Søren Kierkegaard: Encyclopedia II - Søren Kierkegaard - Kierkegaard on Schopenhauer

Søren Kierkegaard - Kierkegaard on Schopenhauer

Kierkegaard became acquainted with Arthur Schopenhauer's writings quite late in his life. Kierkegaard felt Schopenhauer was an important writer, but Kierkegaard disagreed on almost every point Schopenhauer made. In several journal entries made in 1854, a year before he died, Kierkegaard spoke highly of Schopenhauer:

In the same way that one disinfects the mouth during an epidemic so as not to be infected by breathing in the poisonous air, one might recommend students who will have to live in Denmark in an atmosphere of nonsensical Christian optimism, to take a little dose of Schopenhauer's Ethic in order to protect themselves against infection from that malodourous twaddle.

However, Kierkegaard also considered him, a most dangerous sign of things to come:

Schopenhauer is so far from being a real pessimist that at the most he represents 'the interesting': in a certain sense he makes asceticism interesting--the most dangerous thing possible for a pleasure-seeking age which will be harmed more than ever by distilling pleasure even out of asceticism ... is by studying asceticism in a completely impersonal way, by assigning it a place in the system.

Kierkegaard believes Schopenhauer's ethical point of view is that the individual succeeds in seeing through the wretchedness of existence and then decides to deaden or mortify the joy of life. As a result of this complete asceticism, one reaches contemplation: the individual does this out of sympathy. He sympathizes with all the misery and the misery of others, which is to exist. Kierkegaard here is probably referring to the pessimistic nature of Schopenhauer's philosophy. One of Kierkegaard's main concerns is a suspicion of his whole philosophy:

After reading through Schopenhauer's Ethic one learns - naturally he is to that extent honest - that he himself is not an ascetic. And consequently he himself has not reached contemplation through asceticism, but only a contemplation which contemplates asceticism. This is extremely suspicious, and may even conceal the most terrible and corrupting voluptuous melancholy: a profound misanthropy. In this too it is suspicious, for it is always suspicious to propound an ethic which does not exert so much power over the teacher that he himself expresses. Schopenhauer makes ethics into genius, but that is of course an unethical conception of ethics. He makes ethics into genius and although he prides himself quite enough on being a genious, it has not pleased him, or nature has not allowed him, to become a genious where asceticism and mortification are concerned. (Journals, 1854)

Little else is known about Kierkegaard's attitude to Schopenhauer. On Schopenhauer himself, Kierkegaard felt that Schopenhauer would've been patronizing. "Schopenhauer interests me very much, and does his fate in Germany. If I could talk to him I am sure he would shudder or laugh if I were to show him [my philosophy]." (Journals, 1854)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Kierkegaard on Schopenhauer", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki