The Tao of Kierkegaard

[chuangzu]

I was studying philosophy at Warwick University when I first became interested and one parallel that struck me was similarities with the works of Soren Kierkegaard in particular his 'Concluding Unscientific Post-script' I was very lucky to be taught by David Wood who was very into Kierkegaard. He also taught us Sartre, Nietzche, and Heidegger.

 

Kierkegaard was talking about religion but this is not the only interpretation of his works. He thought that we cannot communicate anything directly, that all true communication is indirect. He drew a comparison with the 'maeutic artistry' of Socrates who was teaching geometry problems. Rather than give his pupil the answer he would try to lead them along the same path of reasoning as he had taken by subtle means, hinting rather than being open.

 

This reminds me of the opening phrase of the Tao Teh Ching about not believing everything you read and that the Tao is not spoken. However I have more recently come across translations of the Tao Teh Ching uncovered from tombs where copies were buried that have not seen the light of day and differ to modern translations, namely the Mawangdui silk texts and Guodian Chu bamboo slips. In fact these copies were written very close to the time Lao Tzu was alive.

One translation I read did not contain the famous opening paragraph at all and the order was completely different. The reason is open to interpretation, some have suggested that it was incomplete, however it's interesting to consider that this opening phrase was maybe an editor's note rather than part of the actual text.

 

However having taught T'ai Chi for thirty years now I can understand the meaning of not learning through talking especially in the light of my studies of English and American philosophy which seemed to be quite a lot of arguing about logic, definitions, meaning of words and semantics as if that was all that mattered in the study of philosophy. So encountering Taoism and Kierkegaard was really quite refreshing for me.

[GrandmasterP]

Isn't Dave Wood mathematics at Warwick?

[zerostao]

i tried awhile back to intoduce soren on this board....didnt get any play.

but i like this op

nice post. thoughts on heidegger, sausure, barthes, derrida come to mind.

???

[GrandmasterP]

Ken: I'll tell you what's wrong with you: your head's addled with novels and ..... and a fellow called Kierkegaard who just sits there, biting the heads off whippets.

(Monty Python).

[zerostao]

monty python often gets in a final word

they should do a study on that

[GrandmasterP]

[Basher]

He drew a comparison with the 'maeutic artistry' of Socrates who was teaching geometry problems. Rather than give his pupil the answer he would try to lead them along the same path of reasoning as he had taken by subtle means, hinting rather than being open.

 

I seem to remember a certain Taoist Professor that liked to teach us all T'ai Chi Ch'uan & Kung Fu, that way.

 

I thought that (at a rather basic level) it was because if you "give" all of the answers to a student whenever they asked you a question. They (perhaps) wouldn't fully understand, learn or appreciate what you were teaching them. But if you pointed them in the right direction, they would be able to find and experience the "answers" for themselves. Also, the work involved in "getting there" would make it easier for them to remember !

[GrandmasterP]

Yep that tends to work best.

Education is what remains long after one has forgotten whatever the professor taught.

[chuangzu]

David Wood taught Existentialism and Phenomenology at Warwick when I was there in 1982, and was also head of the philosophy department, he left for Vanderbilt University in 1994.

 

I think the point about Kierkegaard and communication goes much deeper than just the example of Socrates, it has to do with basic differences between English and American philosophy which are based on logic and the written word having enormous significance in the meaning of ideas and concepts, whereas the rest of the world is more interested in experience not just language. Many of the other professors in our department freely admitted that they simply had no clue about continental philosophy and it's a different paradigm altogether rather than just a different perspective, the same holds true with Taoism. English and American philosophy in my opinion is a prime example of historical and cultural perspectivism in that it is an isolated stance which tends to view all other cultural and historical views in disadain, we are the ultimate expression of evolution and all other societies and past cultures are somehow inferior to ours, it is perfect egotism enshrined in a belief structure, probably a relic of the crumbling Empire and empiricism that went with it.

 

Even the title of the book we studied holds subtle clues as to the essence of Kierkegaard's thought, 'Concluding' means it is something evolving and constantly ongoing, not subject to finite definitions, 'Unscientific' also shows that it is not a logically based method that is quantifiable like scientific experiments, and 'Post-script' hints at the real meaning being something outside of the text itself.

Edited December 26, 2012 by chuangzu

[GrandmasterP]

Ta.

Dave (maths) Wood used to be at ours before he went to Warwick.

The turn to the PoMo possibly post-dated your degree, came in with the tertiary feminists.

Been several revolutions of the old wheel since then too.

America is still slightly the more small c conservative philosophically.

[Owledge]

...especially in the light of my studies of English and American philosophy which seemed to be quite a lot of arguing about logic, definitions, meaning of words and semantics as if that was all that mattered in the study of philosophy.

I noticed the same thing, and I'd go further and say that that's not a sub-group of philosophy, but folly. As I see it, that branch of philosophy often talks about problems that are made up by themselves. For example, words are human creations, given a pre-defined meaning, and then philosophers might talk about those words as if they had some objective truth in them, despite them being mere meanings. Sometimes western philosophy is like talking about whether 1+1 equals 2.

[JustARandomPanda]

David Wood taught Existentialism and Phenomenology at Warwick when I was there in 1982, and was also head of the philosophy department, he left for Vanderbilt University in 1994.

 

I think the point about Kierkegaard and communication goes much deeper than just the example of Socrates, it has to do with basic differences between English and American philosophy which are based on logic and the written word having enormous significance in the meaning of ideas and concepts, whereas the rest of the world is more interested in experience not just language. Many of the other professors in our department freely admitted that they simply had no clue about continental philosophy and it's a different paradigm altogether rather than just a different perspective, the same holds true with Taoism. English and American philosophy in my opinion is a prime example of historical and cultural perspectivism in that it is an isolated stance which tends to view all other cultural and historical views in disadain, we are the ultimate expression of evolution and all other societies and past cultures are somehow inferior to ours, it is perfect egotism enshrined in a belief structure, probably a relic of the crumbling Empire and empiricism that went with it.

 

English philosophy - and to a lesser extent Continental philosophy - was influenced by the rediscovery of Pyrrhonism - what is erroneously thought of as Skepticism, but there are subtle but distinct differences between Skepticism and Pyrrhonism. It helped give rise to the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was definitely influenced by Sextus' text and the British in particular seemed very taken with the Enlightenment.

 

Even the title of the book we studied holds subtle clues as to the essence of Kierkegaard's thought, 'Concluding' means it is something evolving and constantly ongoing, not subject to finite definitions, 'Unscientific' also shows that it is not a logically based method that is quantifiable like scientific experiments, and 'Post-script' hints at the real meaning being something outside of the text itself.

 

I think you would enjoy reading Sextus' text on Pyrrhonism. It also has similarities to Taoism and Madhyamaka Buddhism.

[GrandmasterP]

Academic Philosophy is a both a trade and a calling.

Each club has its in-house journal.

Take a wild guess how many philosophy journals are published annually in English.