte han,
men dette glædens Smiil havde en lille Tilsætning af veemodig Ironi, endelig sagde
han: »Troer du virkelig, min Pige?« (SKS 6, 82)”
The perspective is, in legal terms of the scenario, persistently that of Afham,
and yet we may forget this perspective relative to the proximity of the characters
that he paints before us. The melancholic irony of the Judge’s smile is thus
portrayed by Afham and stands in opposition to the words that the Judge utters to
his wife when he insists that her speech is not serious, that he cannot take it
seriously, that because it is but jest he could react to it in so many ways, just not in
earnest. We may assume, of course, that the earnest lies in the choice that he has
made to marry her—from this moment onwards any talk of what could have
otherwise been is only jest, because it goes counter to that which he did chose and
therefore can only ever be fantastic; not sincere. What talks against this resolution
and conviction, the steadfast perspective of the Judge is simply this melancholy
smile, this impatient tapping on the table while she talks of the greatness that will
not come because he has become—hers. He is the singular whose existence
cannot be made to have eternal validity right here, right now in the pavilion,
drinking tea, smoking a cigar while holding his arm around the waist of his
beloved. Yet in this moment he is at the same time that of every husband there
ever was, in his resolution there is something universal and in his melancholic

241
irony of a smile there is something that affirms the inherent contradiction of
making of himself devout to this one love, this one life, and in so doing making
himself into the life of every man who dedicated his life to the life of what one
does when a good husband.
The question posed by Afham is further qualified by the Judge himself at the
end of the letter, which Eremita steals, and Afham subsequently from him, in
order to publish it (SKS 6, 84):

“See! nu gik hun netop min Dør forbi; jeg forstaaer det, hun venter mig,
men hun vil ikke gaae ind for ei at forstyrre. Blot et Øieblik, min Elskede,
blot et Øieblik, min Sjel er saa riig, jeg er saa veltalende i dette Øieblik, jeg vil
skrive det ned paa Papiret, en Lovtale over Dig, min elskelige Viv, og saa
overbeviser jeg hele Verden om Ægteskabets Gyldighed. Og dog tidsnok
imorgen, iovermorgen, om otte Dage, jeg kaster dig bort, elendige
Skriverpen, mit Valg er gjort, jeg følger Vinket og Indbydelsen. Lad en
stakkels Forfatter sidde skjelvende, naar Tanken tilbyder sig i et lykkeligt
Øieblik, skjelvende for, at Nogen skal forstyrre ham, jeg frygter Intet, men
jeg kjender ogsaa hvad der er bedre end det lykkeligste Indfald i en Mands
Hjerne og bedre end det lykkeligste Udtryk for det lykkeligste Indfald paa
Papiret, og hvad der er uendeligt Dyrebarere end enhver Hemmelighed, som
en stakkels Forfatter kan have med sin Skriverpen (SKS 6, 170-171).”

The stage has transformed into the solitary workspace of the Judge who is working
hard to argue for the aesthetic validity of marriage. His wife walking past his open
door reminds him of the devotion of which he writes, and the stride is set between
himself and his fountain pen. Is that serious which he writes or is it merely jest in
comparison with that which, presumably, he writes about—(his) life as a husband?
Does the justification of its validity lie in the words that he utters in order to
persuade his dear reader or in the persuasion that this life, according to his words,
holds on him? “My choice is made”, he says, but we know of his choice only
through his words and the words seem to hold a jestful accusation on him, namely
that his resolution carries a melancholic smile of irony. In this sense, the stage is
constantly turned back upon itself, and what it reveals many different aspects of
what we would like to call the same. We may describe the relation between the

242
Judge and his wife in a number of ways, and the perspective would not be untrue,
for this is what is played out before us. But it seems that in every characterization
there is something that breaks against it; that calls for a deeper sense of something
true; that wills to reveal not just what is being played out, but the stage itself, and
yet, this seems to be what all the time escapes us. The stage is set, the scenery
changes, but the stage itself is not what is on stage. Is this jest or is it earnest?
The problem of the Judge is not just the problem of the Judge, it is a
problem which questions the legitimacy of contemplation—be it literary,
philosophical or otherwise—not such as to ask merely: is contemplation at fault
over and against that which it contemplates, whether in abstraction or pondering
the steam rising from the tea as an existence possibility? But, is an uncontemplated
existence existence at all? In other words, unable to reveal the stage itself, in this
case marriage as a continuous striving in existence, are we left with other remedies
than to keep its constitution in place by placing it on stage and thereby making its
every aspect of importance stand forth as images of a setting that we can only
validate in this manner? That is, by acting it out and in this action pose the
question that it answers to(o).
Communication is not here indirect in the manner that Climacus seems to
hold. The Judge wills to tells us why marriage is the best way of life—now also
aesthetically speaking; the party of the night each wills to tell each other about love
(Elskov) or the relation between man and woman—at least this is the task set
before them all by Constantin (SKS 6, 35), and each talks as if he had the truth on
his side. With each one an aspect of what may be said about the relation between
man and woman is brought to the fore—including that of Judge Wilhelm
although, of course, his voice is heard from the silence of his domestic study
rather than in the rowdy company of the drunken crowd that have gathered at
night far from any home. The perspectives are many and the aspects of the matter
that stand out through them even more, and while each one character takes up
something from the one who has spoken before (including, unknowingly, as it
would seem Judge Wilhelm), like those speakers of the Symposium that their
performance imitates, they are at once in line and opposed. What is more, they all
seem to contain little fractures—like that of the Judge when he comes to battle
himself and his pen over and against the words that he writes and has written—

243
revealing that the systematizing perspective that they each establish is not full-
proof to the individuating perspectives that it excludes by making itself speak as if
truthfully about its matter, that in the face of its object—love—is no matter,
because the matter is just as much all that which the perspective cannot entail in its
want for justification, that is, in its want for truth that evaporates in the movement
of blowing away the smoke from the lover whose waist (Liv) one has embraced. In
other words, what is revealed on stage is not nothing, it conveys a sense of
importance (meaning), whether it be jest or seriousness, but no matter how or
what it reveals, it does not reveal ‘that’. It does not reveal itself, for in the setting
of the theater, the stage is not performed, but nor would there be any meaningful
performance if it were not set on stage, that is, if the quest for a play were not in
play.
Let us return now for a moment to the character whose perspective we
followed at the scene of the pavilion. Hence, once more the background changes,
and we are back in the aftermath of the little scene between the Judge and his wife.
Afham has just taken the manuscript from Eremita in the moment of the latter’s
attempt to place this in his pocket. Now Afham turns toward us and poses the
question, as if in posing it, posing it likewise to himself: “Men hvo er da jeg (SKS
6, 84)?” This question he has been dreading, so we learn:

“jeg er det Ringeste af Alt, man gjør mig ganske undseelig ved at spørge
derom. Jeg er den rene Væren, og derfor mindre næsten end Intet. Jeg er den
rene Væren, der er med allevegne, men dog ikke bemærkelig, fordi jeg
bestandigt er ophævet. Jeg er ligesom den Streg, ovenover hvilken Regne-
Opgaven staaer og under hvilken Facitet; hvo bryder sig om Stregen (SKS 6,
84)?”

He is pure being who is everywhere, and as such constantly negated—the line

above which the numbers of a calculus are listed, and below which the result—
that line without which we would not recognize the calculus as such, one might
add, but which plays no role of its own. Thinking about Afham in the scene at the
pavilion, and in the recounting of the entire night that came before, we may say
exactly that. He is the one whose perspective is everywhere present insofar as we
only know of these events through him, and yet he is like that line of the calculus,

244
because we do not see him, he is all the time out of the frame so to speak, and
what he recounts is just as much—or mainly—how the perspectives provided by
others bring aspects of the theme of the night into view. Afham does not provide
a speech, although he provides the speech, he is never called out on his presence.
Even when the gang of men walks through the early morning light, exposed in the
day, Afham is not exposed—to us or to himself. Through his persistent non-
presence we may once again recall the words of Climacus concerning indirect
communication, for the ungraspable of Afham is what holds counter to any ‘result’
provided by the company of the night, by the conversation between the Judge and
his wife, for the answer to the question “was it jest or was it earnest?” is left to
linger. And the manner in which Afham passes on to us the letter of the Judge is
again a negation, for in so doing he is but a poor imitation of Eremita, who
thought to have the right to publish it. Afham does not have this right or does not
have right or wrong, for he disappears in not having made this choice, but merely
imitating the resolution of another. Now the manuscript is given to us as if
without authority, and as the Judge reveals at the end of his letter, even he seems
unjustified, for he devotes himself to his fountain pen and the wonders that he is
able to unfold with it in moments of lucidity, and as such he violates the words
that come of it. And the stage? Is perhaps also like that line, which Afham says
himself to be—without which it could not be, but which we cannot know, for it is
through it or on it that what stands out stands out to us (in its unresolve).

245
6TH SCENE
TRAPPED ON STAGE WITH AN UNCERTAIN PLAY-SCRIPT IN HAND
WHICH HAS NO OVERTURE AND NO FINAL ACT

It should be thoughtful if in this last scene every word spoken were given its
owing explanation—thoughtful perhaps, but not existful. As Climacus expressed
to us in an attempt at explaining a contemporary striving, there is something left
unanswered, inconclusive in these—to him—contemporary works (SKS 7, 229).
Even Anti-Climacus, as an introductory ‘calling hither’ to Practice in Christianity,
holds the contemporaneity with Christ to rest on the inconclusive temporality of
faith (SKS 12, 17).
Concluding, rather, with ethics of incontinence, is an appeal to this
inconclusive that nonetheless speaks. It speaks but without an ideal that makes the
plural speak in uniformity. This is different, however, than instilling ethics as
silence 71. There is an injunction here, the classification of which may not be
justified, between the speaking that speaks in plural and the speaking that strives to
speak louder, that is, which speaks about what is spoken, which categorizes speech
and gives it a home. The attempt here has been to show the relative home of
speech in the homelessness of speech about speech. By this I mean that the
moods that have been instilled with the different pseudonyms and the concerns
with which they have been set in connection, are made familiar to us through
speech, through writing, which was made to speak within another kind of writing.
As such, we encounter their concerns insofar as they speak to us, and are made to
speak to us from stage, that is, in being shared (communicated). Their voices are at
once an expression of meaning within a given expression of life and existence
(meaning in a weak and a strong sense; as meaning and opinion, that is, as
something sharable and something singular), and a reminder of the irretrievable
starting-point (beginning) of offering up any such. As a notion of something

71 As does, for example, Laura Llevadot (2013) on her way to a “postmetaphysical ethics”. The
theme of silence and the incommensurable, however, may be found as central elements in many
readings, both with respect to ethics and, particularly, faith. See e.g. Zjilstra (2006),
Schönbaumsfeld (2007).

246
ethical, it reluctantly suggests a home for meaning and a homelessness for meaning
as such, that is, an ideal, that cannot be spoken but as a manifold of voices, which
have no definite home between an unknown and unknowable beginning and an
unresolved finalization. In every meaning that makes itself manifest, there is the
possibility of a sudden change of aspect, or that in ‘the same’ one should find the
need for a different kind of expression, renewing its vitality by a meaning that had
hitherto not arrived in the light of the limelight. This other expression is no more
and no less than an expression, an expression of the singular into the manifold or
the manifold into the singular. The incontinence is the unknowing of how this
expression suffices, or, the inclination to go against it. Between meaning and
opinion we are with each other and with each other we are in the midst of
describing the theater, and sometimes, in so doing, in the midst of describing its
beyond.
In this last scene a lot of things are to come together, but come together
such that it does not hold the promise of a fifth act in which it all comes together
and reveals a greater perspective that lends definite meaning to it all once and for
all. The elements that must converge are many, but the main question that one
might want to ask in relation to what has here been brought onto stage is the
following: how about the religious, how about the ethical, how about the absolute?
All of which in one sense or another partake in the appearance of each pseudonym
and the perspectives that their appearance opens up to us. Even if these as
separate points of interest have been downplayed in this performance, in order to
allow that which seems to point to a challenge that goes contrary to the efforts of
each pseudonym or that places their endeavor in a peculiar light that it has been
sought revealed, one cannot innocently overlook them. For in all that may seem to
relativize the significance of these concepts in the performative aspects of the
works, in which the pseudonyms and other characters have their home, it seems
nonetheless that the demand for seriousness, for devotion, for being able to
distinguish between significant and contingent pay their dues in a voice that often
times speaks more severely and louder than the jestful counterpart, the
interruptions, the incongruences that have here been underlined and brought to
speak up. What is more is how we are to understand the relation between theater
and non-theater; between ideal and real; between truth and un-truth. When the

247
theater is in many respects hung out to dry, perhaps most vigorously by Climacus
in Concluding unscientific Postscript (e.g. SKS 7, 379), how can it even be taken
seriously to pretend for it to be the right place for an exploration of the
pseudonyms at large?
The attempt has been to show, of course, that even in instances of what
seems in one respect the establishment of a more or less rigorous systematizing
perspective, that is, a perspective—though this at times by way of many
perspectives—that brings to the fore manners in which to talk meaningfully about
such central notions as ethics, the religious, the aesthetic, self, subjectivity, anxiety,
faith, a critique of a perceived prevalent understanding of Christianity (which is in
an important other sense no understanding, but rather a misunderstanding or a
failing attempt at understanding), etc. in relation to existence, there is at the same
time an undercurrent of something that flows against such perspectives. This
something that flows or breaks against, which I have called the individuating
perspective, is here taken to be a vital part of what must be taken also to be at
stake in the former, and in order to make the latter stand out more clearly, I have
deliberately downplayed to a very great extent the role of what one might—
justifiably—take to be the central notions. However, granted the setting of this
play as a play, the question of truth seems to prevail inescapably, for how does the
theater relate to what is real, and as such to truth in an impregnable manner? This
problem, so I hold, underlies that of the individuating perspective, which has
allowed us to see an alteration bringing into sight and question what comes of the
systematizing perspective, and in this manner baffles us whenever we seem to have
struck upon a meaningful aspect of what it might entail to talk about truth and
reality in the fuzzy light of existence. In other words, it calls us back to question
the question raised, what about truth? As such, we are led likewise to the question
of communication, as we were with H.H. in the third act, for example, and as we
have pondered it in different ways in this act. The theater allows for a kind of
communication, which doesn’t settle the words in writing, that is, which has
always the flux of the situation as part of its condition. And somewhat like the
question of how communication and existence relate in relation to truth, the
theater seems to hold a similar kind of question in relation to reality. We may insist
that the two notions in each case or the two in relation to each other can be kept

248
apart—that one can have meaning independently of the other, especially perhaps,
as H.H. also argued, and in so doing in some sense also argued against, with
respect to truth, which was said to be entirely different to speaking about it; to
communicating in any other way than a communication of doing, which is not
exactly communication but imitation if we hold some level of consistency in
accordance with the inner logic of the argument. However, if we maintain that
existence and communication interlace in a way that might be possible to separate
conceptually but not thereby necessarily in existence and thought, insofar as this is
at the same time inseparable from the former, then reality in relation to the theater
or truth in relation to communication may show to have softer, or harder
differentiable, lines between them than we might be abashed to establish in want
of meaningful fortification of distinctions. This does not mean, of course, that
what looks different really is all the same, but that in either direction we are
challenged in an effort to stand our grounds as if nothing were able to shake them.
Into this initial menagerie steps the plurality of perspectives—or—the singular
affronted with authority. Communication, namely, insofar as the concept is to
make any sense, makes shared. In making shared, the question of authority arises,
in particular when we consider the relative one-sidedness of meddelelse. For the
‘one’ who communicates is at the same time one, but made to stand for or stand
to (as in stand before) more at the moment of communication (be that in any form
it may). And the question is now, how does this relate to the plurality that it speaks
and speaks to?
Let us return to the questions here posed once again from the top.
First, how about the religious, the ethical, the absolute? In our encounter
with the different pseudonyms, we have indirectly been confronted with the idea
that their use of concepts cannot be seen independently of the performance or
development of the texts or that when we ask about them, there is an underlying
anticipation of a conceptual framework to which our questioning responds. As
such, when attempting to say something of a more ‘general nature’ of such central
concepts as these, the danger is to overlook the effort to make them appear as
significant in the existence context to which they are brought by way of the text,
much like they are given life by each one asking in existence. It is therefore a
twofold difficulty: that the concepts come to life in existence of the text, and that

249
the text comes to life by the conceptual questioning of the one who asks of it
something, but, of course, the two cannot in any meaningful way be kept entirely
apart.
Second, what may be understood as the central concerns of the texts are
illuminated not least by their counter-voices, because what is enacted in the text
also has the ability to be suicidal, that is, to put its own condition of life into
question. But, much like the missing fifth act in the question of existence, it is not
able to find resolve by killing itself in the end. Even by denying its own right to be,
it is still in this negation moving along its own premises of not being able to escape
itself (we find this for example with Climacus, with the Judge, with H.H., with
Johannes de silentio, with Anti-Climacus, and with the poet as character more
broadly speaking). That is, by speaking against itself it does not go beyond itself,
although it does go beyond consistency. In relation to the question of truth,
therefore, both problems prevail—giving meaning to the concept of truth is a
move that is brought to life through the movements of the text, but such that the
meaning given has something that breaks against it, and in this breaking does not
suggest another consistent meaning, but makes for a hesitation of any in the form
of as such. In this sense, it instills in itself the existence qualification of the missing
fifth act. The distinction between theater and non-theater in this respect therefore
becomes blurred, for the stage is in some sense given by assuming that it is not
there when we make a definition, that is, that we are off stage when giving an
answer to what the stage is. And while we enter the theater, we do so with a
notion of what it means to do so, that is, we make the theater what it is by
assuming the concepts that to us constitute it, wherefore we are already at the
theater when we enter the theater. This is not to say that theater and non-theater
are the same, but that in the non-theater there is something theatrical, such as in
un-truth there is the truth of hiding the truth (the vanishing of truth in the
perspectives that are able to talk truthfully about truth by not pretending to be in
truth). The theater may then become the image of the difficulty of drawing out of
the theater, that is, of establishing the stage upon which meaning comes to life
outside the stage on which it does so.
Third, with the question of communication arises a problem, which
transcends—and as such forfeits—the immanence of the existential conceptual

250
development and understanding. With Climacus this problem is pronounced in a
method of indirect communication, which even in its pronouncement contains its
own contradiction, the contradiction from whence the singularity of every voice
that speaks along stands out. The problem is not to communicate within a given
context of reference in which results may be provided—relative to the context
namely (that is, as an immanent assessment according to a certain systematizing
perspective). The problem arises, rather, when communication wills to
communicate in a manner that transcends any relative context, thereby establishing
itself as relating to truth. If we take Climacus’ word for it (!), this is when
communication arrives at the only possibility left for it to follow—to make
difficulties everywhere or, in making difficulties everywhere, pronouncing the
complication of communication itself when it strives beyond that which can be
meaningfully shared in results. As such, the problem of communication is at once
taken as the object and the subject of concern—for it wills to denounce the
possibility of pronouncing in itself the substitution of the situation that gives
meaning to it, that is, the situation in which truth comes to be by being lived 72. In
this manner of thinking communication there is a contradiction, of course,
because it can only aim at the indirectness in its self-questioning by relating to it in
itself. Thus, communication in this sense is at the same time an immanent move
and a move that transcends. In changing the perspective back and forth between
an immanent enclosure and a yearning for transcendence, what is at stake—that
which cannot settle itself in one particular form of discourse—is brought into light
through altering descriptions that are qualified by having the resistance of
communication as its companion.
Four, communication, in whichever way we look at it, opens up perspectives
to us in which meaning is created and shared. Thus, it makes for a meeting
between the singular perspective of the existent and the plural pronouncement of
det Almene in this striking upon difference, which is shared.
What has been brought about by way of Wittgenstein is a manner of
picturing (by imagery, by music, by words) that we are able to suddenly see

72 As we learned from H.H., this is also the qualification of truth in terms of Christ, who is the

truth in word and deed, in life and death.

251
something different in the same. This seeing something different doesn’t just bring
about something new in what we saw before, it brings about what we saw before
as something new—that is, it establishes the contrast by making apparent that we
saw something in a particular way in the first place. That this kind of astonishment
may come about at any time may be taken to mean something not just when we
perceive a change of aspect, but also in being aware by knowing that we can
experience such that our paradigms are not innocent—which doesn’t mean that
they are guilty either, but that something that was not taken as a paradigm, but as
simple report, may show itself as such. In the words of Juliet Floyd it is central to
our use of language that we have the curiosity with the puzzle character of this
kind of revelation (Floyd, 2010, 315). Here, we have focused more on if, and if so
how, this manner of understanding the sudden need for a different kind of
description relative to ‘the same’, might cast some light on the many little
disruptions and changes in the perspectives presented to us through the
pseudonyms. Some aspects of this attempt, which are of importance as we move
toward the end of the present play, are the following:
It allows for a way in which to perceive, and conceptualize, changes without
insisting on the question of what it really is, that is, which aspect that reveals itself
is the right one (here we might think of the words by Eremita, for example, when
he underlines as a positive aspect of the work that there is no final decision as to
which life-view is the right one; or when Johannes de silentio finalizes his work by
once again restating the clause of the work—the undecided either-or of Abraham,
more importantly perhaps, it may be found in many minor aspects of the different
works, which are less immediately obvious but contribute to the ‘lack of’
unequivocal results). It facilitates seeing the little changes (or the individuating
perspectives) as something that goes against what might immediately be presented
as that which presents us with meaning, not as a mere negation, but as making
apparent that in meaning being perceived thus, we are led to think concurring to a
paradigm. A paradigm, which may in its turn be contradicted or at least show itself
as not being the only way in which to make sense of whatever question is being
looked at. Most importantly at present, perhaps, is that it enables us to think the
individuating perspective without the individual in the singular. What is
characteristic for the manner in which Wittgenstein makes use of Aspektwechsel,

252
namely, is also that it is not unique to one person. While there is someone
experiencing the change of aspect, it is so that it is possible for that someone to
describe the change that has taken place, that is, to make it shared. What is
relevant in relation to this is the idea that the individuating perspective is made
manifest in the pseudonymous texts, that is, that we are able to describe a change
taking place, even if it may be contradictory to another meaning given within the
same. In this sense, the singularity pronounced may—at least on some level—be
perceived by the spectator and the spectator by the singularity of sharing this
moment of meaning.
Ethics of incontinence underlies the effort that has been set on stage in
these previous two acts particularly. It is strung out between the homelessness of
existents in existence and the incontinence that this homelessness brings along in
its wake. It is not so much that the homelessness cannot be pronounced, but that
there is nothing beyond the pronouncement to ensure its correctness. Saying that
ethics is a kind of homelessness (apart from alluring to Heidegger and an arche-
understanding of ethos as the place where the wild horses are 73) is an indication of
the varied meanings it takes on, depending on where it is developed and used by
the different pseudonyms. While ethics seems all but homeless, considering that it
is many a times employed as relating to something universal (det Almene), the
homelessness shows itself in not being anywhere right at home. A distinction may
be attempted therefore between ethics as meaningful (as universal and ideal) and
ethics as a place between that renders no meaningful, and much less definite,
coordinates. A being between meaning and the disruption of that meaning holds
on us, perhaps, the challenge of regaining sight, whenever we lose what made
seeing out of definite sight—that meaning, also in the sense of opinion, is the
beginning that withdraws itself but must—inconceivably—be begun anew in order
for us, as existents, to be.
When Climacus is about to leave the stage, he turns around to provide an
addendum (SKS 7, 560-565). He wants to let us know that he does not pretend to

73Concerning the idea of Unheimlichkeit see e.g. (Heidegger, 1983, 165-167); on ethos, (Scott, 1988,
23). Likewise, it is notable that Unheimlich is the word used by Afham to describe the scene it the
early morning light when the guests leave the banquet.

253
be a Christian; he wants to let us know that he does not pretend to have a reader,
although he imagines to have one; he wants to let us know that he is an apprentice
of existence (without a master or with the master of unknowing); he wants to let
us know that his work is superfluous, and, what is more, that it must be
understood according to its not just containing an ending but a revocation, as if
Climacus were able to leave the stage, and thereby not just leave but take
everything with him that he brought along. At the same time he says to us, the
audience that possibly is not, that he writes for himself, writes in the singular, that
he is asking the question about Christianity as this one individual; Climacus, born
in Copenhagen, now 30-years-old. In his own words, his work is superfluous—and
why? Because it asks a question relating to existence by an existent, whose
inclination is to be a humorist, to create difficulties everywhere—that is, by
someone who knows that he doesn’t know what it means that there is no fifth act.
His work can only be, therefore, by being what is all the time unfinished, and from
the very beginning not begun, but by fumbling in the dark. Does this mean that
the work has no meaning? It means, perhaps, that the script by which he plays is
unknown, but that expression is given all along, nonetheless, on this stage with no
final act and no overture. Expression, which is meaningful but not meaning-full.
Climacus bows down to leave the stage, but behind him the doors of exit are
all closed.

254
 EPILOGUE

In a play that has neither head nor tail, it seems likely that we should make leave by
returning once again to ask about the beginning. That is, the beginning that
questioned itself, and in so doing, questioned the assumption of a perspective
from which to set out on the journey through the manifold of perspectives.
On the one hand, the endeavor of this work was quite simple—to make
room for the pseudonyms of Kierkegaard to stand out ‘on their own’, bracketing
the question of authority in order to suggest that in their manifold of perspectives
there is a wealth, which is not just a challenge to the reader, but makes the
problems they pose stand out differently, because posed by them. And, not least,
because latent in their manners of asking, there seems to be something that poses
itself contrary to any systematizing endeavor. That is, which seems to hold the
being between that has no definite beginning or end, and therefore begins in a way
that may always be begun again (in a manner that begins just as much against itself
as for itself). On the other hand, the endeavor of this work sets the question as
extended toward philosophy in a broad sense, which has been present mainly as an
undercurrent of questions that have been posed throughout. Questions that relate
to many philosophical themes, but interlaced with the singularity of the
pronouncement, which—in insisting on the many perspectives from which such
questions can be meaningfully posed, found no foothold from which to answer
them singlehandedly. This, in its turn was found just as much between the
question of philosophy of the problem of having neither beginning nor end, as in
the question to philosophy of how and whether it be possible to allow the
menagerie of existence ‘into’ thought. In this sense, the questions meet in having
neither head nor tail, for in any meaningful attempt at an approach to them we
would need to assume a systematizing perspective from which such questioning
could depart. As such, the problem posed in the simple endeavor—to allow the
plurality of voices to speak—comes back and bites its own tail.
It has been the attempt, nonetheless, to present the pseudonyms on stage,
that is, in a setting that already assumes the fallibility of its own plot. And here we
have met them in their clarity and contradictions, in their singular ambitions and

255
their ideal endeavors, in their living rooms and in the parks of Copenhagen, in the
morning and at night.
It is from the wealth of ex-istence that the many perspectives stand out—
and here we meet, likewise, what I have suggested as ethics of incontinence. Ethics
of incontinence, as a bringing together of opposing elements that cannot finally be
united, but that we are somehow forced to unite, because our individual existences
in community all the time challenges us to be and act, in reflection and in doing.
Ethics of incontinence, as a conceptualization of that which in some sense escapes
conceptualization—as a concern with all those little details that touch us and
sometimes disrupt the idea of living according to certain ideas. It is, therefore, the
admittance of unfathomable wealth of differences into the search for clarity; a
wealth in the search for clarity, neither of which escape the stage that is at once
their home and their homelessness.

256
 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Søren Kierkegaard

Kierkegaard, Søren A. (1997 – 2013). Søren Kierkegaard Skrifter, vols. 1-27 and
corresponding commentary volumes. Cappelørn, N. J. et al. (eds.).
København: Gad. (Abbreviation: SKS).

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (2000). Wittgenstein’s Nachlass. Bergen Electronic Edition.

Oxford: University of Bergen and Oxford University Press.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (2001). Philosophische Untersuchungen – Kritisch-genetische
Edition, J. Schulte; H. Nyman; E. von Savigny; and G. H. von Wright (eds.).
Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (2000). The Big Typescript (Wiener Ausgabe). M. Nedo (ed.).
Frankfurt am Main: Zweitausendeins.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1997). Ludwig Wittgenstein. Tagebücher 1930 – 1932/ 1936 –
1937. I. Somavilla (ed.). Innsbruck: Haymon.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1997). Bemerkungen über die Farben ; Über Gewissheit ; Zettel ;
Vermischte Bemerkungen. Werkausgabe, Band 8. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1993). Philosophical Occasions: 1912 – 1951. J. Klagge and A.
Mandmann (eds.). Indiana: Hackett Publishing Company.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1984). Bemerkungen über die Philosophie der Psychologie; Letzte
Schriften über die Philosophie der Psychologie. Werkausgabe, Band 7. Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp.
Wittgenstein, Ludwig. (1978). Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus. Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp.

257
 Other Literature

Allen, Julie K. (2009). “Ludwig Holberg: Kierkegaard’s Unacknowledged Mentor”.

In J. Stewart (ed.) Kierkegaard Research: Sources, Resources and Reception, vol. 5,
tome III. Copenhagen: Ashgate. pp. 77-92.
Arendt, Hannah. (1998). The Human Condition. Chicago: The University of Chicago
Press.
Aumann, Anthony. (2013). “Kierkegaard, Paraphrase, and the Unity of Form and
Content”. In Philosophy Today, 57 (4). pp. 376-387.
Bearn, Gordon C. F. (2010). “The Enormous Danger”. In W. Day and V. J. Krebs
(eds.). Seeing Wittgenstein Anew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp.
338-356.
Bertung, Birgit and Müller, Paul. (1993). Kierkegaard-Pseudonymitet. Copenhagen:
C.A. Reitzel.
Biggs, Michael and Pichler, Alois. (1993). Wittgenstein: Two Source Catalogues and a
Bibliography – Catalogues of the Published Texts and of the Published Diagrams, Each
Related to its Sources, Working Papers from the Wittgenstein Archive at the
University of Bergen, No.7.
Borges, Jorge Luis. (2005). Obras Completas, vol. I. Spain: Rodesa.
Brock, Steen. (2010). “The Grammar of Pretense – Wittgenstein’s Irish Writings”
(unpublished conference paper, held at a conference in Odense, Denmark).
Extended version of the same available online:
http://pure.au.dk/portal/files/2127476/brock-wittgenstein_manus.pdf
Cappelørn, Niels J. and Stewart, Jon. (eds.) (1997). Kierkegaard Revisited, Proceedings
from the Conference ”Kierkegaard and the Meaning of Meaning”, May 5 – 9, 1996.
Berlin: De Gruyter.
Caputo, John D. (1987). Radical hermeneutics, repetition, deconstruction, and the hermeneutic
project. Indiana: Indiana University Press.
Caputo, John D. (2002). “Looking the Impossible in the Eye: Kierkegaard,
Derrida, and the Repetition of Religion”. In N. Cappelørn, H. Deuser and J.
Steward (eds.). Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2002. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter.
pp. 1-25.
Cavell, Stanley. (1979). The Claim of Reason: Wittgenstein, Skepticism, Morality, and
Tragedy. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

258
Cavell, Stanley. (2010). “The Touch of Words”. In W. Day and V. J. Krebs (eds.).
Seeing Wittgenstein Anew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Conant, James. (1995). ”Putting Two and Two Together: Kierkegaard,
Wittgenstein, and the Point of View for Their Work as Authors”. In T. Tessin
and M. von der Ruhr (eds.). Philosophy and the Grammar of Religious Belief.
London: Macmillan Press. pp. 248-331.
Crary, Alice and Read, Rupert. (eds.) (2000). The New Wittgenstein. London:
Routledge.
Creegan, Charles. (1989). Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard – Religion, Individuality and
Philosophical Method. London: Routledge.
Davenport, John J. and Rudd, Anthony (eds.) (2001). Kierkegaard After MacIntyre.
USA: Carus Publishing Company.
Day, William; Krebs, Victor J. (eds.) (2010). Seeing Wittgenstein Anew. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Descartes, René. (2000). Meditations on First Philosophy. Ed. and tr. by J. Cottingham.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Diamond, Cora. (1988). “Throwing Away the Ladder”. In Philsophy, vol. 63, No.
243. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 5-27.
Diamond, Cora. (2011). A Case for Irony. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press (J. Lear, The Tanner Lectures on Human Values).
Engelmann, Luiz Mauro. (2013). Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Development –
Phenomenology, Grammar, Method, and the Anthropological View. Great Britain:
Palgrave Macmillan.
Floyd, Juliet. (2010). “On Being Surprised: Wittgenstein on Aspekt-Perception,
Logic, and Mathematics”. In W. Day and V. J. Krebs (eds.). Seeing Wittgenstein
Anew. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 314-337.
Fremstedal, Roe. (2011). “The Concept of the Highest Good in Kierkegaard and
Kant”. In International Journal for Philosophy of Religion, vol. 69, issue 3. pp. 155 –
171.
Furtak, Rick Anthony. (2005). Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for
Emotional Integrity. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press.
Garff, Joakim. (1995). “Den søvnløse” – Kierkegaard læst æstetisk/biografisk.
København: C. A. Reitzel.

259
Goldfarb, Warren. (2012). “Das Überwinden: Anti-Metaphysical Readings of the
Tractatus”. In R. Read and M. A. Lavery (eds.). Beyond the Tractatus Wars.
Hoboken: Taylor and Francis. pp. 6-21.
Gonzáles, Dario. (2001). “The Triptych of Sciences in the Introduction of The
Concept of Anxiety”. In N. J. Cappelørn, H. Deuser, J. Stewart, and C. Tolstrup
(eds.). Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2001. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 15-42.
Greenspan, Daniel. (2008). The Passion of Infinity – Kierkegaard, Aristotle and the
Rebirth of Tragedy. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph
Series/ 19).
Grøn, Arne. (1994). Begrebet Angst hos Søren Kierkegaard. København: Gyldendal.
Grøn, Arne. (1997). Subjektivitet og Negativitet: Kierkegaard. København: Gyldendal.
Grøn, Arne. (1998). “»Anden« Etik”. In J. Garff, T. A. Olesen, P. Søltoft (eds.).
Studier i stadier, Søren Kierkegaard Selskabets 50 års jubilæum. København: C. A.
Reitzel. pp. 77-87.
Grøn, Arne. (2002). “Ethics of Vision”. In I. U. Dalferth (ed.). Ethik der Liebe,
Studien zu Kierkegaards “Taten der Liebe”, Religion in Philosophy and Theology
/4. Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck. pp. 111-122.
Grøn, Arne. (2006). „Subjektivität und Un-Wahrheit“. In N. J. Cappelørn, R.
Crouter, T. Jørgensen, C. Osthövener (eds.). Schleiermacher und Kierkegaard.
Berlin: De Gruyter (Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series/ 11). pp. 13-28.
Grundtvig, Nicolai Frederik Severin. (1845). Danske Ordsprog og Mundheld.
København: C. A. Reitzel.
Habbard, Anne-Christine. (2002). “Time and Testimony, Contemporaneity and
Communication: A Reading of the Ethical in Kierkegaard’s Fear and
Trembling”. In N. J. Cappelørn, H. Deuser, J. Stewart, and C. Tolstrup (eds.).
Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2002. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 165-187.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. (1970). Phänomenologie des Geistes. Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp.
Heidegger, Martin. (1983). Einführung in die Metafysik. Gesamtausgabe, Band 40.
Frankfurt am Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
Heidegger, Martin. (1992). Parmenides. Gesamtausgabe, Band 54. Frankfurt am
Main: Vittorio Klostermann.
Henriksen, Mads Fedder. (1999). “A Preface to the ‘Preface’ of Prefaces”. In J.
Garff et al. (eds.). Kierkegaardiana, vol. 20. København: C.A. Reitzel. pp. 7-30.

260
Hintikka, Jaokko. (1996). Ludwig Wittgenstein, Half-Truths and One-and-a-Half-Truths.
Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers.
Holberg, Ludwig. (1970). Uden Hoved og Hale. In F. J. Billeskov Jansen (ed.) Værker
i tolv bind, volume 5. Denmark: Rosenkilde og Bagger.
Hrachovec, Herbert. (2006). Wittgenstein’s Paperwork. An Example from the “Big
Typescript”. Philpapers.org.
Janik, Allan and Toulmin, Stephen. (1973). Wittgenstein’s Vienna. New York: Simon
and Schuster.
Kanding, Viggo. (2005). “Tvende ethisk-religieuse Smaa-Afhandlinger”. In T. A.
Olesen and P. Søltoft (eds.). Den Udødelige – Kierkegaard læst værk for værk.
København: C.A. Reitzel.
Kant, Immanuel. (1996). Kritik der reinen Vernunft. Hamburg: Felix Meiner Verlag.
Kaasgaard, Stine Zink (2013): ”Når skurke digter helte hos Kierkegaard”. In
Slagmark, nr. 65. pp. 73-90).
Kingo, Anders. (1995). Analogiens Teologi, en dogmatisk studie over dialektikken i Søren
Kierkegaards opbyggelige og pseudonyme forfatterskab. København: Gad.
Kingo, Anders. (1988). Den pseudonyme tale, en studie over eksistensanalysens kategori i
Søren Kierkegaards forfatterskab. København: Gad.
Knappe, Ulrich. (2004). Theory and Practice in Kant and Kierkegaard. Berlin: Walter de
Gruyter (Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series/ 9).
Llevadot, Laura. (2013). Kierkegaard Through Derrida – Toward a Postmetaphysical
Ethics. USA: Contemporary European Cultural Studies.
MacKinnon, Alastair. (1969). “Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms: A New Hierarchy”. In
American Philosophical Quarterly, Univeristy of Illinois Press, Vol. 6, No. 2. pp.
116-126.
Malcolm, Norman. (1966). Ludwig Wittgenstein – A Memoir. Great Britain: Oxford
University Press.
McGinn, Marie. (2010). “Wittgenstein and naturalism”. In M. de Caro & D.
Macarthur (eds.). Naturalism and Normativity. New York: Columbia University
Press.
Monk, Ray. (1991). Ludwig Wittgenstein – the Duty of Genius. London: Vintage.
Mooney, Edward. (2012). “Pseudonyms and Style in Kierkegaard”. In J. Lippitt
and G. Pattison (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.

261
Mulhall, Stephen. (2010). “The Work of Wittgenstein’s Words: A Reply to Baz”.
In W. Day and D. Krebs (eds.). Seeing Wittgenstein Anew. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. pp. 249-267.
Mulhall, Stephen. (2001). Inheritance and Originality: Wittgenstein, Heidegger, Kierkegaard.
Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Nientied, Mariele. (2003). Kierkegaard und Wittgenstein “Hineintäuschen in das Wahre”.
Berlin: De Gruyter (Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series/ 7).
Nietzsche, Friedrich. (1954). “Götzen-Dämmerung oder Wie man mit dem
Hammer philosophiert”. In Werke in drei Bänden, Band 2. München: Carl
Hanser Verlag.
Nordentoft, Kresten. (2013). Kierkegaards Psykologi. Copenhagen: Hans Reitzels
Forlag.
Pattison, George. (1992). Kierkegaard, the Aesthetic and the Religious: the Magic Theater to
the Crucifixion of the Image. United Kingdom: Macmillan.
Pattison, George. (2003). ”Søren Kierkegaard: A Theatre Critic of the Heiberg
School”. In J. Stewart (ed.) Kierkegaard and His Contemporaries – the Culture of
Golden Age Denmark. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 119-129.
Pattison, George. (2007). ”Kierkegaard and Genre”. In Poetics Today, vol. 28, no. 3.
pp. 475-497.
Perarnau, Dolors Vidal. (2004). “El punto de vista sobre mi actividad como
escritor: Tan solo un punto de vista”. In D. Gonzáles, T. A. Olesen, R.
Purkarthofer, B. Söderquist, P. Søltoft et al. (eds.). Kierkegaardiana, vol. 23.
København: C.A. Reitzels Forlag.
Pichler, Alois (1993). “A Source Catalogue of the Published Texts”. In M. Biggs
and A. Pichler (eds.). Wittgenstein: Two Source Catalogues and a Bibliography –
Catalogues of the Published Texts and of the Published Diagrams, Each Related to its
Sources, Working Papers from the Wittgenstein Archive at the University of
Bergen, No.7.
Plato. (1987). The Republic. London: Penguin Books.
Poole, Roger. (1993). Kierkegaard: the Indirect Communication. Charlottesville, Virginia:
University Press of Virginia.
Read, Rupert and Lavery, Matthew A. (eds.) (2012). Beyond the Tractatus Wars. The
New Wittgenstein Debate. Hoboken: Taylor and Francis.

262
Rhees, Rush. (1989). “Vorbemerkungen des Herausgebers”. In Wittgenstein. Das
Blaue Buch. Werkausgabe, Band 5. Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Rocca, Ettore. (2002). “If Abraham is not a Human Being”. In N. J. Cappelørn, H.
Deuser, J. Stewart, and C. Tolstrup (eds.). Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2002.
Berlin: Walter de Gruyter. pp. 247-258.
Scott, Charles E. (1988). “Heidegger and the Question of Ethics”. In Research in
Phenomenology, vol. 18, pp. 23-40.
Schmidt, Jochen. (2006). Vielstimmige Rede vom Unsagbaren. Dekonstruktion, Glaube
und Kierkegaards pseudonyme Literatur. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (Kierkegaard
Studies. Monograph Series/ 14).
Schönbaumsfeld, Genia. (2007). A Confusion of the Spheres: Kierkegaard and
Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Schulte, Joachim. (1993). Experience and Expression – Wittgenstein’s Philosophy of
Psychology. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Schulte, Joachim. (2009). “Wittgenstein on Emotions”. In Y. K. Gustav, C.
Kronquist, M. McEachrane (eds.). Emotions and Understanding. Wittgensteinian
Perspectives. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 27-42.
Schwab, Philipp. (2012). Der Rückstoss der Methode – Kierkegaard und die indirekte
Mittelung. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter (Kierkegaard Studies. Monograph Series/
25).
Stern, David. (2004). Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations – an Introduction.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Stewart, Jon. (2003). Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Theunissen, Michael. (1958). Der Begriff Ernst bei Søren Kierkegaard. Freiburg: Verlag
Karl Alber.
Theunissen, Michael. (1993). Der Begriff Verzweiflung, Korrekturen an Kierkegaard.
Frankfurt am Main: Suhrkamp.
Thompson, James M. (2008). Wittgenstein on Phenomenology and Experience: An
Investigation of Wittgenstein’s ‘Middel Period’. Bergen: Publications from the
Wittgenstein Archives at the University of Bergen. No. 21.
Tullberg, Steen. (2006). Søren Kierkegaard i Danmark – En receptionshistorie.
København: C.A. Reitzel.

263
Turnbull, Jamie. (2009). “Kierkegaard, indirect communication, and ambiguity”. In
The Heythrop Journal 50/ 1. pp. 13-22.
Venturinha, Nuno (ed.). (2010). Wittgenstein After His Nachlass. England: Palgrave
Macmillan.
Von Wright, G.H. (1986). Wittgenstein. Tr. by J. Schulte in 1982. Frankfurt am
Main: Suhrkamp.
Von Wright, G.H. (1993). “The Wittgenstein Papers”. In J. C. Klagge and A.
Nordmann (eds.). Philosophical Occasions: 1912 – 1951. Indianapolis: Hackett.
Westfall, Joseph. (2007). The Kierkegaardian Author, Authorship and Performance in
Kierkegaard’s Literary and Dramatic Criticism. Berlin: De Gruyter (Kierkegaard
Studies. Monograph Series/ 15).
Zjilstra, Onno. (2006). Language, Image and Silence, Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on
Ethics and Aesthetics. Bern: Peter Lang.
Åmås, Knut Olav. (1998). “Indroduktion” In Wittgenstein, Ludwig: Den ukjente
dagboken. Tr. by K. O. Åmås, ed. by I. Somavilla. Oslo: Spartacus Forlag.
(Translator’s introduction).

Other sources

Store Norske Leksikon, “Ludvig Holberg”

http://snl.no/Ludvig_Holberg

Niels Jensen, Danske Litteraturpriser (BogGuide), “Lille Grønnegade”

http://www.litteraturpriser.dk/1850t/t1850priv13.htm#dato_31-12-1724

264
 ABSTRACT

The aim of this dissertation is to present a reading of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous

works that allows a prominent role—exactly to the pseudonyms. In so doing, it is
the plurality of perspectives of and by the pseudonyms that will be brought to the
fore, as the ‘focus’ of the investigation. I bracket, thereby, the question of
authority as to intention, aim, and achievements of the author ‘as such’. Or, I place
this question relative to a different parameter: all the little things that seem to go
against an inclination to lo ok for and be provided with coherence in the
expression. For this reason, questions pertaining to key concepts—such as self,
subjectivity, anxiety, and despair—are not raised or they are only raised insofar as
prompted by the pseudonyms in the given context in which we meet them. I
suggest, then, an understanding of the pseudonymous works that places great
importance on the plurality of perspectives as something that cannot be silenced in
the name of existence, but in the name of existence keeps pushing against any one
understanding that we may be able to establish with respect to it.
A question that arises with the attempt to let the plurality of pseudonymous
voices speak is the following: is it possible to keep the plurality of perspectives in
view and in mind and still be able to say something? That is, by wanting to insist
on the many perspectives, does it become impossible to say anything meaningful
at all? In order to respond to this question, I make a twofold move. I set up the
whole ‘frame’ of questioning within the theater, such as to allow the individual
pseudonymous character to ex-ist, that is to stand out, in a way that nonetheless
does not escape the frame of its own questioning. And, I bring in some thoughts
from the late Wittgenstein in order to suggest on the one hand, that we are able to
talk about meaning without committing to meaning as such; on the other hand, that
we have the ability to suddenly see something different in the same, such that what
seemed the same can stand out as different and be in the need of a different kind
of description or expression.
In this sense, my reading simultaneously insists on the irreducibility of
different perspectives, and all the little things that may disrupt our quest for
systematization. And on the idea that it is nonetheless possible to express ourselves
in a way that is meaningful, but not meaning-full.

265
 RESUMÉ

I denne afhandling præsenteres en læsning af Kierkegaards pseudonyme værker,

der tillader en prominent plads—netop til pseudonymerne. Den mangfoldighed af
perspektiver, som pseudonymerne dels udtrykker, dels sætter for os , træder her i
forgrunden og bliver undersøgelsens ‘fokus’ . Dermed sætter jeg parentes om hele
spørgsmålet om autoritet hvad angår forfatterens intentioner og mål ‘som sådan’ .
Eller rettere, jeg fremsætter spørgsmålet i forhold til en anden målestok: alle de
små ting, der synes at sætte sig imod vores tilbøjelighed til at søge og opnå
sammenhæng i udtryk og tanke. Derfor rejses sådanne spørgsmål ikke, der
specifikt angår nøglebegreber i forfatterskabet, såsom selv, subjektivitet, angst og
fortvivlelse—eller de rejses kun for så vidt pseudonymerne afstedkommer en
sådan spørgen i de konkrete sammenhænge i hvilke vi møder dem. Jeg foreslår
således en forståelse af de pseudonym e værker, der lægger vægt på
mangfoldigheden af perspektiver, som ikke kan bringes til tavshed i eksistens, og
som bestandigt synes at modstille sig enhver tilnærmelse til entydighed i mening.
Således er det mangfoldigheden af perspektiver denne undersøgelse har fremsat
ved at lade pseudonymerne træde frem.
Med afhandlingens insisteren på perspektivernes mangfoldighed stilles
spørgsmålet: Er det muligt at holde de mange perspektiver åbne i blik og tanke –
en mangfoldighed der netop ikke lader sig indfange af hverken blik eller tanke – og
stadig være i stand til at udtrykke (noget)? Eller med andre ord, bliver det umuligt
at sige noget meningsfuldt? Denne afhandlings bud på et svar uden løsninger er
todelt: Som ramme for den problematiserende undersøgelse sættes teatret. Tanken
er, at teatret som scene for afhandlingens udfoldelse giver plads for de individuelle
pseudonymer til at ek-sistere, til at træde frem eller træde i karakter, på en måde,
der ikke undflyr sig rammen for sin egen spørgen.
For yderligere at sætte denne problemstilling i scene, inddrager jeg tanker fra
den sene Wittgenstein, der fremsætter muligheden for at tale om og med mening
uden at tale om mening som sådan. Med Wittgenstein sættes yderligere den tanke i
spil, at vi har muligheden for se noget andet og nyt i det samme, således at der
med og i det samme kan fremstå noget andet, og at dette andet kalder på en
anden beskrivelse eller udtryk.

267
 På denne måde er min læsning på én gang en insisteren på det irreduktible i
mangfoldigheden af perspektiver og alle de små ting, der kan forstyrre vores higen
efter systematisering. Og en fastholdelse af ideen om, at det ikke desto mindre er
muligt at udtrykke os på en måde, der er meningsfuld, men ikke har menings-fylde.

268