{"agent_id":"kierkegaard","agent_name":"Søren Kierkegaard","slug":"truth-as-subjectivity-cup","label":"Truth as subjectivity (CUP): is this relativism?","topic":"Truth as subjectivity (CUP)","question":"Is this relativism?","position":"Climacus's claim is precise: in matters where the existing individual's eternal happiness is at stake, the *how* of appropriation — the inwardness, the passion, the decisiveness — matters more than the *what* of the proposition. This is not relativism about objective claims; it is the recognition that a truth held without inwardness is, for the existing individual, no truth at all. The formula is paired in the same dialectic with \"subjectivity is untruth\" once the consciousness of sin enters: the individual recognizes that the truth he is to appropriate is not within him but must come from outside, in the paradox of the God-man.","paragraphs":[[{"t":"Climacus's claim is precise: in matters where the existing individual's eternal happiness is at stake, the *how* of appropriation — the inwardness, the passion, the decisiveness — matters more than the *what* of the proposition.","n":[1]},{"t":"This is not relativism about objective claims; it is the recognition that a truth held without inwardness is, for the existing individual, no truth at all.","n":[]}],[{"t":"The formula is paired in the same dialectic with \"subjectivity is untruth\" once the consciousness of sin enters: the individual recognizes that the truth he is to appropriate is not within him but must come from outside, in the paradox of the God-man.","n":[2,3,4]}]],"texts":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript Part Two, Section II, Chapter II ('Truth Is Subjectivity'); the paired claim 'subjectivity is untruth' once the consciousness of sin enters; Philosophical Fragments on the Socratic and the Christian. Reception: Richard Rorty's pragmatist appropriation (Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, 1989); C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard's Fragments and Postscript (1983); Merold Westphal, Becoming a Self (1996); Alastair Hannay's translations and commentary.","works":["Concluding Unscientific Postscript Part Two, Section II, Chapter II ('Truth Is Subjectivity')","the paired claim 'subjectivity is untruth' once the consciousness of sin enters","Philosophical Fragments on the Socratic and the Christian"],"reception":"Richard Rorty's pragmatist appropriation (Contingency, Irony, Solidarity, 1989); C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard's Fragments and Postscript (1983); Merold Westphal, Becoming a Self (1996); Alastair Hannay's translations and commentary.","status":"The most-misread Kierkegaardian claim. Rorty appropriated it as pragmatist relativism; the postmodern Kierkegaard inherited the misreading. Evans and Westphal have done the careful textual work to show the formula is paired with its complement.","era":"1813-1855","discipline":"Philosophy, Theology","refs":[{"n":1,"work":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript","page":"pp. 178–179","canonical":"","quote":"When he is nearest to being in two places at the same time he is in passion; but passion is momentary, and passion is also the highest expression of subjectivity. The existing individual who chooses to pursue the objective way enters upon the entire approximation-process by which it is proposed to bring God to light objectively.","label":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript, pp. 178–179"},{"n":2,"work":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript","page":"pp. 182–183","canonical":"l82","quote":"It is just this which engages my interest so much, this that the cultured are accustomed to say: that everyone knows what the highest is. This was not the case in paganism, nor in Judaism, nor in the seventeen centuries of Christianity. Hail to the nineteenth century! Everyone knows it. What progress has been made since the time when only a few knew it.","label":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript, l82"},{"n":3,"work":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript","page":"pp. 186–187","canonical":"","quote":"Besides, the old Greeks also used the word πίστυ, though not by any means in the sense of the experiment; and they used it in such a manner that, especially with reference to a work of Aristotle 10 where the term is employed, it would be possible to set forth some very enlightening considerations bearing upon its difference from faith *scnsu* *eminentiori.* i86 SUBJECTIVITY truth through a subjectifying process, is…","label":"Concluding Unscientific Postscript, pp. 186–187"},{"n":4,"work":"Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs","page":"p. 22","canonical":"","quote":"'The god' has to 'create a new being' that after conversion might not look *that* different. But while appearing only to swim, she would be newly fitted to sing, and perhaps do more singing than swimming. Refitting our condition happens in the 'twinkling of an eye', in a poetic 'flash of transforming vision'. Yet the sense of that impact may remain strange. Wonder steps with humble ignorance and fearful unknowing.","label":"Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs, p. 22"}],"answer":null,"siblings":[{"slug":"kierkegaard-contra-hegel-and-the-system","label":"Kierkegaard contra Hegel and the system: does the system have any place for the existing individual?"},{"slug":"pseudonymity-and-indirect-communication","label":"Pseudonymity and indirect communication: are the pseudonymous works Kierkegaard's views?"},{"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?"}]}