Fear and trembling / Repetition. Edited and translated, with introduction and notes by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong.

by Søren Kierkegaard

Librarian's note: An alternate cover edition can be found here

Presented here in a new translation, with a historical introduction by the translators, "Fear and Trembling and Repetition" are the most poetic and personal of Soren Kierkegaard's pseudonymous writings. Published in 1843 and written under the names Johannes de Silentio and Constantine Constantius, respectively, the books demonstrate Kierkegaard's transmutation of the personal into the lyrically religious.

Each work uses as a point of departure Kierkegaard's breaking of his engagement to Regine Olsen--his sacrifice of "that single individual." From this beginning "Fear and Trembling" becomes an exploration of the faith that transcends the ethical, as in Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's command. This faith, which persists in the face of the absurd, is rewarded finally by the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice. "Repetition" discusses the most profound implications of unity of personhood and of identity within change, beginning with the ironic story of a young poet who cannot fulfill the ethical claims of his engagement because of the possible consequences of his marriage. The poet finally despairs of repetition (renewal) in the ethical sphere, as does his advisor and friend Constantius in the aesthetic sphere. The book ends with Constantius' intimation of a third kind of repetition--in the religious sphere.

Genres: Philosophy, Religion, Nonfiction, Theology, Christianity, Classics, Psychology

Hardcover

First published October 16, 1843

About the author

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard strongly criticised both the Hegelianism of his time and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Church of Denmark. Much of his work deals with religious themes such as faith in God, the institution of the Christian Church, Christian ethics and theology, and the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices. His early work was written under various pseudonyms who present their own distinctive viewpoints in a complex dialogue.

Kierkegaard left the task of discovering the meaning of his works to the reader, because "the task must be made difficult, for only the difficult inspires the noble-hearted". Scholars have interpreted Kierkegaard variously as an existentialist, neo-orthodoxist, postmodernist, humanist, and individualist.

Crossing the boundaries of philosophy, theology, psychology, and literature, he is an influential figure in contemporary thought.

Reviews

[Jim Coughenour · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kierkegaard is the Mozart of philosophy. Fear and Trembling begins with four variations on the story of Abraham and Isaac, each a miniature masterpiece of evocation. I've read this book several times, each time with pleasure – there's nothing quite like Kierkegaard railing against the "universal," exalting the singular, the exceptional, and introducing with anti-Hegelian flourish the "teleological suspension of the ethical." That's a phrase to make you grin in the grimmest times.

There's also dark theological comedy – in SK's repeated refrain that either Abraham had a unique experience of faith (an absolute relation to the absolute!) ... or... "Abraham is lost."

Well, so are we all.

[Will · Rating 5 out of 5]

"It is supposed to be difficult to understand Hegel, but to understand Abraham is a small matter. To go beyond Hegel is a miraculous achievement, but to go beyond Abraham is the easiest of all. I for my part have applied considerable time to understanding Hegelian philosophy and believe that I have understood it fairly well; I am sufficiently brash to think that when I cannot understand particular passages despite all my pains, he himself may not have been entirely clear. All this I do easily, naturally, without any mental strain. Thinking about Abraham is another matter, however; then I am shattered."

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Getting a notion of the historical “situatedness” of Fear and Trembling is imperative if one is to cut through the thick crust of misreadings it has accumulated over the years. Silentio is of course not justifying irrational, absolutist commitments to specific projects that contradict ethical principles. Nor is he saying that God just might, if we are unlucky, require us to kill our neighbour and it is our absolute duty to obey. We know this immediately on perceiving that it is not the willingness to sacrifice Isaac that Silentio calls the irrational/absurd aspect of Abraham’s faith, but his ability to receive Isaac back joyfully after having been willing to sacrifice him. Silentio admits that, as a knight of resignation, he would have gone as far as obeying God’s command, yet he could not have taken the “double movement” and receive Isaac back again with pure gladness (36).

There is a further reason that such obedience to God as Abraham exhibited is not absurd and thus that it is not obedience to God – even if God commands death – that is problematic. On the level of hypothesis and theory, Abraham’s actions make eminent sense: the ethical, insofar as it is a totality that cannot, by virtue of its immanence, know in terms of an absolute telos “what is best,” cannot be the object of our ultimate obedience. The fact is, as long as one knows it is indeed God who is commanding one, the content of the command is irrelevant; so long as one knows it is indeed God who commands one to commit genocide, one can obey. The next question is, of course, how one can know – for it is perhaps and indicator that the command is not from God when it entails the death of many. Thus on the level of not theory but existence, where uncertainty is not guaranteed, the ambiguity becomes painful. How is the existing individual to know the command he obeys is from the God of Love? Granted that this is the “risk” of faith – for faith cannot have certainty and still be faith – we can still ask: is this risk worth it? There is a kind of assurance on the level of the ethical, and even on the level of theory which deconstructs the ethical in the presence of “the absolute” and provides a new telos. Do we want to give this up, when it is the ethical that seeks to guard against destruction and suffering?

Thus the question that comes after reading FT is not ethical dilemma, “if God were to command me to suspend my love for my neighbour in service to Him, should I really do it?” It is clear that obedience to God makes sense in such circumstances, for if we trust God is Love Himself, that he is working all things to their maximum Good, we might well be obedient though it leads us into (in our own eyes) a temporary ethical “faux pas” (to euphemize an act so filled with fear and trembling as Abraham’s). No, the question is not, “should Abraham have been obedient?” The question concerns an epistemological dilemma: “is there even a single point in our lives in which a command of God is heard and understood clearly and absolutely?” Do we ever get such unmediated, unproblematic divine fiats as Abraham did? We are told that “he knew it was God the Almighty who was testing him” (22), but we are not told how he knew. This is the difficult question, and seems to be in the shadow of this question that the real fear and trembling occurs. For the answer is: we do not. In the space of this uncertainty faith resides.

Yet, despite this uncertainty, Abraham’s silence seems still to be unwarranted. The fact is, in light of the above considerations, duty to God above to duty to family makes sense (the family is not omniscient and omnibenevolent – why be dutiful to it above what is?). “Speak he cannot; he speaks no human language” (114), writes Silentio. In fact, Abraham is able to explain something. Though he cannot answer what specific good will come of sacrificing Isaac – and in this sense cannot understand God’s command – he can answer at least the general goodness of following divine commands. It may not be justifiable ethically, but it is still justifiable. When Silentio says, “Abraham cannot speak, because he cannot say that which would explain everything (that is, so it is understandable)” (115), he is correct up to a point. Abraham cannot explain everything, but can he not explain why he cannot explain? Perhaps Silentio would say that giving such an explanation is a temptation, a weakness. But to that we must also inquire for a why.

[S.M.Y Kayseri · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book focused on the paradoxical nature of faith. The story of Kierkegaard and Regina Olsen was one of the most tragic love story, Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet would be a mere triviality standing beside the sacrifice Kierkegaard made. But was it really tragic, though? A tragedy, in its strictest sense, only apply to a human situation. Thus, it is a tragedy in the loss of a child, the departure of a loved ones and the dismantling of one’s nation. One would be understood if he has to sacrifice his wealth, his happiness or even his loved ones in the name of something larger than himself, but what if the sacrifice needed from him could never be understood by anybody?

Kierkegaard was a prolific author, loved by many and envied by many more. He has everything in the world; the world was set to be soon shaken by the sheer power of his pen. But lying dormant within him was such a terrible heaviness and darkness. Many people tried to speculate on the nature of this pathological melancholia, but let us move forward with our story with a version of it. At his father’s deathbed, he prophesied that no sons and daughters of him would live past the age of Jesus, which is 33 years old. It was clear to us then, that his prolificacy and genius was not of a woman in labor, straining her best to deliver a pearl of the world, but a spark in a fuse, burning oh-too-fast towards the inpatient pile of gunpowder. But then he saw Regina, who shined so bright, his darkness chased away from the recesses of his heart. He barged into her house a few days later, almost to the point of delirium under Cupid’s thrall, and asked for her hand. Regina answered with a silent bashful nod.

Oh, how the sky opened and drops of light rained upon him on that day! To love is a blessing in itself, but how the hearts flutter and how words failed when one discovered he is loved back! Days spent with Regina was a never ending, pleasant French summer. Until the terrible melancholia peeked his multiple heads out, saying, “Aren’t it supposed to be winter [our time] now?” Kierkegaard was reminded of his father’s prophecy and counted his remaining days to be less than 10 years. Stood on a junction, he cannot escape this labyrinth of his mind, he loved Regina with all his heart, but surely he would fail to make her happy with his perpetual melancholia! Feverish nights passed, until he rounded his determination and uttered that terrible words: It is because I love her, I have to let her go! He slid off his engagement ring and have it sent to Regina’s home. Now accustomed in his wily melancholia, she burst into her lover’s home, strings upon strings of words spilled alongside the tears, but Kierkegaard simply shook his head.

Here lies the paradox of faith, Kierkegaard thought. It lies in the story of Abraham. What was in Abraham’s mind when he was led to sojourn away from his ancestral lands into a foreign one, promised for his descendants to spilled all over the world, only to be left decrepit and old? His beard was white, his wife Sarah became the laughingstock of the land. If he hoped for the best, he would grow old and deceived by life. If he hoped for the worst, he would die prematurely with sorrow. But faith kept him young and God blessed him with a son named Isaac. Only to be asked to sacrifice him in a mere few years. What was in Abraham’s mind when he received this revelation, I wonder?

When God called for him, Abraham, Abraham, where are you? What did Abraham answered? He answered, Here I am. But to us who God addressed us in the same way, did we reply in the same manner? Or we would cry and beg for the sky to tear us asunder and the mountain to fall on us? Or even perhaps we would answer the call with merely a whisper? When he drew the knife, he cannot look around to look whether God has reserved a replacement for Isaac; for that means he has doubted. And then the entire journey would be not a journey of faith, but only a recollection of the terror they felt on route to Mount Moriah. Nor it would be easier if that’s the case, for from Isaac’s eyes, his father is a mere filicide, eyes glowed with a demonic red, mouth foaming at the side. And what’s more when his father has doubt, then it became clearer to Isaac that his father has nothing in his mind except a human intention to kill him! Because of the capricious human desire, his father was compelled to pause, even for a second. It is only due to a folly deus ex machina that a ram was found near them, and his father directed his homicidal intent to it instead. No mystery of the divine has been revealed through this scene, Isaac’s eyes shined no more, for he was struck with the revelation that his father is nothing more but a filicide.

Abraham committed to the eternal and simultaneous, in both in resignation and faith. Abraham truly believed and resigned with Isaac departed under his knife, but he simultaneously believed he would be with Isaac, in this lifetime, someway or another. He brought the knife down with both resignation and faith. And then, the angel stopped his hand and pointed to him the ram. Abraham resigned and believed, he obtained Isaac under this baffling paradox. Kierkegaard resigned and threw his engagement ring, but he simply cannot be faithful. And Regina, my Regina…departed from his life eternally.

It is under the sheer weight of this paradox of faith, that should induce in us fear and trembling…Was this eloquent expression are mere rhetoric, a concoction of pleasant words? Surely Kierkegaard was overreacting in letting go of Regina? If only that’s the case. For if its just an issue of emotions, then he would always have the chance to crawl back to Regina. But no, it is a matter of the heart, and faith. He wished for Regina, but his heart falters, his faith sundered.

Thus Kierkegaard believed himself to be in the camp of the knight of infinite resignation. The everyday life he described for a hypothetical knight of faith is heart-rendering; I imagine him sketching the lives of the knight of infinite faith as a secret wish, perhaps not without a healthy dose of jealousy for a happy domestic life like the knight, which he has lost the chance to.

“...He drains the deep sadness of life in infinite resignation, he knows the blessedness of infinity, he has felt the pain of renouncing everything, the most precious thing in the world, and yet the finite tastes just as good to him as to one who never knew anything higher, because his remaining in finitude would have no trace of a timorous, anxious routine, and yet he has this security that makes him delight in it as if finitude were the surest thing of all. ”

“The knights of infinity are ballet dancers and have elevation. They make the upward movement and come down again, and this, too, is not an unhappy diversion and is not unlovely to see. But every time they come down, they are unable to assume the posture immediately, they waver for a moment, and this wavering shows that they are aliens in the world...But to be able to come down in such a way that instantaneously one seems to stand and to walk, to change the leap into life into walking, absolutely to express the sublime in the pedestrian—only that knight can do it, and this is the one and only marvel.."

Thus a person who wish to gain true faith, he must first withstand the pangs of infinite resignation. It is only through a sacrifice as big as Abraham that will bring one naturally to renounce everything that he has. This act of introspection allow one to get in contact with his eternal validity, for an infinite lock require an infinite force to push it open. One must, so to speak, lock oneself in impossibility in the finite world in order to gain access of the possibility of the infinite world, by the virtue of the absurd.

“By my own strength I can give up the princess, and I will not sulk about it but find joy and peace and rest in my pain, but by my own strength I cannot get her back again, for I use all my strength in resigning. On the other hand, by faith, says that marvelous knight, by faith you will get her by virtue of the absurd.”

The formula in the remaining sections discussing on whether a teleological suspension of the ethical is possible or not, could be summarised as follows,

“The tragic hero relinquishes himself in order to express the universal; the knight of faith relinquishes the universal in order to become the single individual.”

The story of sacrifice we always heard that involved the continuous prosperity of the clan, remains in the ethical sphere thus there's no paradox, no fear and trembling. Abraham’s act transcended this collective approval of filicide (in the case of Agamemnon) into a lonely frontier; he asserts that the single individual is higher than the universal. It is only by asserting his singularity he could engage the infinite pain and resignation, unlocking the infinite lock and faced the paradox squarely. In Abraham’s case, the ethical itself is a temptation that must be transcended. At this stage, he was terribly lonely and no one would understand his action. The moment he tried to explain himself, he has descended into the universal, he must inevitably declare himself under a spiritual trial, and the paradox dissipates.

But Abraham (and Kierkegaard) was not afforded of this convenience. To bask in the security of the universal and above all, to be understood is a bliss, even to the titular knight of faith. But he simply can’t do that, for the very nature of the paradox.

If there’s teleological suspension of the ethical in respect of duty to God, how do we understand this? How would we differentiate between a revelation of God or a psychedelic hallucination? Here we entered a highly personal part of faith as Kierkegaard understood it. Even in Islam, we have the mystics who uttered the syatahat, which equalled to pantheism in every respect. But he simply can’t help himself; to follow Kierkegaard’s lingo, in expressing the absolute, he had to transverse through the universal while at the same time the universal flagged his action as “wrong” in ethical sense, but he can’t even resist a single flicker of his thought. For if he resists, then the relation to the absolute shattered, he was tempted and trapped in the universal. Abraham simply can not speak. The absolute duty might command Abraham do something the ethical forbid, but it cannot stop him from loving.

A concise addendum to the second part of the book, “Repetition” should be added here. Kierkegaard used the phrase often in his works, and I can’t figure out tails or heads regarding its significance. Out of the blue, I pictured him lying on his bed, one hand over forehead, performing the infinite movements he oft mentioned. He thought about the past, the name Regina often escaped his lips; he engaged in recollection of the past. He was becoming morose, so he directed his infinite movements towards the sprawling future, he muttered to himself again and again, “All will be well”…A repetition. But we must not confuse repetition with hope, for how should a person whose life failed him under the guile by hope, should live? A person can continue living, not because of hope, but by repetition.

“For hope is a beckoning fruit that does not satisfy; recollection is petty travel money that does not satisfy; but repetition is the daily bread that satisfies with blessing.”

[Dallin Bruun · Rating 4 out of 5]

I finished this book on the question "what is Christian Faith?" by Søren Kierkegaard. I think it has given teeth to my theory that as you approach spiritual truth, you approach paradox. For example:

1. God commands Adam and Even not to partake from Tree of KoG&E
2. God places tree of KoG&E in middle of garden

I have kids. If I didn't want them to take cookies from the cookie jar, I wouldn't place it in the middle of their room with the lid open. It's as if, paradoxically, God wants -- needs -- his children to transgress. This of course, makes no sense, unless you become acquainted and acclimated to the paradoxical nature of spiritual truth. I know it sounds heretical, but I can't abandon the possibility; I see it too often.

[Melting Uncle · Rating 4 out of 5]

I decided to read this because of a trip to Copenhagen.
At the tender age of 30 Soren Kierkegaard published both of these books on the same day under 2 different names. Dang.

I read Repetition first and loved it. At times it was convoluted and confusing but I love the fiction-like novelistic form that SK chose. It's actually funny and reminded me of something like Flann O'Brien or Samuel Beckett more than a straightforward philosophical treatise. I'll cherish the memory of reading Repetition & Stephen Backhouse's Kierkegaard bio in Copenhagen.

I read F&T next. The premise of this "dialectical lyric" is fascinating (attempt to understand the story of Abraham and Isaac philosophically) and really held my interest at first. I'm fully on board with K's project to point at how complex and troubling this story is which (in theory) is accepted without question by the Bible reading masses. So kudos to K for drawing out the more problematic literary and philosophical threads from the Abraham story in the book of Genesis. Probably other Biblical stories could similarly serve as springboards for epic yarns rhapsodizing on the absurdity and/or meaning of human existence.

Unfortunately I ran out of steam in the second half of Fear and Trembling. I found this large chunk of the short book tedious in the extreme. I have no experience reading Hegel whose writing I understand this is kind of a response to so maybe that didn't do me any favors. Problema III (the largest subsection) really goes off the rails trying to find thematic parallels in stories from Ancient Greece, the legend of Faust, Shakespeare's Richard III and more. The book ends with a nice summary of the main points stated fairly clearly. But for most of the middle section I admit that I had a hard time keeping interest or staying awake.

On one hand I'm interested in Kierkegaard's ideas and other books. On the other hand, I now know his writing can be dense, abstract, and (at times) very hard enjoy. F&T is the kind of book that I think would be better read in excerpts than from cover to cover. But I unreservedly recommend (for some reason less well known than F&T) Repetition.

[Luna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the aim of this book is largely philosophical, I think that its most important merit lies in its poetical resonance.
I only skimmed through the first part (Fear & Trembling), so I can't say much about it.
The second part of the book (Repetition) is very interesting. According to the narrator, repetition is what helps us go forth, as unlikely as it may seem to some. Repetition is not recollection for what is repeated directs itself toward the future, while recollection traps the individual in the past.
Even though the narrator himself lost the capacity to repeat, as defined in its genuine form, he still admires his "friend's" ability to perform repetition.
S. Kierkegaard has a very subtle way to describe philosophical, and complex, concepts. It is pleasant and at the same time engaging to read him. The translation is quite smooth so it was a bonus.

[Ella Hachee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is this my third time going through this text? Yes. Is it probably in my top three favorite books? Also yes. Do I understand it entirely? Eh.

[Bên Phía Nhà Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lặp lại đọc rất giải trí

[Doctor Moss · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fear and Trembling is probably Kierkegaard's clearest and most vivid interpretation of faith, seen through the story of Abraham and Isaac. God has asked Abraham, who with his wife Sarah has waited and prayed for a son for 70 years, to sacrifice that son. Abraham obeys, but it is the tension within Abraham, the tension between ethical duty and the requirements of faith, that Kierkegaard focuses on. Faith emerges as what allows the individual to transcend the life of just anyone, the "universal", through an absolutely individual relationship with God.

Abraham's anguish is the anguish of a loving father, for whom the ethical duty of a father is inviolable. But his God demands it. Abraham doesn't simply obey -- in his actions, he must reconcile the irreconcilable. The victory of Abraham's faith is his resolution to carry out God's command, fully and intentionally preparing to give up Isaac, while at the same believing, by "virtue of the absurd", that Isaac will be returned to him, that he will lose Isaac and also regain him.

For Kierkegaard, this faith is the elevation of the individual, in the individual's own relationship to God, above the universal, the demands of secular, ethical life. In another essay, The Present Age, Kierkegaard complains that faith has become secularized in the church, in which faith is the duty of everyone, to be fulfilled by all in the same way. To him, this is a lowering of faith to something within the universal, what is demanded of everyone and explicable as the duty of man per se.

In faith, by contrast, the "individual is higher than the universal" in a way that is incomprehensible philosophically, precisely because the duty of the individual cannot be universalized and explained in the common terms of reason. Faith is a relationship between a particular individual and God. What God requires of Abraham, He requires of no one else -- it arises out of Abraham's individual, particular relationship to God, and only Abraham can understand it. In that relationship, Abraham is elevated above the universal, above the life of everyone and anyone, beyond the ethical and into the properly religious.

Kierkegaard's opponents here are both the common religious institutions of his own time and the dominant philosophy of Hegel. Hegel's system includes religion and faith, but religion is subsumed under the more complete and adequate philosophical knowledge and realization of "the absolute". For Hegel the universal is higher than the individual, and the individual's duty is to find his place in the universal -- to act in accordance with universal duty, what is required of everyone -- and to make that universal real in the political and civic life of a modern state. Much of the 19th century birth of existentialism, both religious and non-religious, comes in response to that requirement of the universal.

Kierkegaard's treatment of the individual in Fear and Trembling expands his much more abstract account of despair in The Sickness Unto Death, where religious faith per se, or faith specifically in the Christian God, seems at times separable from the abstract requirements of faith. Could we interpret him in a more secular way, as talking not just about religious faith but about meaningfulness in life altogether? There are passages in others of his writings, e.g., The Present Age, that suggest that what is missing in modern life is the condition of meaningfulness in life altogether -- the leveling of everyone's life into a kind of anyone's life (what goes as "das Man" in Heidegger or "the herd" in Nietzsche). And the abstract formulations from The Sickness Unto Death may seem only to require the self to relate itself to itself through an "other", not through God.

But I don't think that's what Kierkegaard means here -- the "other" seems necessarily to be God, in that only God can do what a god can do -- realize the absurd, the apparently impossible. This is why he is talking about "faith" and not "meaningfulness" (or why, if he is in fact also talking about "meaningfulness," he must believe that meaningfulness is really only possible through faith).

This newer edition and translation of Fear and Trembling is published with Repetition, a work completed and published at about the same time. (An earlier edition had published Fear and Trembling together with The Sickness Unto Death, tying the two accounts of despair and faith together).

This is my first reading of Repetition, and I can't really trust what I think about it -- Kierkegaard is very hard to understand in a first reading. But what I see is a kind of tightly focused evolution of the "exception" that appears also in Either/Or and provides the first glimpse of the individuality that flourishes in faith. The "young man" in Repetition becomes, through his relationship with "the girl", a "poet" -- not a "knight of faith" at all, but someone who was been tested by the ethical -- by the prospect of marriage -- and emerged as the "exception". The exception is an exception to the universal, the possibility of the individual who is higher than the universal, what the "knight of faith" realizes.

What's also interesting in Repetition is the cast of characters -- the pseudonymous author (Constantin Constantius, who sounds like the voice of Kierkegaard and places the story in the perspective of Kierkegaard's thought), the "young man" (who parallels Kierkegaard himself in his relationship with Regine Olsen), and "the girl" (parallel to Regine). Kierkegaard often splits himself into characters in order to find both the reflective and active aspects of the aesthetic, ethical, and religious lives he depicts, and Regine is an almost constant muse.

[Jesse Grove · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm probably never going to be the Knight of Faith. The Knight of Faith is something that I can't help but find a little disgusting. Johannes De Silentio --the name provided as author of Fear and Trembling -- explains (a word I use loosely) the actions of Abraham as the actions of someone possessing such faith in God that he believes he can sacrifice his son Issac and at the same time God will not take him away. It is proposed that Abraham accepts and fully realizes he is committing an immoral act and that his son will die; but by means of something outside or at least not inside the moral world, his son will not be taken from him. This does not mean that they'll be re-united in heaven or anything like that, but that he will have his son in the world that he, in a certain sense, rejects. I'm not doing a great job of explaining this, you should read the book; it's brilliant and not very long. What I really want to get across is how radically different this interpretation is from any other attempt at understanding the problematic story of Abraham.

I also really liked the presentation of the book. De Silentio speaks not as a high and mighty Knight of Faith, but as something closer to the Knight of Infinite Resignation, something that I feel I can understand better. This Knight recognizes there are some things he can't change and makes the tough moral calls despite it. He doesn't rely on an outside force to make the world better despite his immoral actions. This is the stance most of us take. It's only from this stance, the common ground, that de Silentio is able to point out that even though we don't understand the Knight of Faith, even though we may find him immoral, we can't help but marvel at his absurd conviction.

[Dr. A · Rating 4 out of 5]

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Read this and reviews of other classics in Western Philosophy on the History page of www.BestPhilosophyBooks.org (a thinkPhilosophy Production).
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Writing under the pseudonyms of Johannes de Silentio and Constantine Constantius respectively, in these two key works of Søren Kierkegaard’s body of work, he takes up the power of the absurd — that which is beyond reason or understanding. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard examines the biblical story of Abraham, who is asked by God to sacrifice his only son. Does a higher authority exist that can contradict it’s own ethical imperative “thou shall not kill,” an authority that is grounded not in reason but in faith?

In this case, faith is returned to Abraham through his willingness to participate in the senseless murder of his son. Repetition takes up the idea of identity and change, telling the story of a young man who cannot fulfill his obligations in marriage because (absurdly) of the conditions created by his marriage.

Two key concepts developed through Kierkegaard’s work here are existential anxiety - an anxiety felt in the face on nothing in particular, but in the face of our human freedom - and the idea of repetition. Kierkegaard is considered a precursor to the Existentialist movement, given his influence on Nietzsche, and subsequently, Sartre.

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Read this and reviews of other classics in Western Philosophy on the History page of www.BestPhilosophyBooks.org (a thinkPhilosophy Production).
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[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

What to say..this isn't my favorite of SK's works, but then again, SK is my favorite author. If you're sincerely interested, get the 2006 Cambridge edition and read the introduction by C. Stephen Evans. It's very helpful.

[M · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me fear and tremble. I absolutely fell in love with the characters!

[John Lawrence · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fear and Trembling is a book is about faith. If I understand correctly, Kierkegaard was reacting against the rationalism of the Enlightenment, specifically as it applied to Christian faith. He starts out by accusing his generation of wanting to go beyond faith. It used to be that faith (and even doubt) was the work of a lifetime. But eventually faith became a starting point, something from which one would move on in order to pursue the higher discipline of dialectical or rational thinking.

Fear and Trembling considers the nature of faith through the story of Abraham and his sacrifice of Isaac. He says we cheat when we read the story because we know the ending. However, the story is truly great -- one of the greatest -- and full of wonder, mystery, terror and absurdity.

Kierkegaard says that faith consists of two movements. The first is the movement of infinite resignation. It is the giving up of everything in order to gain the eternal consciousness (knowledge of God and salvation). He says it takes great human courage to make this movement, yet this is where most people stop.

Kierkegaard says that those who only make the first movement can be flashy, heroic knights, who glory in having given up all. They are often thinking only of themselves. They are shrewd and self-righteous, strangers and aliens in this world, self-loathing, self-absorbed, and too proud to make the movement of finitude. "[S]elf-disdain," he says, "is still more dreadful than being too proud." They do not wrestle with God to receive back the finite. Or, when offered the finite, they falter.

He says, "By faith Abraham did not renounce Isaac, but by faith Abraham received Isaac." This is the second movement, the movement of finitude. It is "testing" God by expecting what was lost to be returned: "Abraham had faith. He did not have faith that he would be blessed in a future life but that he would be blessed here in the world. God could give him a new Isaac, could restore to life the one sacrificed. He had faith by virtue of the absurd, for all human calculation ceased long ago." He trembles to think of Abraham's faith and what it is to test God by making the second movement.

My favorite passage is about the tax collector. Kierkegaard says that if you met a man of faith, you might mistake him for a rather ordinary, even worldly person:

"The instant I first lay eyes on him, I set him apart at once; I just back, clap my hands, and say half aloud, 'Good Lord, is this the man, is this really the one--he looks just like a tax collector.' But this is indeed the one. I move a little closer to him, watch his slightest movement to see if it reveals a bit of heterogenous optical telegraphy from the infinite, a glance, a facial expression, a gesture, a sadness, a smile that would betray the infinite in its heterogeneity with the infinite. No! I examine his figure from top to toe to see if there may not be a crack through which the infinite would peek. No! He is solid all the way through. ... Nothing is detectable of that distant and aristocratic nature by which the knight of the infinite is recognized. He finds pleasure in everything, takes part in everything, and every time one sees him participating in something particular, he does it with an assiduousness that marks the worldly man who is attached to such things."

Kierkegaard makes sure to contrast those who are truly knights of faith and those who are counterfeit knights, "slaves of the finite," those who don't even make the first movement, but who only pursue worldly pleasures.

Kierkegaard then describes how the knight of faith not only tempts God but is himself "tempted" by God. A person who chooses to make the movement of giving up everything to gain salvation may be tempted to step back into his former worldly passions. The knight of faith, however, having been called by God to act against what he knows is right, is tempted to return to the safety of the ethical. Kierkegaard doesn't mention this as an example, but I thought of Peter, when God asked him to kill and eat what was unclean. Of course, one could argue that Peter didn't yet understand what God had already done in Jesus, declaring all things clean. But, in Peter's experience (existentially speaking) the "temptation" is nonetheless acute. The same is true with Abraham.

What the knight of faith gains by this divine call is a personal relationship with God himself. Kierkegaard says that a person's relationship with God is mediated through the ethical, thus only permitting him/her to speak of God in the third person. The knight of faith on the other hand moves into a direct and private relationship with God himself and is thus permitted to address him in the second person.

My understanding of philosophy is limited, but I have heard Kierkegaard called the father of existentialism. I can see how Kierkegaard is unwieldy. It is easy to see how his philosophy could be taken in many directions for good or ill. I remember reading Francis Schaeffer, who said, “I do not think that Kierkegaard would be happy, or would agree, with that which has developed from his thinking in either secular or religious existentialism. But what he wrote gradually led to the absolute separation of the rational and logical from faith” (The God Who Is There).

I have also heard how Kierkegaard's philosophy might be one of the reasons modern Western Christians speak so much of having a "personal relationship" with God. Of course, who is going to argue with that? (I think Kierkegaard would be appalled at the ease with which people enter into such a personal relationship with God. Where is the "fear and trembling" of such a step? he might ask). I suspect the problem of so much talk of a private relationship with God is that it can easily ignore the corporate reality of our lives in Christ. I can also imagine that Kierkegaard's movements of faith could be taken as a sort of "two step" Christianity, the knight of faith laying claim to a higher plane of existence. (Though here Kierkegaard would say that to make the second movement is something, if desired, would only be made with much trepidation; hence, the temptation to escape back to the place of infinite resignation.) In the end, Kierkegaard does remind us that our relationship with God is both objective and subjective. Perhaps the problem is that we tend to elevate the subjective above the objective or vice versa.

Fear and Trembling is a challenging read -- many of the passages are hard to understand. My brother-in-law who recommended the book to me said I should not be embarrassed to use SparkNotes to supplement my reading, which I did. Overall, I enjoyed reading the book. It raises good questions and addresses legitimate concerns, and his writing is full of irony, wit, passion and beauty.

[A · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've skimmed through F&T, but this review focuses mostly on Repetition, informed by reading the first half of it or so and a bunch of secondary lit.

A meme I saw on fb said it well: "unreadable emo hotty."

I feel strongly about reading philosophy for life, i.e. it's basically verbose self-help, but there is something frustrating about reading kierkegaard's hyper-biographical philosophy that rises from his engagement/breakup with Regine Olson. It's impossible to avoid the pervasity of textual allusions to this relationship and the biographical focus of most criticism. For me, Kierkegaard's crisis of faith seems more relevant to the biblical re-interpretation of Abraham in F&T, which is also more formally interesting, than the reflections on temporality and Hegel that we see in Repetition (but then again, lol, didn't read).

The main point of my review is that it's like, beyond emo hotty, Kierkegaard achieves fuccboi status by taking a very practical interpersonal issue (I don't love you anymore, I don't want to marry or spend the rest of my life with you) and idealizing it to the point of abstract metaphysics. Maybe this is just what bookish, ruminating people do and will always do. Maybe it is good practice to build philosophy up from experience. Maybe it is good that we interpret or revise Hegel in an intimately personal way. Maybe I just hate things that are like me. Despite the inherent honesty in this sort of confessional content, Kierkegaard just seems like a fuccman: instead of dodging the issue and developing an existential philosophy, just be honest and forthcoming and tactful about your feelings with your fiancee.

[Anh]

Kierkegaard, under the pseudonym Constantin Constantius, wrote this paragraph in Repetition, published in 1843 on the same day as Fear and Trembling. This, among other things, earns him the title "The Father of Existentialism", even though he might consider himself a theologian or a poet rather than a philosopher.

One sticks a finger into the ground to smell what country one is in; I stick my finger into the world-it has no smell. Where am I? What does it mean to say: the world? What is the meaning of the world? Who tricked me into this whole thing and leaves me standing here? Who am I? How did I get into the world? Why was I not asked about it, why was I not informed of the rules and regulations and just thrust into the ranks as if I had been bought from a peddling shanghaier of human beings? How did I get involved in the big enterprise called actuality? Why should I be involved? Isn’t it a matter of choice? If I am compelled to be involved, where is the manager-I have something to say about this. Is there no manager? To whom shall I make my complaint? After all, life is a debate-may I ask that my observations be considered? If one has to take life as it is, would it not be best to find out how things go? What does it mean: a deceiver? Does not Cicero say that such a person can be exposed by asking: to whose benefit? Anyone may ask me and I ask everyone whether I have benefited in any way by making myself and a girl unhappy. Guilt-what does it mean? Is it hexing? Is it not positively known how it comes about that a person is guilty? Will no one answer me? Is it not, then, of the utmost importance to all the gentlemen involved?

[Keeley · Rating 4 out of 5]

[Note: only read Fear and Trembling thus far]
Thought-provoking work of religious philosophy. For me, as someone not deeply versed in German systematic philosophy, parts were more comprehensible than others. I will need to read the third Problema and research concepts like "the absolute" and "the universal" to gain a fuller understanding. Given the understanding I currently have, I found the discussions of faith vs. duty, faith as higher than the other theological virtues, and Abraham vs. tragic heroes (esp. Agamemnon) most interesting.
This scholarly edition is most useful if you seek cross-reference to other parts of the work of Kierkegaard or reference to the particular translations he consulted (e.g., of the Bible, Shakespeare, and Euripides). It is not useful from a pedagogical or exegetical standpoint.

[Florencia · Rating 4 out of 5]

De los pocos filósofos que no está pasado a kk

[Emma Singleton · Rating 5 out of 5]

this (fear & trembling) is the greatest book ever written and repetition is also there and its fine

[Ence · Rating 5 out of 5]

WHO HAS EVER DONE IT LIKE HIM BEFORE IN HISTORY. GOAT OF ALL TIME.

[Chasen Robbins · Rating 3 out of 5]

These books pair well together. The first focuses on Abraham as the knight of faith who religiously superceedes the universal to be reconcilied to the divine as the universal. The latter focusees on a young man who, like Job, wrestles with God after having lost everything—but this time in a Danish love drama.

Abraham becomes the Knigh of Faith who believes that he must sacrifice Isaac eventhough he believes that God will not ask him to sacrifice Isaac—making an absurd interesting ethical problemata that can only be reconciled by individual faith silently expressing itself in a infinite resigniation and holding the paradox of faith that “he as the single individual places himself in an aboslute relation to the absolute.” (62)

The unnmaed heart brooken lover writes to an older mentor who experiments with the philosophical idea of repition: repteating the same thing, or having the story of Job. Simply said, nothing can really start anew and be lived again. Our previous life always follows us. In true fashion, Kierkegaard works out his own love struggle with Regine.

Personally, I find both of these books intellectually stimulating even if they are not philosophically true. Kierkegaard’s strength as a poet and philosopher reframes the story of Abraham against a Hegelian dialect while ignoring Biblical themes and patterns. While his view of Divine Command Theory flies in the face of Kant, Aquianas, and Aristotle, it does leave room for individual expression of faith while overcoming the esthetic expression of moral problems.

Repetition is a fascinating philosphical idea that fails to have any feet. Of course, one cannot repeat the same day, same life, same scene, or same movie. Things change. The Young Man is not a Job—he is a philosophical coward, and this makes the whole book beyond ironic. One does lament, however, for the young person who wants to enter into the freedom of autonomy instead of being haunted by the past. Alas, things are taken away from us never to be returned again.

Quotes:
“just as God created man and woman, so he created the hero and the poet or orator.” (15)

“He who loved himself became great by virtue of himself, and he who loved other men became great by his devotedness, but he who loved God became the greatest of all.”(16)

“Everyone shall be remembered, but everyone became great in proportion to his expectancy. One became great by expecting the possible, another by expecting the eternal; but he who expected the impossible became the greatest of all.” (16)

“Everyone shall be remembered, but everyone was great wholly in proportion to the magnitude of that with which he struggled. For he who struggled with the world became great by conquering the world, and he who struggled with himself became great by conquering himself, but he who struggled with God became the greatest of all.” (16)

“there was one who conquered everything by his power, and there was one who conquered God by his powerlessness.” (16)

“He knew it was God the Almighty who was testing [prøvede] him; he knew it was the hardest sacrifice that could be demanded of him; but he knew also that no sacrifice is too severe when God demands it—and he drew the knife.” (22)

“The ethical expression for what Abraham did is that he meant to murder Isaac; the religious expression is that he meant to sacrifice Isaac—but precisely in this contradiction is the anxiety that can make a person sleepless, and yet without this anxiety Abraham is not who he is.” (30)

“It is only by faith that one achieves any resemblance to Abraham, not by murder.” (31)

“Abraham I cannot understand; in a certain sense I can learn nothing from him except to be amazed. If someone deludes himself into thinking he may be moved to have faith by pondering the outcome of that story, he cheats himself and cheats God out of the first movement of faith—he wants to suck worldly wisdom out of the paradox. Someone might succeed, for our generation does not stop with faith, does not stop with the miracle of faith, turning water into wine22—it goes further and turns wine into water.” (37) Moving beyond faith to worldly practalism fails to contemplate and honor the heroes and missses the idea of faith

“Infinite resignation is the last stage before faith, so that anyone who has not made this movement does not have faith, for only in infinite resignation do I become conscious of my eternal validity, 39 and only then can one speak of grasping existence by virtue of faith.” (46) Resigning what we love In a way that retains us and the object we love, bot calling it an idol but believing that the infinite subsumes over it.

“By faith I do not renounce anything; on the contrary, by faith I receive everything exactly in the sense in which it is said that one who has faith like a mustard seed can move mountains.” (48) What goo is it to gain the whole world but lose your soul! Those who save their life will lose it.

“Faith is namely this paradox that the single individual is higher than the universal—yet, please note, in such a way that the movement repeats itself, so that after having been in the universal he as the single individual isolates himself as higher than the universal.” “Faith is precisely the paradox that the single individual as the single individual is higher than the universal, is justified before it, not as inferior to it but as superior—yet in such a way, please note, that it is the single individual who, after being subordinate as the single individual to the universal, now by means of the universal becomes the single individual who as the single individual is superior, that the single individual as the single individual stands in an absolute relation to the absolute.” (55)

The tragic hero is within the thiecal.

“How did Abraham exist? He had faith. This is the paradox by which he remains at the apex, the paradox that he cannot explain to anyone else, for the paradox is that he as the single individual places himself in an absolute relation to the absolute. Is he justified? Again, his justification is the paradoxical, for if he is, then he is justified not by virtue of being something universal but by virtue of being the single individual.” (62)Our individual faith overcomes a universal error that would dismiss us from the relationship with God—but it is in this relationship with God, holding onto the absurd, that are existence or eternal consciousness remains. It is not the reward of getting something back but the fact our command comes from the individual universal command.

“The story of Abraham contains, then, a teleological suspension of the ethical. As the single individual he became higher than the universal. This is the paradox, which cannot be mediated. How he entered into it is just as inexplicable as [III 116] how he remains in it. If this is not Abraham’s situation, then Abraham is not even a tragic hero but a murderer. It is thoughtless to want to go on calling him the father of faith, to speak of it to men who have an interest only in words. A person can become a tragic hero through his own strength—but not the knight of faith. When a person walks what is in one sense the hard road of the tragic hero, there are many who can give him advice, but he who walks the narrow road of faith has no one to advise him—no one understands him. Faith is a marvel, and yet no human being is excluded from it; for that which unites all human life is passion,* and faith is a passion.” (66)

“The tragic hero gives up his wish in order to fulfill this duty. For the knight of faith, wish and duty are also identical, but he is required to give up both. If he wants to relinquish by giving up his wish, he finds no rest, for it is indeed his duty. If he wants to adhere to the duty and to his wish, he does not become the knight of faith, for the absolute duty specifically demanded that he should give it up. The tragic hero found a higher expression of duty but not an absolute duty.” (78)

“Repetition and recollection are the same movement, except in opposite directions, for what is recollected has been, is repeated backward, whereas genuine repetition is recollected forward. Repetition, therefore, if it is possible, makes a person happy, whereas recollection makes him unhappy—assuming, of course, that he gives himself time to live and does not promptly at birth find an excuse to sneak [III 174] out of life again, for example, that he has forgotten something.” (131)

“When the Greeks said that all knowing is recollecting, 35 they said that all existence, which is, has been; when one says that life is a repetition, one says: actuality, which has been, now comes into existence.” (149)

“When this had repeated itself several days, I became so furious, so weary of the repetition, that I decided to return home. My discovery was not significant, and yet it was curious, for I had discovered that there simply is no repetition and had verified it by having it repeated in every possible way. My hope” (171) Repetition or control becomes impossible even in the most controlled situations like a theater

“One sticks a finger into the ground to smell what country one is in; I stick my finger into the world—it has no smell. Where am I? What does it mean to say: the world? What is the meaning of that word? Who tricked me into this whole thing and leaves me standing here? Who am I?” (200)

“It is true that science and scholarship consider and interpret life and man’s relationship to God in this life. But what science is of such a nature that it has room for a relationship that is defined as an ordeal, which viewed infinitely does not exist at all but exists only for the individual?” (209)

“One who moves in the realm of the erotic by the help of God or wants to be loved for God’s sake ceases to be himself and tries to be stronger than heaven and more important than an individual’s eternal salvation.” (218)

[Stone · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have to admit that when I first got to know Kierkegaard through a 5-min introductory YouTube video, I thought he was nuts and I would not bother sitting down and spending even a second on his book. Thanks to my reasonable self, I've stopped watching those quasi-profound YouTube videos.

Although appearing unphilosophical in a lot of cases, Kierkegaard's thoughts nevertheless challenged the established Hegelian school and profoundly changed the developmental course of continental philosophy in the ensuing decades, despite the fact that he was reviled and cursed while he was alive. I enjoyed this book not for the sake of agreement -- in fact I have quite different opinions on a lot of key issues discussed in the book; what I find agreeable was Kierkegaard's lyrical writing style accompanied by a rebellious sense of humour. Utilizing the very things he was supposedly against, the Hegelian dialectics, he somehow blurred the boundary between philosophy and literature without appearing linguistically awkward like, say, Camus. In that particular sense, I'd have no doubt that Kierkegaard was a genius at playing around with poetic literary devices and discoursing about the meaning of life simultaneously.

Kierkegaard's influence on Protestant theology was evidently profound, though without much recognition for a long time. His prestige within the existentialist movement was more ambiguous, as many dispute what it meant to be an existentialist; nevertheless, it is without a doubt that his religious absurdist approach had a lasting effect on subsequent generations of continental philosophers.

It was also quite a coincidence that, I began reading Fear and Trembling right after I finished a month-long reading marathon with Hegel's The Philosophy of History, a supposedly "entry-level" introduction to Hegelianism. The sheer contrast between languages likely contributed to my positive feedback as well -- one would begin treating quantum physics formulas like poems after they are exposed to Hegelian languages for a month.

Overall speaking, this is a surprisingly well written book in my experience with reading philosophical treatises, and the best thing about it is that you don't need to agree with Kierkegaard at all in order to enjoy the book.

[Aaron · Rating 4 out of 5]

Søren Kierkegaard is a strange one. He writes not just under pseudonyms, but in characters. I'm not sure I ever dug to the heart of what I thought he actually felt about Repetition. But I know what the two characters in the book think. Which is his view? Who knows? A very strange read.

Also, on a much more technical/practical note, I hate endnotes. This edition/translation has lots and lots of notes and they are all end-notes, a half a book away from the thing they are referencing.

I love footnotes. You can't put notes in there without me reading them. But if I have to go all the way to the end of the book to read them, that's quite distracting. At the bottom of the page is much nicer.

[Liu · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was always confused how a man as devoutly religious as Soren Kierkegaard could have started a philosophy as individual as existentialism. However, Kierkegaard's conception of the religious is not about strictly following what you learned in Sunday school. In fact, Kierkegaard removes the comfort of any reliance on experience, a metaphysic, or an authority figure, forcing us to silently face the world alone and take responsibility for our decisions. Kierkegaard's faith asks us to persevere through our fear and trembling so we have the courage to believe in the impossible. It is only by attempting the crazy, the immoral, the unethical, that we can expand the realm of human possibility.

[Andrew Tucker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly, I didn't understand much of this at first due to a rigorous semester. But the more I wrote on it the more I realized and understood it's significance. Every Christian should interact with this, at least the idea of the teleological suspension of the ethical.

[Brooke · Rating 1 out of 5]

Get this man a thesaurus

[Madhab Dwibedy · Rating 5 out of 5]

The religious way-!?!?

[Matt · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the most difficult books I've ever read, but well worth it.

[Milo · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am casting my mind into the bleak vestiges of time (a few months ago) to remember the details of this shadowy philosophy. My main reaction was that of abject fear. Not the fear felt by Abraham, but a fear of Abraham. Because if one is to exposit a moral action that supersedes the universal – that appeals outside the universal on the precept of total faith – then, on an individual basis, any action is justifiable. Insofar as Abraham had private communion with God; private revelation; and acted privately. God’s word was absolute and true according to the man who hears God. But according to which authority can an answer to God be verified? In the case of Abraham he is tautologically verified by his source material. The Book says it was so: it was so. But if we are to envision the knight of faith beyond Abraham, and Kierkegaard implicitly does so, we must also risk the knight of delusion, the Don Quixote. A person with absolute conviction in absolutely the wrong thing; this person is, in their personal psychology, laudable. They embody that unique, nigh indescribable situation expressed by Kierkegaard about Abraham. They do what is in all senses wrong in order to placate the necessarily good, and therefore believe at once two things (that Isaac is to be killed and that Isaac is not to be killed). And yet Abraham is only the great hero because the voice in his head was, in fact, the true voice of God; he can only be celebrated insofar as his completion of the task is met with abstract, inverse consequence. If an ancient man went up a hill, slew his son because God asked it of him, asked it of him in private, and then returned to his people, propitiating no crops or good times, fending off no evil, achieving nothing but rank submission, to what may have been the command of the one true God. Where then? Therein the challenge of faith, of course; but how many challenges of faith fail? Fail in the reverse quality. Not that the faith of the challenged faltered, but rather that the condition of faith is itself, by dint of the challenge, disproved. I fear Abraham and I fear the man who reads Fear and Trembling with a certain fervour. Because that man, primed as he is, believing himself capable of Abraham’s feat, awaiting a command to supersede the universal, is a man around whom no cope, no yoke, no jangling chains can limit. Kierkegaard picks upon the shrivelling coward Abraham, but invokes the Superman, so far as this Superman is entirely subject to the total moral authority of divine mystery. It is a wonderfully diverting notion – I find Abraham a loathsome character in his Biblical report, and yet sublime in Kierkegaard's – but I cannot shake from it the fear of its adoption by any other man.

Repetition I cannot summon such specific thoughts about, save that it seemed generally to resonate. So much of life is composed of the same actions made incessantly; the difference in sameness and the sameness in difference. Does a wheel develop in the turning? The repeatability of love is agony. The thing is diminished in its predictability, in the motions that must be run, and can be run again. And in those feelings that pang nonetheless recur, that find response in the same stimuli, that turn again and again. The same comedy is not just as funny watched infinitely. Is the same memory just as sweet remembered endlessly? Or sweeter? Is love, repeated, equal? I enjoy Kirkegaard’s structure. The undependable old man in correspondence with the aesthetic knight; the story constantly filtered through two opposite poles. The thing is as much – perhaps more – literary as it is specifically philosophical. Kierkegaard does, as he must, slip into the philosophical voice, but will gird these details with his story. Which incidentally, naturally, evokes his actual life; we see here not merely an abstraction of an abstraction, but an abstraction of an abstraction of the specifically real. A man who must reject love in the name of love; a man who makes attempts to manipulate love in order to save that woman he does and must not love. The knots are rough and tight. Repetition is an apt name for it; these ideas are cycling around, attempting to justify a notion that, in the sensual and the romantic frame, cannot be justified. Philosophy warped into psychodrama.