Essay On Kierkegaard Essay, Research Paper
Willed Faith and Belief
An essay on Kierkegaard
1. Introduction
Can we will to believe what we choose? Are there times when we should at least try to believe in something? If it were easy to manipulate our own beliefs, low self-esteem would vanish, the divorce rate would decline, and over-consumption would disappear with the reminder: “I already have enough stuff.”
Yet there is something suspect about willed beliefs. Perhaps it is not ethically responsible to change beliefs without regard for the truth of the matter.1 And the epistemological coherence of the notion is questionable. Perhaps belief states are just not the kind of things that are under the influence of our will – analogous to the fact that we cannot decide to perceive blueness when looking at a red apple.
This is an issue that has attracted some interest in the course of the history of thought. In this paper I will be looking into the views of a contemporary author who sees the relationship of willing to belief as an issue recurring thoughout the history of philosophy.
In his book Religious Belief and the Will2, Louis Pojman identifies Soren Kierkegaard as a direct prescriptive volitionalist, i.e. a thinker who holds that beliefs can and ought to be (at least in some circumstances) directly willed.
C. Stephen Evans, in “Does Kierkegaard Think Beliefs Can Be Directly Willed?”3 responds to Pojman’s position, arguing that the attribution of direct volitionalism to Kierkegaard is too strong a claim. Evans does admit Kierkegaard as an indirect volitionalist, i.e. as holding that we can bring about belief states indirectly, as consequences of other actions that are themselves directly willed. (An example might be my taking up a winter sport, in order to produce a belief that winter is an enjoyable season.)
Additional articles4 have appeared in the literature recently, which respond to Pojman’s position in Religious Belief and the Will, as well as views presented in Pojman’s book entitled The Logic of Subjectivity5, and a paper Pojman recently contributed to the ongoing discussion, viz. “Kierkegaard on Faith and Freedom.”6 Various related issues are dealt with in these discussions, many of which would make interesting topics for another paper.
In this paper I will be examining Pojman’s analysis of Kierkegaard’s views, as articulated in Religious Belief and the Will, and Evans’s paper, as it relates specifically to arguments contained in Pojman’s book. For support of their varying positions, both authors rely primarily upon references to Philosophical Fragments7 and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments8, by the pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus. These are the Kierkegaardian writings that I will be referring to as well. The question of the relationship between the views of Kierkegaard and the views attributed to the pseudonymous author will not be discussed here. I will refer to the author as Kierkegaard when responding to a discussion that refers to ‘Kierkegaard.’ When responding to a discussion which refers to ‘Climacus,’ and in my own analysis of the The Fragments and The Postscript, I prefer to refer to the author under the pseudonym.
In the first section of my paper, I will describe Pojman’s views concerning Kierkegaard, and I will paraphrase the definitions of volitionalism laid out by Pojman. I will explicate the proffered grounds for his analysis of Kierkegaard, and will consider the strength of his position. In the second part of this paper, I will examine the extent to which Evans successfully replies to Pojman. The issue of the strength of Evans’s own position will be addressed. I will offer an alternative to Evans’s critique.
In my final section I will investigate the relevance of the discussion of volitionalism to a general reading of the Postscript. Are there grounds for supposing that Climacus is advocating either direct, or indirect, or prescriptive volitionalism? Is there reason to suspect that he would oppose these positions?
2. Pojman’s view that Kierkegaard is a volitionalist
In Religious Belief and the Will, Pojman offers an overview of how the relation of willing to faith and belief varies throughout the history of western thought. He provides descriptions of various well-known thinkers in order to illustrate types of volitionalism, and he presents arguments intended to undermine the validity and coherence of direct and prescriptive volitionalism. I am taking issue only with Pojman’s characterization of Kierkegaard as a direct prescriptive volitionalist.
Pojman defines volitionalism as the view that believing is an act that is under our control. Direct volitionalism is the position that one can acquire beliefs directly, simply by willing to believe certain propositions. Indirect volitionalism is the view some beliefs arise indirectly, from basic acts of the will. Pojman identifies an additional set of distinctions. Some volitionalists are prescriptive, some are only descriptive. The latter is the psychological position that the “voliting” of beliefs is possible. The former goes a step further, and asserts a normative element, holding that it is permissible or obligatory to take the necessary steps to acquire beliefs based on nonepistemic considerations (Pojman, 143-144).
It appears that it is the position of prescriptive volitionalism that Pojman finds particularly perplexing. Rejection of the value of this position is a major impetus behind the writing of his book, as evidenced by certain remarks made by Pojman in the introduction to Religious Belief and the Will:
This work arose from two experiences in my life. As a child I found myself doubting religious statements, and being told that there was something disloyal or apostate about such attitudes. I often found it impossible to make leaps of faith into orthodoxy, as I was supposed to do.
The second experience that led to working out these ideas was studying the work of Soren Kierkegaard, the Danish Christian Existentialist. Kierkegaard, as the reader will see, was a consummate volitionalist, apparently believing that every belief was a product of the will in some way. It was trying to come to grips with his thought in graduate school that convinced me there was something wrong with, at least, some types of volitionalism(Pojman, xii).
We can sympathize with Pojman here, as he rebels against the notion that he is somehow morally in the wrong if he does not produce faith at will. But is this Kierkegaard’s position? Does Kierkegaard maintain that we can and ought to will belief? Is the “leap of faith” constituted by a decision to believe in God – despite lack of evidence, or even evidence to the contrary?
Pojman does not make an explicit identification of the “leap of faith” with the willing of faith. However, this identification does seem to be one that is implicitly assumed, as evidenced by remarks made in his introduction, quoted above. Pojman is not alone in this popular interpretation of Kierkegaard’s concept of leap. But in my own reading of the Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, I failed to find a strong indication that Kierkegaard intends the expression “leap” to be understood in this sense.
I will review some discussions of “leap” found in the Postscript, in this paper’s final section, below. The point I want to make here is that Pojman seems to have a particular axe to grind with Kierkegaard. Pojman is reacting to the prescriptive direct volitionalism he initially saw in Kierkegaard during his days as a graduate student.
Pojman offers references to the writings of Kierkegaard as support for the claim that Kierkegaard is a prescriptive, direct volitionalist.
Pojman points out that, according to Kierkegaard, “Even if we had direct proofs for theism or Christianity, we would not want them; for they would take the venture out of the religious experience… For him [Kierkegaard] faith is the highest virtue precisely because it is objectively uncertain, for personal growth into selfhood depends on uncertainty, risk…”(Pojman, 71). Pojman’s source for these remarks is the chapter ‘The Historical Point of View’ in the Postscript.
As I read Pojman, these, and similar references, are intended to show that Kierkegaard reasoned:
1) The truth of Christianity cannot be objectively demonstrated therefore,
2) faith develops not as a consequence of evidence, but can only result from a decision to believe–regardless of the lack of evidence, and regardless of the absurdity of what is believed.
The former of these claims is an accurate description of Kierkegaard’s views as represented in the Postscript. The existence of God, and the truth of Christianity, cannot be known with certainty. Furthermore, it is not simply a matter of adequate evidence not yet having been accumulated. The seeker of objective evidence for Christianity commits a kind of category mistake, “[a shifting of one genus to another]“(Postscript, 136). Proof of God’s existence is not to be found in the objective realm. “An objective acceptance is Paganism or thoughtlessness.”(Postscript, 130). It is paganism, because it regards God as immanent, or as within the objective realm. The conviction that God’s existence is demonstrable assumes His immanence, rather than His transcendence beyond the knowable objective realm.
At issue here is the inference to the second claim. I maintain that Kierkegaard does not hold the latter view, nor is he obliged to hold it; it does not follow from the first claim. The fact that a belief does not result from objective evidence, does not imply that that belief results from simply willing it into existence. Alternative explanations are possible.
Pojman interprets Kierkegaard as not only a direct, but a prescriptive volitionalist as well. But nothing in these references justifies this interpretation. In fact, there is much in the Postscript which would support an opposite conclusion, i.e that Kierkegaard rejects the whole notion of one individual prescribing values to another individual. Though Kierkegaard often describes the subjectively existing thinker as ethical, (which, presumably, we all “ought” to be,) and he speaks of faith as the highest virtue, he adamantly avoids directly prescribing anything to the individual reader. A major tenet held by Kierkegaard is that an individual must find his or her own way. Kiekegaard admires Gotthold Ephraim Lessing for understanding this: “[Lessing] understood and knew how to maintain, that the religious pertained to Lessing and Lessing alone, just as it pertains to any human being in the same way…” (Postscript, 65). Prescribing a way of life to another would be to make an ethical judgment regarding how that individual ought to be living. But this is precisely what Kierkegaard says we cannot do. “One person cannot ethically judge another because the one can understand the other only as a possibility.” (Postscript, 322).
There are additional references proposed by Pojman as implying a direct volitionalist position in Kierkegaard. Pojman remarks that according to Kierkegaard, the self believes by virtue of the absurd. He quotes from the Postscript. “Faith is the objective uncertainty due to the repulsion of the absurd held fast by the passion of inwardness…”(Postscript, 611). Pojman continues with an elaboration on this quote: “The will is not able to believe what is fundamentally absurd. Grace enables us to subvert principles of the understanding” (Pojman, 73).
This argument is not different in kind from the inferences based on the previous references. It is the case, according to Kierkegaard, that Christianity is absurd, and involves a paradox. But the ineffability of Christianity is not grounds to conclude that faith can only be attained as a result of a direct act of the will.
Pojman’s argument does not suffice to imply that Kierkegaard thought we can, or should, will faith. The most that his references support is the contention that it is possible to believe something that is contrary to reason. Grant, for the sake of argument, that we can believe something that we simultaneously acknowledge appears to be logically inconsistent. There can be explanations for a belief in something that is apparently absurd. We cannot infer that the only explanation for such a belief is that one has simply forced oneself to believe it.
Pojman also cites the ‘Interlude’ of the Philosophical Fragments. Pojman points out that Kierkegaard is discussing a type of belief that is “the organ for apprehending history,” i.e. a type of ordinary belief, as opposed to faith. Though Pojman is primarily concerned with religious belief, he finds in Kierkegaard’s writing, remarks concerning both types of belief. Pojman interprets the ‘Interlude’ as indicating that Kierkegaard regards ordinary beliefs as directly willed. He says that according to Kierkegaard: “In believing what happened in the past, the will is active in recreating the scene or proposition. It takes testimony and reworks it, transforming the ‘what’ of the past into an active ‘how’ of the present, making the history contemporary”. (Pojman, 73). A close reading of the ‘Interlude’ gives no indication that this is the kind of thing Kierkegaard is saying. Rather, he is occupied with the concept of necessity, and how the concept of necessity cannot apply to anything that has “come into existence” ((Philosophical Fragments
Pojman places great emphasis on a few lines from the ‘Interlude’: “Belief is not so much a conclusion, as a resolution…Belief is not a form of knowledge, but a free act, an expression of the will”Philosophical Fragments, 83).
Pojman concludes: “The idea is that the imagination (of which nothing human is more free) takes over in belief attainment.” He continues, “This is as radical a volitionalism as Descartes’s. We are free to believe whatever we please” (Pojman, 73).
3. Evans Replies to Pojman
It is this argument of Pojman’s, based on the Fragments, that Stephen Evans responds to in his paper “Does Kierkegaard Think Beliefs Can Be Directly Willed?” Evans remarks: “The grounds for this reading [of Kierkegaard as a direct volitionalist] are probably most strong in the Interlude” (Evans, 175).
Evans accepts Pojman’s arguments against the validity of the direct volitionalist’s position. But Evans challenges Pojman’s reading of Kierkegaard as a direct volitionalist.
Allowing that Kierkegaard’s views on ordinary belief have implications for his views concerning faith (faith is a type of belief,) Evans proceeds to consideration of Pojman’s argument based on these passages from the ‘Interlude’.
Evans explains that in this discussion, Kierkegaard is responding to religious Hegelians, who claim that historical truths can be understood as necessary truths; Christianity thus could rest on a solid foundation (Evans, 175). Evans points out that Kiekegaard is holding the position that historical assertions are contingent, that the historical realm cannot involve necessity. Historical truths are therefore susceptible to the arguments of the skeptics, and cannot ground Christianity. For assistance on this point, Kierkegaard recalls that the classical skeptics:
…doubted, not by virtue of knowledge, but by virtue of the will… [the skeptics held that] doubt can be terminated only in freedom, by an act of the will (Philosophical Fragments,82).
We can acknowledge, with the skeptics as well as Kierkegaard, that what is not known with certainty can be doubted. We are free to doubt what is contingent. Nothing coerces the conclusion; the rules of logic do not necessitate our acceptance of a contingent fact.
It is only if a few lines from the ‘Interlude’, such as those quoted above, are taken out of context that it appears that Kierkegaard is arguing (in the words of Pojman) that we are free to believe whatever we please.
But like Pojman, Evans (though he presented a lucid summary of the theme of the ‘Interlude’) seems to read these passages without adequate attention to context. He analyses–without regard to overall message of the Interlude–the description of the skeptics’ reasoning that was quoted by Pojman, in order to strengthen his claim that Kierkegaard’s remarks concerning the skeptics do not imply direct volitionalism. Evans recalls a significant line that Pojman quotes, and emphasizes Kierkegaard’s concluding phrase: “… doubt can be terminated only in freedom, … something every Greek skeptic would understand, inasmuch as he understood himself”(Philosophical Fragments,82). Evans regards this remark about self-awareness as evidence that Kierkegaard is not a direct volitionalist. Evans points out that that direct volitionalism assumes self-awareness. If an individual doesn’t fully understand what he is willing, he can’t be said to be capable of directly controlling his beliefs.
Evans says:
In tracing belief to will, Climacus by no means necessarily implies that beliefs are consciously chosen. If anything is evident about Kierkegaard as a psychologist, it is that he is a depth psychologist. While Kierkegaard certainly assigns will a central place in the human personality, he thinks that human beings hardly ever make choices with full consciousness of what they are doing. (Evans, 178).
Evans is saying that the reason this relationship to the will doesn’t entail direct volitionalism, is because the skeptic may not be completely cognizant of the fact that he is doubting as a result of his willing the doubting.