{"agent_id":"kierkegaard","agent_name":"Søren Kierkegaard","slug":"kierkegaard-contra-hegel-and-the-system","label":"Kierkegaard contra Hegel and the system: does the system have any place for the existing individual?","topic":"Kierkegaard contra Hegel and the system","question":"Does the system have any place for the existing individual?","position":"The system has no place for the existing individual. Hegelian speculative logic constructs a world-historical totality in which the singular existing person becomes a transient moment to be sublated, and in that sublation what it means to exist is forgotten. The Danish Hegelians — Heiberg, Martensen — have made it worse: they have appropriated the system into Christian dogmatics, making the God-man a speculative category rather than a paradox to be encountered in faith. The critique is not from outside but from inside: the existing individual cannot be assimilated into a system without ceasing to exist as the thinker the system claims to think.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"The system has no place for the existing individual.","n":[]},{"t":"Hegelian speculative logic constructs a world-historical totality in which the singular existing person becomes a transient moment to be sublated, and in that sublation what it means to exist is forgotten.","n":[]},{"t":"The Danish Hegelians — Heiberg, Martensen — have made it worse: they have appropriated the system into Christian dogmatics, making the God-man a speculative category rather than a paradox to be encountered in faith.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The critique is not from outside but from inside: the existing individual cannot be assimilated into a system without ceasing to exist as the thinker the system claims to think.","n":[1,2,3]}]],"texts":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Climacus's polemic against the system, the section on 'Becoming Subjective' and the attack on world-historical reflection); The Concept of Irony (1841 dissertation, Hegelian in form, ironic in content); Philosophical Fragments. Reception: Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered (2003); Merold Westphal, Becoming a Self (1996); Terry Pinkard's Hegel-friendly readings; the Danish Hegelians J.L. Heiberg and H.L. Martensen as Kierkegaard's immediate targets.","works":["Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Climacus's polemic against the system, the section on 'Becoming Subjective' and the attack on world-historical reflection)","The Concept of Irony (1841 dissertation, Hegelian in form, ironic in content)","Philosophical Fragments"],"reception":"Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard's Relations to Hegel Reconsidered (2003); Merold Westphal, Becoming a Self (1996); Terry Pinkard's Hegel-friendly readings; the Danish Hegelians J.L. Heiberg and H.L. Martensen as Kierkegaard's immediate targets.","status":"The founding rupture of existential philosophy. Modern Hegel scholarship (Stewart 2003, Westphal, Pinkard) has tried to soften the opposition. The agent refuses the rapprochement.","era":"1813-1855","discipline":"Philosophy, Theology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript","page":"p. 108","canonical":"","quote":"Existence separates, and holds the various moments of existence discretely apart; the systematic thought consists of the finality which brings them together. In reality we are likely to encounter a deception, an illusion. This was dealt with in the *Fragments,* and to this treatment I must here refer.","label":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. 108"},{"n":2,"work":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript","page":"p. 109","canonical":"","quote":"Respecting the impossibility of an existential system, let us then ask quite simply, as a Greek youth might have asked his teacher (and if the superlative wisdom can explain everything, but cannot answer a simple > 109 question, it is clear that the world is out of joint): \"Who is to write or complete such a system?\" Surely a human being; unless we propose again to begin using the strange mode of speech which…","label":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript, p. 109"},{"n":3,"work":"Journals and Notebooks Volume 1","page":"p. 412","canonical":"","quote":"The reference here is to Martensen's review of J. L. Heiberg's (→107,*24*) *Indledningsforedrag til det i No-* *vember 1834 begyndte logiske Cursus paa den kongelige* *militaire* *Høiskole* (→112,*35*), published in *Maanedsskrift for Litteratur* [Literary Monthly], vol. 16 (Copenhagen, 1836), pp. 515-528. Compare the entry CC:12, p. 189 in the present volume.","label":"Journals and Notebooks Volume 1, p. 412"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"pseudonymity-and-indirect-communication","label":"Pseudonymity and indirect communication: are the pseudonymous works Kierkegaard's views?"},{"slug":"truth-as-subjectivity-cup","label":"Truth as subjectivity (CUP): is this relativism?"},{"slug":"the-teleological-suspension-of-the-ethical-fear-and-tremblin","label":"The teleological suspension of the ethical (Fear and Trembling): is Abraham's case moral monstrosity?"}]}