Page established 2012
Last change: April 19th, 2024
Last change: April 19th, 2024
Begrebet Angest and Object Oriented Programming
© 2012-24 Villy M. Sorensen1
SHORT REMARKS AS PREFACE
What on earth do the these two concepts have to do with each other?
At first sight just about nothing.
See the text of Begrebet Angest in Danish.
In applying classes to this book the chapters (Latin Caput) and their paragraphs (§) are examined one after another.
I will answer each mail as best I can. Comments of general interest will be published at intervals at the end of this page, so keep in mind that give your approval to this by sending a mail. There will be no word level changes, but only certain parts of the comments may be chosen. This presentation raises many questions and I'm looking forward to seeing the comments.
What on earth do the these two concepts have to do with each other?
At first sight just about nothing.
Begrebet Angest is a book written in 1844 by Vigilius Haufniensis (pseudonym for Søren Kierkegaard) about anxiety and inherited (original) sin in the (German) idealistic non-empirical philosophical tradition where large concepts fight extended dialectical battles with one another — whereas Object Oriented Programming starting around 1980 is a partly empirical, partly a greatly abstract way of organizing computer programming into manageable objects, which do not interfere with each other unless they absolutely have to and form a reusable class system.
Yet, I left out one word in characterizing a class system, namely inheritable. What classes inherit is not sin or wealth or generational, but general things. One class might be car manufacturer, subclasses BMW, Toyota, General Motors and Chery which 'inherit' (are based on) the general class car manufacturer. You do not want to repeat the same basic thing for hundreds of car manufacturers, you put them in a base class, which the individual manufacturers inherit. This is not generational like father/son. But you can easily use the class system for generational inheritance by letting the son have a reference to the father and so access to his things (for example sins).
The class definition by itself does nothing, it just sits there as a pattern or prototype waiting to be used or implemented. When you use it, you instantiate - make an instance of a class, lets say Chery from above with the name 'Chery', location 'Wuhu, Anhui Province', country: 'China', models: 'Eastar', 'A1', that is not an abstract model but a real representation (in the memory of the computer). Kierkegaard uses the word 'set' for instantiate, that is having an actual object or realized concept (having done the sin out of angest).
Kierkegaard has great trouble keeping the concept of one person separated from the concept of a collection of persons. Being Kierkegaard, he actually loves to muddy up the waters with paradoxical statements like "Adam is at the same time himself and the lineage" or worse2 which he keeps repeating in various forms. A generational lineage is a collection of persons descended from one another, a person is one instance of the class human-person and that is what Kierkegaard means. He should have said: "Adam is part of (the collection of) the lineage of persons and he is a person."3
Kierkegaard is also a poet and some of his statements are more poetic than psychological or philosophical. This should be borne in mind. So when the poet Walt Whitman says
this is a fine statement of poetic disregard for silly, narrow-minded and perhaps misunderstood 'logic'. Seen in this light "Adam is at the same time himself and the lineage" evokes the whole lineage of his progeny such as Kierkegaard sees it. Or rather seen backwards in Kierkegaards lineage to Adam with the accumulated experience and gradually increasing sins.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
But you cannot have it both ways: i. e. claiming to be sternly logical and at the same time have poetic licence. Kierkegaard clearly sees himself having faultless logic of the highest order. This article shows that he gets quite far but for certain categories he does not have the needed models, which for example classes provide. It is not uninteresting.
See the text of Begrebet Angest in Danish.
In applying classes to this book the chapters (Latin Caput) and their paragraphs (§) are examined one after another.
I will answer each mail as best I can. Comments of general interest will be published at intervals at the end of this page, so keep in mind that give your approval to this by sending a mail. There will be no word level changes, but only certain parts of the comments may be chosen. This presentation raises many questions and I'm looking forward to seeing the comments.
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To look up the qoutes use:
1. Introduction to Classes and Kierkegaard
Begrebet Angest (The Concept of Anxiety) has been called a maddeningly difficult book4.
But there is help to be had. This article will show how the concepts employed in Object Oriented Programming at a number of places help understand what Mr. Vigilius Haufniensis meant, but did not have the terminology or the concepts for. These are not easy concepts, granted, but a great many computer scientists have spent many years and much effort developing and refining them and they have proved eminently useful in practice. The concepts are not overly difficult either, you don't have to be a genius.
As a beginning a simplified concept of a class is shown and applied to the first text, where it can be said to be of use in Begrebet Angest. The text is shown in Danish and in my translation into English followed by a formulation as it would be given in terms of classes. There are many of these texts.
Classes are of the most use in Chapter I of Begrebet Angest, which is not the chapter, that has made the book influential and famous. In the first chapter Mr. Haufniensis is thoroughly Hegelian and uses a fairly straight version of thesis and antithesis submerging into the synthesis.
2. Applying Classes in Begrebet Angest
Let us first look at a simplified definition (or defining pattern or prototype) of a class, which has two parts the data and the functions. The data is texts of all kinds like names, birth dates and numerical values and more importantly references to other classes. The function part defines procedures that do things, for example change the status of a person from living to dead with the consequence of becoming an angel and loosing his sex16.
CLASS Person
data part
function part
end of function part
end of CLASS
name
sex (male, female)
end of data partsex (male, female)
function part
end of function part
The class Person above is the pattern, prototype or rule to be used to create what is called instances, which are actual persons with a name and sex. Here we instantiate - create means we get an actual representation of the class - five Persons namely Adam, Kain, Noah and old and young Kierkegaard:
This is the Kierkegaard lineage, the way Mr. Haufniensis talks of a lineage. Since several persons may have the same name, we use numbers to be sure to create different persons, not just overwrite one person with another of the same name. If Adam lived 6.0009 years ago, which Mr. Haufniensis makes fun of, but was widely assumed in his age, and each generation is on the average 25 years then Adam was 240 generations before Kierkegaard and this would be the size of his male lineage.
Nr0001 create Person (name='Adam', sex='male') ;
Nr0002 create Person (name='Kain', sex='male') ;
...
Nr0007 create Person (name='Noah', sex='male') ;
...
Nr0240 create Person (name='Michael Kierkegaard', sex='male');
Nr0241 create Person (name='Søren Kierkegaard', sex='male') ;
Nr0002 create Person (name='Kain', sex='male') ;
...
Nr0007 create Person (name='Noah', sex='male') ;
...
Nr0240 create Person (name='Michael Kierkegaard', sex='male');
Nr0241 create Person (name='Søren Kierkegaard', sex='male') ;
Now we put the individual Persons into a collection or set (as in set theory). A collection is again a class that contains instances of other classes, real objects:
You get the idea. It would lead astray to define or treat collections further in this context.
Caput I, § 1 Historical Allusions with Regard to the Concept of Inherited Sin.
Kierk-lineage create Collection (Nr0001, Nr0002, ..., Nr0007, ..., Nr0240, Nr0241) ;
Here is a first text by Mr. Haufniensis I §1 p. 124:
... Mennesket er Individuum og som saadant paa eengang sig selv og hele Slægten, saaledes at hele Slægten participerer i Individet og Individet i hele Slægten.
Man is an individual and as such at the same time himself and the whole lineage, in the manner that the whole lineage participates in the individual and the individual in the whole lineage.
The problem with many of these old philosophical texts in the (particularly German) idealistic tradition is a loose use of is meaning for example 'is identical to', 'is the same as', 'is part of', 'consists of', 'has the attribute' etc.
Individual and lineage I §1 p. 125:
Intet Individuum er ligegyldigt mod Slægtens Historie, ligesaa lidet som Slægten mod noget Individs. Idet da Slægtens Historie gaaer frem, begynder Individet bestandig forfra, fordi det er sig selv og Slægten, og deri igjen Slægtens Historie.
No individual is indifferent towards the history of the lineage, as the lineage is not indifferent against some individual. In that the history of the lineage goes forward, the individual constantly starts over, because he is himself and the lineage, and thereby again the history of the lineage.
If the other meaning is that for the history of the lineage itself for example Noah is not indifferent, that is evident from the fact that he belongs to it, but that is so obvious and stating it quite superfluous.
No matter what Mr. Haufniensis means, it ain't so.
Now for inheriting sin I §1 p. 125:
..., som Barnet ønsker at være skyldigt med Faderen.
..., as the child wishes to be guilty with the father.
Caput I, § 2 The Concept of the First Sin.
Mr. Haufniensis insists with all his might, that Adam was not different from other men. The usual and established reading, that he and Eva were in paradise without sin, and forfeited this by coming to know good and bad through the apple of the tree of knowledge and having carnal knowledge (sex) and were thus turned out of paradise is not Kierkegaard's. He insists that each person in the lineage commits the first sin on equal terms, he will not be a second rate sinner. I §2 p. 126:
Ved den første synd kom synden ind i verden. Aldeles paa samme Maade gjælder det om ethvert senere Menneskes første synd, at ved den kommer Synden ind i Verden.
Sin came into the world by the first sin. Exactly the same goes for any man's first sin: with it sin came into the world.
Den første synd er Qualitetens Bestemmelse, den første Synd er Synden.
The first sin determines the quality of it, the first sin is the Sin.
Let us look at these acrobatics:
CLASS Sin
data part
function part
end of function part
end of CLASS
kind (original, normal, deadly)
end of data partfunction part
end of function part
Original-Sin-Nr1 create Sin (kind='original') ;
Now, if he meant that, why the dickens didn't he say so? Because class programming wasn't invented yet.
The next quote deals with animals and more Adams I §2 p. 129:
Nedstammelsen er kun Udtrykket for Continuiteten i Slægtens Historie, hvilken altid bevæger sig i quantitative Bestemmelser, og derfor ingenlunde er istand til at skaffe et Individ frem; thi en Dyreslægt, om den end har bevaret sig gjennem 1000 og atter 1000 Generationer, frembringer aldrig et Individ. Dersom det andet Menneske ikke havde nedstammet fra Adam, saa havde han ikke været det andet Menneske, men en tom Gjentagelse, og hvoraf der ligesaa lidet var bleven Slægt som Individ.
Descent only expresses the continuity in the history of the lineage, which always moves in quantitative determinations and is therefore by no means capable of producing an individual; because an animal lineage, even if it has kept itself through 1000 and further 1000 of generations will never produce an individual. If the second person had not descended from Adam, then he would not have been a human person, but an empty repetition of which would come neither lineage nor individual.
Clearly, in terms of classes, we can make an instance of a Zebra, we can make a thousand or more, which are individual Zebras. To exclude them from being individuals because they cannot sin seems radical religious extremism. Perhaps Zebras observe usages which in the breach are Zebra-sins. You need to stretch your imagination to have them inherit sin.
The statement about the second person not being an individual if not descended from Adam is not thought through. Clearly the Almighty can create more persons, if he so wishes. He could create John and Alma, who did not taste the forbidden fruit and lived happily in a long lineage in paradise. They procreate without sin, which Mr. Haufniensis would find beastly, but it is clearly possible. That would be a lineage without inherited sin. They could on the other hand also taste the forbidden fruit, and would then sin with sex and have their lineage with inherited sin.
"Nature does not fancy a meaningless redundancy10" Mr. Haufniensis proclaims later. Let us not deal with the validity of this proclamation, but God made nature and he could have made hundreds of individual people, if he so fancied.
That Mr. Haufniensis just wants to deal with one descent, one lineage is his problem. When he proclaims, he interferes with the powers of God. Mr. Haufniensis is a haughty man, he thinks he knows better.
Caput I, § 3 The Concept of Innocence.
Chapter I §3 p. 130-31:
Som da Adam tabte Uskyldigheden ved Skylden, saaledes taber ethvert Menneske den.
As Adam lost his innocence through guilt, thus every human person looses it.
Chapter I §3 p. 132:
Uskyldigheden er en qualitet, den er en Tilstand, ... .
Innocence is a quality, it is a state, ... .
Uskyldighed er Uvidenhed.
Innocence is ignorance.
Uskyldigheden tabes bestandig kun ved Individets qualitative Spring.
Innocence is ever only lost with the qualitative jump of the individual.
Now we need to update the definition of our class Person:
CLASS Person
data part
function part
end of CLASS
name
sex
state (initially innocent)
end of data partsex
state (initially innocent)
function part
perform-qualitative-jump
end of function part
set state to guilty.
end of perform-qualitative-jumpCaput I, § 4 The Concept of Fall from Grace.
The fall is not triggered through concupiscentia, desire, but through the qualitative jump. Mr. Haufniensis opines, that desire is not a psychological concept. Concupiscentia is a term from St. Augustin, which he uses in defining original sin.
There is a discussion, if you can be more or less innocent, but that is not a quantity to Mr. Haufniensis but a quality I §4 p. 133:
At et menneske med dyb Alvor kan sige, at han blev født i Elendighed og hans Moder undfangede ham i Synd, er ganske sandt; men egentlig kan han først ret sørge derover, idet han selv bragte Skylden ind i Verden, og drog Alt dette over sig, thi det er en Modsigelse at ville sørge æstetisk over Syndigheden.
That a man can say in deep earnest, that he was born in misery and his mother bore him in sin is quite true; but he can only start mourning this in that he himself brought guilt into the world, and brought all this on himself, because it is a contradiction to want to mourn guilt aestetically.
Concupiscentia is mentioned in the Augsburger Confession and Mr. Haufniensis cites the passage even including born with sin, which he would not have in § 1 of this chapter. He says wondrously little after the quote, but makes a cryptic comment "the psychological explanation may not 'enchat' the point", whatever that means if it means anything. It might mean that Mr. Haufniensis does not want to talk about it.
Concupiscentia I §4 p. 135:
En concupiscentia er en Bestemmelse af Skyld og Synd før Skyld og Synd, og som dog ikke er Skyld og Synd dvs. sat ved denne.
A concupiscentia is a determination of guilt and sin before guilt and sin and which is not guilt and sin, though, i.e. set with it.
This would make the qualitative jump nervous, so of course it cannot be.
Caput I, § 5 The Concept of Anxiety.
I §5 p. 136:
I denne Tilstand [Uskyldighed] er der Fred og Hvile; men der er paa samme Tid noget Andet, hvilket ikke er Ufred og Strid: this der er jo Intet at stride med. Hvad er det da? Intet. Men hvilken Virkning har Intet? Det føder Angest.
This state [innocence] is peace and quiet, but there is at the same time something else, which is not strife and conflict, because there is nothing to conflict with. What is it then? Nothing. But what effect does Nothing have? It feeds anxiety.
Now, we have still not committed the original, inherited sin, so our body and soul have not yet synthesized to spirit, but Mr. Haufniensis knows what is happening: We have a little bit of spirit in the sense, that the spirit is 'dreaming' and projects its reality, which is nothing, but innocence sees this nothing. Anxiety, then, is a determination of the dreaming spirit; it is the reality of freedom to choose as the realization of possibility (possibility of possibility in Mr. Haufniensis terms).
Anxiety is not fear, which refers to something definite. Animals, not having spirit, cannot experience Anxiety.
Where does anxiety come in?
Where does anxiety come in?
I §5 p. 136:
I denne Tilstand [Uskyldighed] er der Fred og Hvile; men der er paa samme Tid noget Andet, hvilket ikke er Ufred og Strid: this der er jo Intet at stride med. Hvad er det da? Intet. Men hvilken Virkning har Intet? Det føder Angest.
This state [innocence] is peace and quiet, but there is at the same time something else, which is not strife and conflict, because there is nothing to conflict with. What is it then? Nothing. But what effect does Nothing have? It feeds anxiety.
Naar vi betragte de dialektiske bestemmelser i angest, da viser det sig, at disse netop have den psychologiske Tvetydighed. Angest er en sympathetisk Antipathie og en antipathetisk Sympathie. Man seer, tænker jeg, letteligen, at det er i en ganske anden Forstand en psychologisk Bestemmelse en hiin concupiscentia.
If we examine the dialectical disposition in anxiety, we find that this has exactly that psychological ambivalence. Anxiety is a sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy. You see, I think, easily, that this is in a completely different sense a psychological determination than yonder concupiscentia.
Mennesket er en Synthese af det Sjelelige og det Legemlige. Men en Synthese er utænkelig, naar de Tvende ikke enes i et Tredie. Dette Tredie er Aanden. I Uskyldigheden er Mennesket ikke blot Dyr, som han da overhovedet, hvis han noget Øieblik i sit Liv var blot Dyr, aldrig vilde blive Menneske. Aanden er altsaa tilstede, men som umiddelbar, som drømmende. Forsaavidt den nu er tilstede, er den paa en Maade en fjendtlig Magt; thi den forstyrrer bestandig det Forhold mellem Sjel og Legeme, der vel har Bestaaen, men dog ikke har Bestaaen, forsaavidt det først faaer det ved Aanden. Paa den anden Side er den en venlig Magt, der jo netop vil constituere Forholdet.
Man is a synthesis of the soul-ly and the bodily. But a synthesis is unthinkable, when the twain do not unify in a Third. This Third is the Spirit. Innocent Man is not just animal, as he at all, if he at some moment was just animal, never would become Man. The spirit is therefore present, but as immediate, as dreaming. In as far as it is present, it is in a way an enemy power, because it constantly aggravates that relation between soul and body, which does exist but even then does not exist, in as far as it first exists with the spirit. On the other hand it is a friendly power, which seeks to constitute the relation.
Here follows about a page and a half which are weakly argued in the logical sense, the usually cocky Mr. Haufniensis is in troubled waters. They purport to show how innocence culminates in ambivalence, how the innocence is of Nothing (something in the semantic sense here), which produces Anxiety. Just a word then ignorance is concentrated: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it". Adam, being innocent, cannot understand this. Innocence does not understand, but anxiety has gotten its first prey. Understanding was not possible before eating the apple. That it is forbidden awakes the possibility of freedom, a higher form of ignorance leading to a higher form of anxiety. What passed by innocence as the anxiety's nothing, has now come into Adam and is again a nothing: the anguishing possibility of being able to, but not knowing what. This page and a half does not seem to furnish deep psychological insights such as later parts of the book do. Mr. Haufniensis needs something to initiate the qualitative jump but his development seems forced.
It does not follow from Adam not knowing about good and evil, that he also does not understand "thou shalt not" and that would suffice to know it should not be done. That Adam does not understand good and evil is something Mr. Haufniensis needs to show his utter innocence, but knowing language he surely understood thou shalt not, which even children understand, or else. The argumentation is a little off center and should have focused on "thou shalt not" awakening the possibility of freedom.
Caput I, § 6 Anxiety as Prerequisite for Original Inherited Sin.
This is the crux of the book in explaining the qualitative jump I §6 p. 139-40:
Las os saa nøiere gjenemgaae Fortællingen i Genesis, idet vi gjøre et Forsøg paa at opgive den fixe Idee, at det er en Mythe, og idet vi minde os om, at ingen Tid har været saa flink i at frembringe Forstands-Myther som vor, der selv frembringer Myther, medens den vil udrydde allle Myther.
Adam var da skabt, ...
Eva var skabt, dannet af hans Ribbeen. Hun stod i saa inderligt Forhold til ham som muligt, men dog var det endnu et udvortes Forhold. Adam og Eva er blot en numerisk Gjentagelse. ...
Adam var da skabt, ...
Eva var skabt, dannet af hans Ribbeen. Hun stod i saa inderligt Forhold til ham som muligt, men dog var det endnu et udvortes Forhold. Adam og Eva er blot en numerisk Gjentagelse. ...
Let us go through the story in Genesis making an attempt to give up the fixed notion, that it is a myth and in that we remind ourselves that no period has been as productive in bringing forth Myths-of-the-Mind as ours, which itself brings forth myths, whereas it would exterminate all myths.
Adam, then, was created, ...
Eve was created out of his rib. She had an as intimate as possible relation to him, but it was, though, yet an exterior relation. Adam and Eve are just numerical clones. ...
Eve was created out of his rib. She had an as intimate as possible relation to him, but it was, though, yet an exterior relation. Adam and Eve are just numerical clones. ...
The snake and Eve follows and the Fall, which is the qualitative jump. This had two consequences: sin entered the world and sexuality was instantiated. Now Mr. Haufniensis becomes very weak, logically speaking, by saying, if man was not a synthesis, which reposes in a third (spirit) then one thing could not have two consequences. But Mr. Haufniensis - as if the synthesis did not quite work - sort of reverses the process and likes teleologically to keep a little of thesis and antithesis around, because he wants to associate soul with sin and body with sexuality.
Here is a paragraph, where the reference is faulty I §6 p. 141:
Hvad der i § 5 er sagt om Forbudets og Dommens Ord maa her mindes. Den Ufuldkommenhed i Fortællingen, hvorledes Nogen skulde falde paa at sige til Adam, hvad han væsentlig ikke kan forstaae, falder bort, naar vi betænke, at den Talende er Sproget, og det altsaa er Adam selv, der taler.
What has been said in § 5 about the Prohibition and the words of the Verdict should be recalled here. The imperfection in the story, how somebody could fall upon to say to Adam, what he essentially cannot understand, falls away when we realize, that the speaker is Language and it is thereby Adam himself who talks.
We again need to update the definition of our class Person:
CLASS Person
data part
function part
end of CLASS
name
sex (male)
state (guilty with sin, of the soul)
spirit (synthesis of soul and body)
spirit-state (initially dreaming)
sexuality (instantiated and of the body)
end of data partsex (male)
state (guilty with sin, of the soul)
spirit (synthesis of soul and body)
spirit-state (initially dreaming)
sexuality (instantiated and of the body)
function part
perform-qualitative-jump
end of function part
create sexuality (to exist);
set state to guilty.
set spirit-state to full spirit.
end of perform-qualitative-jumpset state to guilty.
set spirit-state to full spirit.
Caput 2 Anxiety as Original Inherited Sin progressively.
Anxiety grows from one generation to the next and may become reflective - meaning able to think about itself.
Derimod vil Angesten i et senere Individ kunne være mere reflekteret, end i Adam, fordi den quantitative Tilvæxt, som Slægten tilbagelægger, nu gjør sig gjældende i ham.
But the anxiety in a later individual may be more reflective than in Adam, because the quantitative growth, that the lineage travels, will now assert itself in him.
CLASS Person
data part
function part
end of CLASS
name
(The next line is a reference to the father's class instance, you can get - access - his values for example his name using this reference like this: father.name)
Person father
sex type (male)
state (guilty with sin, of the soul)
spirit (synthesis of soul and body)
sexuality (instantiated and of the body)
(The following line means a Person gets the anxiety level of his father and increases it some.)
anxiety-level = father.anxiety-level + some + perhaps more reflective.
inherited-sin-level = father.inherited-sin-level + some.
end of data part(The next line is a reference to the father's class instance, you can get - access - his values for example his name using this reference like this: father.name)
Person father
sex type (male)
state (guilty with sin, of the soul)
spirit (synthesis of soul and body)
sexuality (instantiated and of the body)
(The following line means a Person gets the anxiety level of his father and increases it some.)
anxiety-level = father.anxiety-level + some + perhaps more reflective.
inherited-sin-level = father.inherited-sin-level + some.
function part
perform-qualitative-jump
end of function part
create Sexuality (to exist);
set state to guilty.
end of perform-qualitative-jumpset state to guilty.
Forsaavidt har Syndigheden faaet en større Magt, og Arvesynden er voxende.
In as much sin has gotten greater power and original, inherited sin is growing.
Angest betyder da nu to Ting. Den Angest, i hvilken Individet sætter Synden ved det qualitative Spring, og den Angest, der er kommen ind og kommer ind med Synden, og som forsaavidt ogsaa quantitativt kommer ind i Verden, for hver Gang et Individ sætter Synden.
Anxiety now then means two things. That anxiety in which the individual sets sin with the qualitative jump and the anxiety, which came in and comes in with sin and which in that measure also come quantitatively into the world for each time an individual sets sin.
At this point Mr. Haufniensis slams down the next paragraph title without making any reference to "Anxiety now then means two things." It seems like the author took a pause here doing other things and came back later forgetting to connect to the previous thought, which was two pages back, that might explain it. He did not notice the point to connect to.
Caput II, § 1 Objective Anxiety.
Mr. Haufniensis proceeds to obfuscate the clear definitions made two pages earlier. Objective anxiety ought to be that before the qualitative jump and subjective anxiety that of the later sins.
... at subjektiv Angest nu betegner den i den enkeltes Uskyldighed værende Angest, der svarer til Adams, men som ved Generationens quantiterende Bestemmen dog er quantitativs forskjellig fra hiin. Ved objektiv Angest derimod forstaa vi Reflexen af hiin Generationens Syndighed i den ganske Verden.
... that subjective anxiety now denominate the anxiety in which the individual's innocence dwells, which corresponds to Adam's, but through the quantitative determination still is quantitatively different from his. By objective anxiety we understand, on the contrary, the reflex of the generation's sinfulness in the whole world.
Idet da synden kom ind i Verden, fik dette Betydning for hele Skabningen. Denne Syndens Virkning i den ikke-menneskelige tilværelse har jeg betegnet som objektiv Angest.
In that sin entered the world, this had an impact on all of creation. This, the effect of sin in the non-human existence, I have called objective anxiety.
Although the composition of Begrebet Angest looks tight and orderly, in this instance it is not. Mr. Haufniensis excursion into psychological observation gets him off track; he resets the direction with objective and subjective anxiety, but forgets what he has been saying before.
Mr. Haufniensis now enters into a discussion of why sensuousness is not a priori sinfulness. Each time sinfulness enters the world sensuousness becomes sin, but it was not sin before that, so that sensuousness does not engender sin. One might say, although Mr. Haufniensis does not do so, that sensuousness accompanies sin but is not sin in itself.
But then he changes tune: in the quantitative determination of the lineage (we are now in subjective anxiety), that is in the smaller sins after the quantitative jump, sensuousness is sin all of a sudden of a moment. No reason is given for this.
In a footnote to Schelling just after this, Mr. Haufniensis states:.
... en kraftig og fuldblodig Anthropomorphisme er adskilligt værd.
... a forceful and full-blooded anthropomorphism is worth millions.
The last statements in this paragraph on objective anxiety are troublesome in relation to chapter I.
Som Angesten var i Adam kommer den aldrig mere igjen, thi ved ham kom Syndigheden ind i Verden. Paa Grund heraf fik hiin Angest nu tvende Analogier, den objektive Angest i Naturen, og den subjektive Angest i Individet, af hvilke den sidste indeholder et Mere, den første et Mindre iend hiin Angest i Adam.
The way anxiety was in Adam it never comes any more, because with him sinfulness entered the world. For this reason this anxiety now has two analogies: the objective anxiety in nature and the subjective anxiety in the individual, of which the latter contains a More the former a Less than yonder anxiety in Adam.
This paragraph seems to have been written at a different time than chapter I and with different ideas in the head of the writer. "The way anxiety was in Adam it never comes any more" is more or less the standard version of the Fall, which Mr. Haufniensis destroyed in chapter I. So contrary to expectations, there are several textual layers in Begrebet Angest, which have been written at different times, the way it appears.
Caput II, § 2 Subjective Anxiety.
Objective anxiety got four pages, subjective anxiety gets twenty five pages, so this a central concept to Mr. Haufniensis.
Reflexion increases in later generations, but gradual increases cannot produce the qualitative jump.
Om derfor Angesten end bliver mere og mere reflekteret, saa beholder dog Skylden, som med det qualitative Spring bryder frem i Angesten, samme Tilregnelighed som Adams, og Angesten samme Tvetydighed.
Even if anxiety becomes more and more reflexive, guilt, which with the qualitative jump breaks forth into anxiety, keeps the same saneness as that of Adam and anxiety the same ambiguity.
In the next text paragraph, Mr. Haufniensis regains his composure and remembers, that everybody can be as innocent as Adam.
Now comes one of the famous quotes from Begrebet Angest:
Angest kan man sammenligne med Svimmelhed. Den, hvis Øie kommer til at skue ned i et svælgende Dyb, han bliver svimmel. Men hvad er Grunden, det er ligesaa meget hans Øie som afgrunden; thi hvis han ikke havde stirret ned. Saaledes er Angest den Frihedens Svimlen, der opkommer, idet Aanden vil sætte Synthesen, og Friheden nu skuer ned i sin gegen Mulighed, og da griber Endeligheden at holde sig ved. I denne Svimlen segner Friheden.
You can compare anxiety to dizziness. The person, whose eye looks down into a yawning abyss, will become dizzy. But what is the reason, that is as much his eye as the abyss; because if he had not looked down. Thus anxiety is the dizziness of freedom, which arises in that the spirit will set the synthesis, and freedom now looks down into its own possibility and holds onto finiteness. In this dizziness freedom collapses.
He continues with the qualitative jump:
Videre kan Psychologien ikke komme og vil det ikke. I samme Øieblik er Alt forandret, og idet Friheden igjen reiser sig op, seer den, at den er skyldig. Imellem disse tvende Øieblikke ligger Springet, som ingen Videnskab har forklaret eller kan forklare.
Further Psychology cannot get and does not want to. In that same instant everything is changed and in that freedom gets up again it sees that it is guilty. In between these two instants the jump occurs, which no science has explained or can explain.
Angest er en qvindelig Afmagt, i hvilken Friheden daaner ... .
Anxiety is a female helplessness, in which freedom swoons ... .
I det senere Individ er Angesten mere reflekteret. Dette kan udtrykkes saaledes, at det Intet, der er Angestens Gjenstand, ligesom mere og mere bliver til Noget. Vi sige ikke, at det virkelig bliver til Noget eller virkelig betyder noget ... .
In the later individual anxiety is more reflexive. This may be construed thus, that the nothing, which is the object of anxiety, like more and more becomes something. We do not say, that it really becomes something or really means something ... .
Mr. Haufniensis takes great freedoms with the Hegelian Methods, allowing concepts to be dreaming (dreaming spirit) and nothing perhaps being like something but then again not.
... men et Intet, der levende communicerer med Uskyldighedens Uvidenhed.
... but a nothing, which has a live communication with the ignorance of innocence.
Caput II, § 2 A Consequences of the Generational Situation.
Ved Synden blev Sandseligheden Syndighed. Denne Sætning betyder et Dobbelt. Ved Synden bliver Sandseligheden Syndigheden, og ved Adam kom Synden ind i Verden.
By sin sensuousness became sinfulness. This sentence means a double. By sin sensuousness becomes sinfulness and by Adam sin entered the world.
Der blev (Cap. I. § 6) mindet om, at Evas Tilblivelse allerede billedligt præfigurerede Generations-forholdets Følge. Hun betegnede paa en Maade det Deriverede. Det Deriverede er aldrig saa fuldkomment som det Oprindelige *. {Fodnote} = "Dette gjælder naturligviis kun i Menneskeslægten, fordi Individet er bestemmet som Aand; i Dyrearter derimod er ethvert senere Exemplar ligesaa godt som det første, eller rettere sagt, det, her at være det første, betyder slet intet".
The reminder (Cap. I. § 6) about Eva's creation as an image of the consequence of the prefigured generational relationship. She described in a way the derived. The derived is never as perfect as the original *. {Footnote:} This applies only in man because the individual is determined as spirit; in animals, though, any later specimen is as good as the first, or to put it more accurately, to be the first here means nothing at all.
Forskjellen er imidlertid dog ikke anderledes, end at Manden og Qvinden ere væsentligen lige trods Forskjelligheden.
The difference is, however, not more different, than that man and woman are essentially equal despite the difference.
Udtrykket for Forskjellen er, at Angesten er mere reflekteret i Eva end i Adam. Dette har sin Grund i, at Qvinden er mere sandselig end Manden.
The expression of the difference is that anxiety is more reflective in Eva than in Adam. The reason for this is, that woman is more sensuous than man..
... Synthesens Forskjellighed. Naar der i den ene af Synthesens Dele er et Mere, saa vil som en Følge deraf, idet Aanden sætter sig, Adskillelsen kløfte sib dybere, og Angesten vil i Frihedens Mulighed have et større Spillerum.
... the difference of the synthesis. When one of the parts of synthesis is a More, then the spirit will set itself as a consequence and the anxiety will have more room in the possibility of Freedom.
I Fortællingen i Genesis er det Eva, der forfører Adam. Deraf følger dog ingenlunde at hendes Skyld er større end Adams, og endnu mindre, at Angesten er en Ufuldkommenhed, da dens Størrelse tvertimod er en Prophetie om Fuldkommenhedens.
In the story in Genesis, it is Eva who seduces Adam. It does not at all follow, though, that her guilt is bigger than Adam's and much less, that anxiety is an imperfection, because its {likely refers to anxiety} size on the contrary is a prophesy about perfection's {perfection's what? size?, this dangles}.
At this point, Mr. Haufniensis repeats that sensuousness will increases from one generation to the next and consequently anxiety too will increase. But this is a gradual increase and not one, which would make Adam different from the person in question. It is not a new characteristic or quality just en enhancement of an existing characteristic.
At Qvinden er mere sandselig end Manden, viser strax hendes legemlige Organistation. Nærmere at udføre det er ikke min Sag; men er en Opgave for Physiologien. Derimod skal jeg vise min Sætning paa en anden Maade, nemlig ved æsthetisk at føre hende ind under hendes ideale Synspunkt, hvilket er Skjønheden, mindende om, at den Omstændighed, at dette er hendes ideale Synspunkt, netop viser, at hun er mere sandselig end Manden.
That woman is more sensuous than man, is shown immediately by her bodily organization. Developing this further is not my problem, but an assignment for Physiology. On the contrary, I will show my statement in a different way, namely leading her aesthetically in under her ideal point of view, which is beauty, reminding though, that the circumstance, that this is her ideal point of view, shows precisely, that she is more sensuous than man.
He further contends that women have beautiful bodies, men beautiful faces which show the spirit, here Mr. Haufniensis seems for a moment to forget that ancient Greeks could not have spirit not being Christians and not being able to commit the original sin.
Medens Aandens Historie (og dette er netop Aandens Hemmelighed, at den altid har Historie) tør præge sig i Mandens Aasyn, saaledes at man glemmer Alt, naar blot dens Skrift er tydelig og ædel, saa vil Qvinden virke paa en anden Maade som totalitet, om end Ansigtet har faaet en større Betydning end i Classiteten. Udtrykket maa nemlig være en Totatilet, der ingen Historie har.
While the history of the spirit (and that is precisely the secret of the spirit, that it always has history) will mark man's visage, in such a way that you forget everything, when its writing is clear and noble, woman will act in a different way as a totality, even though the face gets to be more important than in the classics. The expression must be a totality, which does not have history.
Ethisk betragtet culminerer Qvinden i Procreationen. Derfor siger Skriften, at hendes Attraa skal være til Manden. Vel er nemlig ogsaa Mandens Attraa til hende, men hans Liv culminerer ikke i denne Attraa, uden hans Liv enter er daarligt eller fortabt. Men dettte, at Qvinden heri culminerer, viser netop, at hun er mere sandselig.
Ethically woman culminates in procreation. The scripture therefore says, that her desire shall be man {thy husband}. Certainly likewise also man's desire is her, but his life does not culminate in this desire except if his life is bad or doomed. But this, that woman culminates here shows precisely, that she is more sensuous.
Tænker jeg mig derimod en Qvinde fæste et attraaende Blik paa et uskyldigt ungt Menneske, da vil hans Stemning ikke være Angest, men i det Høieste en med Modbydelighed blandet Undseelse, netop fordi han mere er bestemt som Aand.
If I imagine a woman cast a desirous glance at an innocent young person, then his mood will not be anxiety, but at most a distastefulness mixed with bashfulness, precisely because he more is determined as spirit.
The wording in that quote is highly suggestive in particular the word distastefulness. It paints a picture of the feelings of this young man.
In this section Mr. Haufniensis twice talks about the mood (setting), having to be right: he will not have people snickering about sex or telling jokes. The subject is too serious for that and the division between the pulpit saying one thing and the street the other is caused by people being thoughtless nowadays. This he leaves up in the air and calls upon the wise Socrates, who is made to say Mr. Haufniensis does right in thinking about such things.
Sex is not as such sin, but we'll let Mr. Haufniensis explain himself:
Det Sexuelle som saadant er ikke det Syndige. Den egentlige Uvidenhed derom, naar dette dog skal være væsentligt tilstede, er kun forbeholdt Dyret, som derfor er Trælbundet i Instinctets Blindhed og gaaer iblinde. En Uvidenhed, men som tillige er en Uvidenhed om hvad der ikke er, er Barnets. Uskyldigheden er en Viden, som betyder Uvidenhed. Dens Forskjel fra den sædelige Uvidenhed viser sig let, fordi hiin er bestemmet i Retning af en Viden. Med Uvidenheden begynder en Viden, hvis første Bestemmelse er Uvidenhed. Dette er Begrebet Blufærdighed (Schaam). I Blufærdigheden er der en Angest, fordi Aanden er bestemmet i Yderspidsen af Synthesens Differents saaledes, at Aanden ikke blot er bestemmet som Legeme, men som Legeme med den generiske Differents. Dog er Blufærdigheden vel en Viden om den generiske Differents, men ikke som et Forhold til en generisk Differents, det vil sige, Driften er ikke som saadan tilstede. Blufærdighedens egentlige Betydning er, at Aanden ligesom ikke kan vedkjende sig Yderspidsen af Synthesen. Derfor er Blufærdighedens Angest saa uhyre tvetydig. Der er ikke Spor af sandselig Lyst, og dog er der en Skamfuldhed, hvorover? over Intet. Og dog kan Individet døe af Skam, og saaret Blufærdighed er den dybeste Smerte, fordi den er den uforklarligste af alle. Derfor kan Blufærdihedeens Angest vaagne ved sig selv. Dog gjælder det naturligviis her om, at det ikke er Lysten, der vil spille denne Rolle.
Sex as such is not sinfulness. The proper ignorance about it — when this {sex}, though, needs to be essentially present — is reserved for the animal, which is a slave to the blindness of instinct and wanders blindly. An ignorance —but which is an ignorance which besides is an ignorance about what it is not — is that of the child. Innocence is a knowledge, which means ignorance. Its difference from the ethical ignorance shows itself easily, because this {ethical ignorance} is determined in the direction of knowledge. But ignorance begins a knowledge, whose first determination is ignorance. This is the concept of shyness. In shyness there is an anxiety, because the spirit is determined at the foremost point of the difference of the synthesis thus, that the spirit is not just determined as body, but as body with the generic {sexual} difference. Shyness, though, is certainly a knowledge about the generic difference, but not as a relation to a generic difference, that is to say, the sexual drive as such is not present. Shyness underlying significance is, that the spirit cannot rightly admit to the foremost point of the synthesis. That is why the anxiety of shyness is so exceptionally ambiguous. There is not a trace of sensuous lust, and still there is bashfulness, about what? about Nothing. And still the individual may die of shame, and wounded shyness is the deepest pain, because it is the most unexplainable of all. Thus the anxiety of shyness may awaken by itself. Still, here the important thing is, that it is not lust, which wants to play this role.
CLASS Animal
end of CLASS
clone nr. (10.001)
sex type (male)
sexuality (instinct)
sex type (male)
sexuality (instinct)
CLASS Person
end of CLASS
name (Søren)
sex type (male)
growth-state (child)
sexual-knowledge (ignorant)
sin-state (innocent)
sex type (male)
growth-state (child)
sexual-knowledge (ignorant)
sin-state (innocent)
Not knowing is a sexual knowledge which has the value ignorance. Sexual knowledge has as it first value a knowledge value of ignorance.
CLASS Person
end of CLASS
name (Søren)
sex type (male)
growth-state (adolescent)
sexual-knowledge (shyness)
sin-state (innocent)
sex type (male)
growth-state (adolescent)
sexual-knowledge (shyness)
sin-state (innocent)
CLASS Shyness
end of CLASS
anxiety
spirit (dreaming)
knowledge-sexual-difference (yes)
spirit (dreaming)
knowledge-sexual-difference (yes)
CLASS Spirit
data part
function part
end of CLASS
body
soul
spirit = make-synthesis( body, soul)
end of data partsoul
spirit = make-synthesis( body, soul)
function part
make-synthesis
end of function part
return value of = body + soul mediated.
end of make-synthesis
I Blufærdigheden er den generiske Differents sat, men ikke i Forhold til sit Andet. Dette skeer i Driften. Men da Driften ikke er Instinkt eller blot Instinkt, har den eo ipso et τελο ς {telos, formål}, hvilket er Propagationen, medens det Hvilende er Elskoven, det reent Erotiske. Aanden er endnu bestanding ikke sat med. Saasnart den sættes, ikke blot som constituerende Synthesen, men som Aand, saa er det Erotiske forbi.
In Shyness the generic {sexual} difference is set {instantiated}, but not in relation to its Other. This happens in the sexual drive. But because the sexual drive is not instinct or just instinct, it has eo ipso {by this very reason} a purpose, which is the propagation, while the Resting is making love, the purely erotic. The spirit is still not set. As soon as it is set, not just as constituting the synthesis, but as Spirit, then the erotic is over.
Aandens Udtryk for det Erotiske er derfor, at det paa eengang er det Skjønne og det Comiske. Her er ingen sandselig Reflex hen paa det Erotiske; thi dette er Vellyst, og Individet ligger i saa Fald langt under det Erotiskes Skjønhed; men det er Aandens Modenhed. Dette har naturligviis kun meget faa Mennesker forstaaet i sin Reenhed. Socrates har dog gjort det.
The spirit's expression for the erotic is therefore, that it is at once the beautiful and the comic. Here there is no sensuous reflex in the direction of the erotic — because that is lust and the individual will in that case fall far below the beauty of the erotic — but ripeness of the spirit. Only very few fave understood this in its purity. Socrates did understand, though.
That the everlasting spirit should have to be man or woman — have a sexual difference — is an immense contradiction, which leads to shyness.
I Christendommen har det Religieuse suspenderet det Erotiske, ikke blot ved en ethisk Misforstaaelse som det Syndige, men som det Indifferente, fordi der i Aand ingen Forskjel er paa Mand eller Qvinde.
In Christianity religiousness has suspended the erotic, not just through an ethical misunderstanding as sinfulness, but as the indifferent, because in spirit there is no difference between man and woman.
Imidlertid staaer det dog fast, at alle Digtere beskrive Elskoven, hvor reen og uskyldig den end fremstilles, saaledes, at de sætte Angesten med i den. Nærmere at forfølge dette er en Æsthetikers Sag. Men hvorfor denne Angest? Fordi i det Erotiskes Culmination kan Aanden ikke være med.
It is a fact, however, that all poets describe making love, no matter how pure and innocent it is portrayed, thus, that they place anxiety in it. To follow up more closely on this is a case for the aesthetic. But why this anxiety. Because in the erotic culmination spirit cannot follow.
I Conceptionens Øieblik er Aanden længst borte og derfor Angesten størst. I denne Angest bliver det nye Individ til.
In the moment conception the spirit is furthest away and therefore anxiety the biggest. In this anxiety the new individual is conceived.
Angesten er imidlertid et Udtryk for den menneskelige Naturs Fuldkommenhed, ...
Anxiety is, however, an expression for the perfection of human nature, ...
Netop fordi Sandseligheden her er bestemmet som et Mere, bliver Aandens Angest, idet den skal overtage den, en større. Som Maximum ligger her det Forfærdelige, at Angest for Synden frembringer Synden. Lader man den onde Begjerlighed, Concupiscentsen o. s. v. være Individet medfødt, saa faaer man ikke Tvetydigheden, i hvilken Individet baade bliver skyldigt og uskyldigt. I Angestens Afmagt segner Individet, men netop derfor er han baade skyldig og uskyldig.
Precisely because sensuousness here is determined as a More, the anxiety of the spirit becomes, in that it {anxiety?} has to incorporate it {sensuousness?}, greater. As a maximum the terror is, that anxiety for sin brings forth sin. If you let the evil lasciviousness, the concupiscence etc. be inborn, then you do not get the ambiguity, in which the individual becomes both guilty and innocent. In the powerlessness of anxiety, the individual swoons, but that is exactly why he is both guilty and innocent.
Caput II, § 2 B Consequences of the Historical Situation.
How sinful is sensuousness?
Skulde jeg her i een eneste Sætning udtrykke det Mere, der er for ethvert senere Individ i Forhold til Adam, da vilde jeg sige det er: at Sandseligheden kan betyde Syndighed, ...
If I were to express in just one sentence the More that each later individual has compared to Adam, then I would say it is: that sensuousness may mean sinfulness, ...
Vi sige ikke, at Sandselighed er Syndighed, men at Synden gjør den dertil.
We do not say, that sensuousness is sinfulness, but that sin makes it so.
Efter at Christendommen er kommen ind i Verden og Forløsningen sat, er der kastet et Modsætningens Lys over Sandseligheden, som ikke var i Hedenskabet, og som netop tjener til at bestyrke den Sætning, at Sandselighed er Syndighed.
After Christianity entered the world and redemption set (instantiated) sensuousness has been cast in a light of opposition, which did not exist in paganism and which very much serves to confirm the statement, that sensuousness is sinfulness.
Anxiety may occasion different reactions, seeing sin may save one and bring another to fall. And at this point Mr. Haufniensis italicizes a difficult thought, which he needs to elaborate for it to be meaningful.
... at Individet i Angest for Synden frembringer Synden, det nemlig, at Individet, i Angest ikke for at blive skyldigt men for at ansees skyldigt, bliver skyldigt.
... that the individual in anxiety for sin brings forth sin, namely thus, that the individual, in anxiety not to become guilty but to be seen to be guilty, becomes guilty.
The More in sensuousness compared to Adam that was mentioned in the beginning of this section, gets to its highest form, when an individual from his awakening (the meaning must be sexual) has been so conditioned, that sensuousness for him has become synonymous with sinfulness. This would be the case with Kierkegaard.
A child will not necessarily become good in a good environment or bad in a bad. Mr. Haufniensis wants interim determinations between environment and final state. It will depend on the childs individual response to anxiety.
Anxiety, as always with Mr. Haufniensis is a response to nothing. If it were a response to something it would be quantitative and would not lead to a qualitative jump. Just how he imagines that is not made clear.
Some philosophers like Kant and Hegel saw selfishness as being sin, but Mr. Haufniensis thinks not:
Hvo har glemt, at Naturphilosophien fandt dette Selviske i hele Skabningen, fandt det i Stjernernes Bevægelse, der bestandig dog bandtes i Lydighed under Universets Lov; at det Centrifulage i Naturen var det Selviske. Naar man først har bragt et Begreb saa vidt, da kan dette gjerne gaa hen at lægge sig, for om mulig at sove Rusen ud og blive ædru igjen.
Who has forgotten that the Philosophy of Nature found selfishness in all of creation, in the movements of the stars, who always were bound in obeisance to the law of the universe, though, that the centrifugal in Nature was selfishness. When you have gotten a concept that far, it might as well go and lie down to sleep off the inebriation and become sober again.
(Hegel is quite capable of talking of the selfishness of a nation).
Just as the spirit gets set (instantiated) in the qualitative jump the real Self does too. The Original Sin creates the Self, not the Self sin. The Self is not the originator of sin.
En fuldkommen Aand lader sig ikke tænke sexuelt bestemmet. Dette er i Harmonie med Kirkens Lære om Opstandelsens Beskaffenhed, i Harmonie med de kirkelige Forestillinger om Engle, i Harmonie med de dogmatiske Bestemmelser i Retning af Christi Person.
A perfect spirit cannot be thought of as sexually determined. This is in harmony with the church's doctrine about resurrection's nature, in harmony with the ecclesiastical picture of angels, in harmony with the dogmatic determinations about the personal nature of Christ.
Naar eengang det Sexuelle er sat som Synthesens Yderste, da gavner al Abstraktion til Intet. Opgaven er naturligviis at vinde det ind i Aandens Bestemmelse. (Her ligger alle de sædelige Problemer af det Erotiske.) Realisationen heraf er den Kjærligheds Seier i et Menneske, i hvilken Aanden har seiret saaledes, at det Sexuelle er glemt og kun erindret i Glemsel. Naar dette er skeet, da er Sandseligheden forklaret i Aand, og Angesten udjaget.
When at some time sexuality is set as the utmost of the synthesis, then no abstraction helps. The task naturally is to get it under the determination of the spirit. (Here lies all the ethical problems of the erotic.) The realization of this is that victory of love in a person, in which the spirit has won, so that sexuality is forgotten and only remembered in oblivion. When that has happened, sensuousness is enlightened in spirit and anxiety
Remembered in oblivion? This is some construction, you cannot remember what is in oblivion, but remember the forgotten somehow brings forth how suppressed Mr. Haufniensis wants sex to be. It is a remarkable expression which evokes contrasting associations and emotions. It also shows just how encompassing the author's command of style and language is.
The erotic Greeks get a comment. Mr. Haufniensis picks up Hegel's expression about their 'erotic merriment (Heiterkeit)', which is lost with Christianity where the gain is spiritual determination, which it is claimed the Greeks did not have. Then again a remarkable expression, the Greek erotic merriment, which you can loose but not win. It is the way Mr. Haufniensis sees it, because it is sinful and cannot therefore be won. But you cannot loose something you don't have, but he puts himself in the shoes of the Greek and then the erotic merriment underneath the verbiage comes across as something positive. Again here the command of language of the poet is overwhelmingly clear. The words play on different levels.
In this section there is not much that may be enlightened by the techniques of programming classes.
Caput III, Anxiety as a consequence of that sin, which is the absence of the consciousness of sin.
Mr. Haufniensis falls off the his usual high level in the first section of this chapter and is rather uninspired. First he takes Hegel to task for using mediation (between thesis and antithesis) without defining it, whereupon Mr. Haufniensis process to define mediation as a state (of affairs) and it is real, it does exist in contrast to the mediation which is a process not a state.
Mr. Haufniensis then proposes a new synthesis saying man is a synthesis of the time and eternity, whereupon he immediately proceeds to say it is not a real synthesis, because there no synthesis, no third element. This seems forced.
Time, he says, is an unending succession in constant movement where you cannot find a fixed point, because it disappears again in the succession, passes away — time is fleeting. Eternity on the contrary has presence, and is not divided up in past, present and future like time. The Moment has presence but no past or future. And seen that way the Moment is an atom of Eternity not of time, Eternity's first try to stop time.
Mr. Haufniensis claims the Greeks did understand the atom of eternity but did not understand it as the Moment, forwards, but backwards because the atom of eternity was eternity for them not the Moment. In his sweeping disqualificatory manner Mr. Haufniensis says that in that way neither Time nor Eternity was served properly. This is an unconvincing, unsubstantiated claim. He makes it because in his opinion the spirit is the important and the Greeks did not have that, because they were heathen not Christians.
When the spirit is instantiated - in the qualitative jump committing the original sin - then the Moment is there. This is very weak argumentation. It is not even made plausible why there should be a connection here. The Moment of what? The Moment Mr. Haufniensis chooses is when the spirit is instantiated, which in this way stands out, protrudes, overshadows anything else.
It shall not here be argued, that the moment the qualitative jump takes place committing the original sin, as Mr. Haufniensis thesis goes, is not his central point. It shall be argued, that it has no real connection to his analysis of time and eternity. It is just tacked on, it is second rate philosphy.
History begins in the Moment, which just repeats former statements that when the spirit is instantiated, when the procreative act has occurred, then the indiviudal is part of history, that is has a child.
Time as a continuous change of some phenomena like light and movement is something everybody knows. The universe from the time of the Big Bang is thought to be thirteen billion years old. How meaningful is a concept of eternity? How did the great philosopher of Time, Einstein, think of it? What was before the Big Bang and is that question meaningful?
We, as people, think of before and after and that this should always be, that this is a Given in nature. That leads us to think of time as a long line with no ends. Yet we also want an explanation how the world came to be, so religions and myths provide such an explanation to satisfy this want. But the world being created by some supernatural being eventually leads to the same question as before with the Big Bang, what went before that on the long line of time, and is that concept which has a meaning or is it meaningless? It is a concept which depends on the organisation of our minds and not some given property of the world outside the boundaries of our skin?
Caput III, § 1 Anxiety as Lack of Spirit.
The conciousness of sin was not instatiated, created, made before the advent of Christianity. This again means that paganism (Heathendom), Grecism, did not have the spirit, the full spirit, because they did not perform the qualitativ jump prompted by anxiety, therefore the Lack of Spirit.
Orthodoxy teaches that pagans (the classical Greeks) lived in sin, which cannot be, since they lacked the consciousness of sin, but Mr. Haufniensis performs a sleight of hand by saying that paganism draws out time, and never arrives at sin in the deepest meaning. He is having it both ways here and is not convincing.
At the back of the mind here, there are some interesting phenomena: Classical Greece 500 - 300 B. C. was before the advent of Christianity with Christ living 300 years later. So Vigilius Haufniensis actually contends that everybody before Christ could not achieve the full spirit, including incidentally Adam, the first man. He does not spell it out that succintly, but it is clear from his exposition here. From this follows that Adam could not very well perform the qualitative jump, commit the first original sin and become a full spirit.
The problem is not difficult to see. Vigilius loves Grecism and excuses the classical Greek from not having attained the full spirit, but does allow them the saving grace of dreaming spirit, but in doing this he compromises his theory. He does not do this explicitly but his admiring references to Grecism suggest strongly that that is what he means.
The situation may be saved by saying that somehow Adam was a Christian even before the advent of Christ and so the Greeks also in some way had the opportunity to make the qualitative jump, commit the original sin and thereby become full spirits, they just did not try hard enough, which again constitutes a state of sin. But that explanation is stale.
Mr. Haufniensis next treats Heathendom inside Christianity, meaning the people with lack of spirit. Spiritlessness has a relation to the spirit, which is none, and this is the most terrible situation at all. There is no anxiety there, therefore no qualitative jump, no full spirit. He says the pagans move towards spirit — again a nod to the Greeks — but the spiritless away from it. So Heathendom is abscence of spirit which is in so far better than spiritlessness.
In his usual way Mr. Haufniensis says even if there is not anxiety in spiritlessness and therefore no spirit, still there is anxiety, but it is a waiting agent. As punishment comes horror as the deathly harvester is percieved. It cannot be allowed that the spiritless die thoughtlessly or painlessly.
Caput III, § 2 Anxiety determined Dialectically in Form of Destiny.
This subchapter is not named well for destiny is only treated in the first two pages of eight. The main subject is describing genius.
First of all anxiety undergoes a partial redefinition, Mr. Haufniensis needs it in a different form here, so here we go:
Man pleier i Almindelighed at sige, at Hedenskabet ligger i Synden, maaskee turde det være rigtigere at sige, at det ligger i Angest. Hedenskabet er overhovedet Sandselighed, men en Sandselighed, der har et Forhold til Aand, uden dog at Aanden i dybeste Forstand sættes som Aand. Men denne Mulighed er netop Angest.
It is usually said, that Heathendom remains in sin, perhaps it would be better to say it remains in anxiety. Heathendom is sensuosness, but a sensuousness which relates to spirit, without the spirit in a deeper sense being set as spirit, but this possibility is exactly anxiety.
 |
 |
| Christian person with full spirit | Heathen (Greek) with dreaming spirit |
Mr. Haufniensis says the Heathen has spirit but not in a deeper sense, he does not use the term dreaming spirit here, but he obviously means some such stage with the spirit not a complete full spirit. He has changed his nomenclature and concepts some from the use in Caput I.
The Christian is anxious about nothing, so what is the pagan or heathen anxious about? Mr. Haufniensis answer is Fate. The Heathen's nothing is Fate.
 |
| Fate as a synthesis of Necessity and Chance. |
This is very ad hoc and not much more than a random thought. Mr. Haufniensis does not say synthesis but unit, Necessity and Chance unites to become Fate. A Necessity has consciousness, if it is not conscious of itself, then it is a Chance. But as soon as the Spirit is instatiated, set, Anxiety vanishes but Fate also vanishes then, because Providence is instantiated, set.
Mr. Haufniensis is introducing a new concept or agent here: Providence.
The Heathen cannot enter into a relationsship with Fate, because it is one instant Necessity the next Chance. The implication, which Mr. Haufniensis does not state, is that the Spirit has not been instatiated, set, because then Fate vanishes; this is not thought through, because above he stated that the Heathen does arrive at Spirit, only not a full one.
The Heathen cannot enter into a relationsship with Fate, because it is one instant Necessity the next Chance. The implication, which Mr. Haufniensis does not state, is that the Spirit has not been instatiated, set, because then Fate vanishes; this is not thought through, because above he stated that the Heathen does arrive at Spirit, only not a full one.
We have here arrived at a much toned down version of Anxiety and Sin and Guilt compared to Caput I, §5 with the qualitative jump of which there is no talk here.
The ancient oracle is mentioned as just as ambiguous as Fate with some clever thoughts attached.
As Guilt and Sin in the deepest sense do not appear in Heathendom, it cannot attain the full Spirit. When Guilt and Sin are set, instantiated, an individual person is set, instantiated, but here, Mr. Haufniensis mantains, through Fate and he will turn into something which cancels Fate.
This is all really rather loose and unconvincing, what was before the qualitative jump is now Fate.
I Angestens Mulighed segner Friheden overvældet af Skjebnen, nu staaer dens Virkelighed op, men med den Forklaring, at den blev skyldig. Angesten paa sin yderste Spidse, hvor det er som var Individet blevet skyldigt, er endnu ikke Skylden. Synden kommer da hverken som en Nødvendighed eller som et Tilfælde, og derfor svarer til Syndens Begreb: Forsynet.
Faced with Anxiety's Possibility Freedom falls overwhelmed by Fate, now it's reality rises, but with the explanation that it became guilty. Anxiety at it utmost summit, where it is as if the individual had become guilty, is not yet Guilt. Sin comes neither as a Necessity nor as a Chance, and therefore corresponds to the Concept of Sin: Providence.
All these anthropomorphic agents interacting, falling, overwhelming and what not sounds poetic; you may think it has deep meanings but this is not mandatory. The end effect is that instead of the qualitative jump we now have Providence, it is an entirely different story and explanation. This does make The Concept of Anxiety a difficult read: you have to realize that although seemingly coherent and integrated, it is loose and changes explanations at important points. The individual subchapters (here § paragraphs) are mostly coherent, but the coherence ends there.
At this point things get more interesting again for Mr. Haufniensis introduces the Genius, who he says exemplifies Heathendom's relation to Fate inside Christianity
3. Style of Begrebet Angest
Vigilius Haufniensis is one of Kierkegaard's sprightliest synonyms producing the one most elegant yet profound book. Kierkegaard at the very top of his powers. He is very self-assured: in just four lines he whisks any suggestion that Adams creation in the Bible is a myth completely off the table6 and counter attacks the at the time modern cerebral myths which would eradicate all myths. The next paragraph begins: "Adam was created then, ...". No more talk about myths: period.
When he talks of geniuses, it is clear that he is talking mainly of himself, that is self-assurance for you. Haufniensis puts in lines, which come blushingly straight out of Kierkegaard's biography like "as the child wishes to be guilty with the father". In the middle of the most abstract Hegelian categories, he will put in a children's rhyme.
Whenever he sees just the faintest possibility for a paradox, he will, as ever, go longs ways to obtain and construct it. Likewise with symmetric constructs like "Angest is sympathetic anthipathy and antipathetic sympathy."
In orchestrating his book, Kierkegaard makes a break in chapter two. In a minor way this breaks his line of thought, but without really damaging the book in a major way. It has been suggested, as mentioned above, that the book should have been completely rewritten with a consistent point of view and consistent examples. But that would not be possible.
It would not be possible, because the many threads of thought he employs in one topic refer to each other and examples and sometimes to unstated lines of thought. Kierkegaard juggles so many threads at a time, that he will not be able to pick up on it a half a year later without damaging the references whether implied or not. In fact there are places, where Kierkegaard made a break in writing and this is clearly visible in that he looses part of his thread that way.
When you change a sentence in one thread in a complicated, involved composition like that, you will most likely break a reference to another thread, which is not immediately obvious from the surrounding text. You may have experienced this yourself changing lines in a text you wrote some time ago. The tune gets a discordant note then.
In an as overpowering a stylist as Kierkegaard this is more so. The clarity of his language is extraordinary, it is limpid, flows clearly, elegantly and leisurely, you see the bottom of the brook, no muddied waters. His thoughts are a different matter, they may be muddied or clear and he employs a host of stratagems to bring his point across. It is this last point, the partially unclear thoughts, which makes people want to have a rewritten version of the book.
The unclear thoughts are partly, as is indeed here argued, a result of Kierkegaard not having the conceptual tools to deal with classes or types of things, but mostly a consequence of fixing the conclusion first and then working out the arguments for it - for example presupposing that sins can be inherited and then constructing a thesis that the original sin cannot be inherited, but that other sins may, without ever going into these other sins or their nature.
So how much is art and how much substance? The art, the style, is undeniable and overwhelming. His musings on Original Sin that cannot be inherited seem dogmatically weak and none too useful. His Qualitative Jump is rather loosely speculative and has not had much following and would seem well served with that. The real substance appears to be the later chapters with their deep psychological impact.
4. Kierkegaard as a Dreaming Spirit
Kierkegaard is, by the criteria of Vigilius Haufniensis, a dreaming spirit. He did not have sex with Regine and most likely not with any other woman. So he did not instantiate sexuality and so did not become a full spirit: this synthesis of body and soul effected through the original, inherited sin released through anxiety in the dogmatic, qualitative jump. Body and soul is all Kierkegaard is except for the dreaming spirit, which has not been instantiated to a complete spirit.
Surely Kierkegaard would not be of that opinion, but Mr. Haufniensis is very clear. Kierkegaard does not even have history, is not historical, which is a tough verdict to suffer, tougher than being assigned to the trash heap of history. Some might question whether the criteria are perhaps a little harsh.
On the other hand, leaving aside the multifarious strangeties of Mr. Haufniensis, the characterization 'dreaming spirit' does catch something essential in Kierkegaard. His works to a large extent portray the inner workings of his brain in the mind-space he created for himself and which has so captivated people, that this very private world with its local, minute Copenhagen references and expressions in the Danish language have become known, not because of themselves, but because Kierkegaard wrote of and used them. He has a following.
It is a little like Proust, who immerses you in a large world of interconnected people and events with hundreds and hundreds of characters, with salons, with the quest for social connection to nobility, with searching for the lost past and finally retrieving it at the end of volume seven and the reader feeling lost at having to leave Proust's world and get to grips with his own again. Proust was not a dreaming spirit, he did instantiate sex, but it was 'vice', which gives his work a strong ambivalence. Whereas it is possible to read Proust without knowing his life, it is of small profit (at places his life is more interesting than the fiction); the same may be said of Kierkegaard. Proust is not as sharp a spirit as Kierkegaard and not such a virtuoso of language.
To Proust words have a certain defined meaning, which he would defend, he does not create new words or stretch words to give them another meaning, but he does show great creativity in syntax. Kierkegaard imports reams of Latin words and some German words, he stretches the meanings of some words and he defines certain words anew like angst (anxiety).
5. Object Oriented Programming (Classes)
The complexities you can create by computer programs are practically limitless. The number of errors and mistakes you can introduce is similarly without reasonable limit. Only about a third of big programming projects actually succeed. Those who fail do so partly for complexity, partly as a result of management errors with regard to requirements or project organization and finally because of failing user acceptance. Some run out of money.
To counter the problem of inherent complexity functions and subroutines (ca. 1954) were used, run by a main program. This allowed somewhat larger programs to succeed. The next step was modular programming (ca. 1965, later David Parnas) which divided the main program into modules, which each had their own functions and its own data section. This increased possible program sizes yet again.
The concept of a class - as used in this article - was developed by Ole-Johan Dahl and Kristen Nygaard of Norway in a rather special computer language called Simula67 of 1967. This was picked up by Alan Kay and Dan Ingalls of Xerox PARC and bust on the world in 1980 as the Smalltalk computer language (which essentially was an operating system too like Windows or Linux).
Smalltalk is a language of overwhelming pristine beauty and of exceptionally clean design. Basic concepts are very few and most rules have almost no exceptions which makes it easier to work with. You can redefine everything dynamically on the fly if you want, including making true have the value false - nothing will work after that; but the positive powers of redefinition prevail grandly. Such a characteristic is called a fully dynamic system.
A fully dynamic system including operating system has drawbacks in that if a part of it is corrupted somehow (this happens more often than you want), you cannot make it work again without reloading the entire system (not just part of it) again. And these systems are huge, much larger than with other programming languages and it therefore takes a long time to reload them; this is a large drawback.
The original Smalltalk system was slow: Alan Kay said essentially "do the language right and let hardware people worry about making computers faster so the problem will disappear". This expectation has been happily fulfilled.
The original Smalltalk system was used to develop systems as we now all use them. Systems with windows run using a mouse (developed at Xerox PARC) and keyboard. Ethernet to enable computer networks was developed there too.
Steve Jobs came to Xerox PARC in 1979 (see an in depth evalution of the whole, complex mythical situation then here: Standford University Press) and saw the system, the first with a graphical user interface, and this seems to have made Jobs see the viability of such a system, which had been in doubt at Apple Inc. The concepts were developed further at Apple, but all the fundamentals were done at Xerox PARC. Apple's computer language is not Smalltalk though.
Other object oriented languages are Bjarne Stroustrup's C++ from 1979 and James Gosling's Java of 1995, which both are widely used. They are not dynamic but static, you cannot change classes on the fly, which makes the system more immune to corruptions. They do not, in contrast to Smalltalk, include an operating system either but run as subsystems on Windows, Unix, etc.
6. Changing Anxieties of Mr. Haufniensis.
In the following, we trace Mr. Haufniensis development of two kinds of anxiety from chapter I §5 up to chapter II §1. He changes the definitions as he goes along. After his first definition, he goes astray for a couple of pages and forgets what he defined and invents a new more dialectical definition. In the third definition he gets subjective anxiety wrong and has trouble with objective anxiety, which he introduces for formal reasons namely the contrast subjective to objective, his real interest being solely subjective anxiety in the individual person.
It is noteworthy that Hegel, that great champion of things spiritual and the spirit, although he strove towards the objective also spends much more time with the subjective.
Sympathetic antipathy and an antipathetic sympathy
Not like fear which is of something definite, but something indefinite: nothing.
Men hvilken Virkning har Intet? Det føder Angest.
But what effect does nothing have? It feeds anxiety.
Angest ... er aldeles forskjelligt fra Frygt og lignende Begreber, der referere sig til noget bestemt, medens Angest er Frihedens Virkelighed som Mulighed for Muligheden.
Anxiety ... is quite different from fear and similar concepts, which refer to something definite, while anxiety is the reality of freedom as possibility of the possibility.
Anxiety is neither determined by necessity, nor by freedom, it is ensnared (limited, biased) freedom.
Angest er ikke en Bestemmelse af Nødvendigheden, men heller ei af Friheden, den er en hildet Frihed ...
Anxiety is not determined by necessity, neither by freedom, it is ensnared freedom ...
First definition of two kinds, beginning of II p. 147:
This definition is quietly abandoned in the following, Mr. Haufniensis obviously did not find it as useful as he first thought.
The problem here in the definition of subjective anxiety is the word innocence. It places this anxiety as the first anxiety leading to the qualitative jump, which is the opposite of all the other definitions. After the qualitative jump, you cannot speak of innocence. Mr. Haufniensis does not mean to say that as the word quantitative makes clear, which he only uses about follow-up sins after the first original, inherited sin, which every man can commit to become a spirit and be historical.
Here Mr. Haufniensis manages to undo his furious insistence in chapter I §1, that Adam is like any other man and that his sin is no different. This is surprisingly inconsistent in an author, who conveys the impression that he has got the handle on anxiety, sin etc. It turns out, here, that Adam has more weight than other men, but let us quote Mr. Haufniensis directly on this II §1 p. 149:
Adam sets or instantiates sin for the lineage, in the first chapter he did it only for himself and everybody else does it democratically for himself too.
Now, who can sin? Only christian persons really, but we are talking of objective anxiety in that non-human world, which Mr. Haufniensis calls 'creation'. He seriously misses the point here. We deal in II §1 with Objective Anxiety, but he is talking of Subjective Anxiety of man, which is the subject of II §2, where he again brings the point that through sin sensuousness became sinfulness (see p. 154), which makes some sense in a subjective anxiety. That Mr. Haufniensis does not feel comfortable is shown by his use of assuredly, which shows some insecurity.
1. Anxiety generating sin up to and in qualitative jump,
2. Anxiety in follow up sins, after the qualitative jump.
2. Anxiety in follow up sins, after the qualitative jump.
Angest betyder da nu to Ting. Den Angest, i hvilken Individet sætter Synden ved det qualitative Spring, og den Angest, der er kommen ind og kommer ind med Synden, og som forsaavidt ogsaa quantitativt kommer ind i Verden, for hver Gang et Individ sætter Synden.
Anxiety now then means two things. That anxiety in which the individual sets sin in the qualitative jump and that anxiety, which has come in and comes in with sin and which in so far also quantitatively comes into the world each time an individual sets sin.
Two page follow where Mr. Haufniensis goes off track to tell about how to be a psychological observer of some person and having so much fun at it, that he forgets what he was supposed to write about.
Here Mr. Haufniensis must have paused, because when he picks up the pen again, he has forgotten how he defined the two kinds of anxiety, but not that he did define two kinds. So he proceeds with a new definition, but in a convoluted way, which leads to a convoluted definition, which is contrary to the first definition and the one following this definition. The convolution stems from Mr. Haufniensis being mainly interested in subjective anxiety and not really, at this point, knowing what to do with objective anxiety, which he introduces out of formal reasons, not because he has any definite ideas about it. If you have something subjective, there must - dialectically speaking - be something objective corresponding to it. The second definition II §1, p. 148-49:
1. Objective anxiety: after Adam's first sin in the whole world
2. Subjective anxiety: of innocence like Adam's.
2. Subjective anxiety: of innocence like Adam's.
... subjektiv Angest nu betegner den i den Enkeltes Uskyldighed værende Angest, der svarer til Adams, men som ved Generationens quantiterende Bestemmen dog er quantitativt forskjellig fra hiin. Ved objektiv Angest derimod forstaae vi Reflexen af hiin Generationens Syndighed i den ganske Verden.
... subjective anxiety now describes the in the individual's innocence contained anxiety, which corresponds to Adam's, but which is quantitatively different from yonder {Adam's} in the quantitative determination by the generation. By objective anxiety, on the contrary, we understand the reflex of yonder {Adam's} generation's sinfulness in the whole world.
The next definition of objective anxiety is puzzling particularly non-human life II §1, p. 150:
1. Objective anxiety: impact of first sin on non-human world.
Idet da Synden kom ind i Verden, fik dette Betydning for hele Skabningen. Denne Syndens Virkning i den ikke-menneskelige Tilværelse har jeg betegnet som objektiv Angest.
In that sin entered the world, it had an impact on all of creation. This — the impact of sin in the non-human life — I have termed objective anxiety.
Adam sætter da Synden i sig selv men ogsaa for Slægten. Men Slægtsbegrebet er for abstrakt til at kunne sætte en saa concret Kategori som Synden, hvilken netop sættes derved, at den Enkelte selv sætter den som den Enkelte. Syndigheden i Slægten bliver da kun en quantitativ Approximeren; men denne tager sin Begyndelse med Adam. Heri ligger den større Betydning som Adam har fremfor ethvert andet Individ i Slægten, heri ligger Sandheden af hiint {"ved Adams Synd kom Syndigheden ind i Verden"} Udtryk.
Adam sets sin in himself and also for the lineage. But the concept for lineage is too abstract to be able to set such a concrete category as sin, which exactly is set in that the indivivual sets it himself as an individual. Sin in the lineage becomes only a quantitative approximation; but this starts with Adam. Herein lies the larger significance, which Adam has more than any other individual in the lineage, herein lies the truth of yonder {"with Adam's sin sinfulness came into the world"} expression.
Mr. Haufniensis goes on to explain that creation is in an incomplete state which leads to a longing which leads to anxiety, which furnishes a new description of objective anxiety II §1 p. 150:
1. Objective anxiety: creation's anxiety.
... Forlængsel ... Skabningen befinder sig i en Ufuldkommenhedens Tilstand. ...
En saadan Længsels Udtryk er Angest; ...
Denne Angest i Skabningen kan man vel med Rette kalde objektiv Angest. Den frembragtes ikke af Skabningen, men frembragtes derved, at der faldt en ganske anden Belysning over den derved, at ved Adams Synd Sandseligheden nedsattes til, og forsaavidt Synden vedbliver at komme ind i Verden, bestandig nedsættes til at betyde Syndighed.
En saadan Længsels Udtryk er Angest; ...
Denne Angest i Skabningen kan man vel med Rette kalde objektiv Angest. Den frembragtes ikke af Skabningen, men frembragtes derved, at der faldt en ganske anden Belysning over den derved, at ved Adams Synd Sandseligheden nedsattes til, og forsaavidt Synden vedbliver at komme ind i Verden, bestandig nedsættes til at betyde Syndighed.
... longing ... Creation is in an incomplete state ...
The expression of such a longing is anxiety; ...
This anxiety you can assuredly call objective anxiety. It {this anxiety, objective} was not brought forth by creation, but brought forth as a completely different light fell on it in that through Adam's sin sensuousness was reduced to and — as far as sin continually is introduced into the world — constantly is reduced to mean sinfulness.
The expression of such a longing is anxiety; ...
This anxiety you can assuredly call objective anxiety. It {this anxiety, objective} was not brought forth by creation, but brought forth as a completely different light fell on it in that through Adam's sin sensuousness was reduced to and — as far as sin continually is introduced into the world — constantly is reduced to mean sinfulness.
It is time for Mr. Haufniensis to present a new analogy and description of the two kinds of anxiety II §1 p 152:
1. Objective anxiety: in nature, less than Adam's anxiety.
2. Subjective anxiety: in the individual, more than Adam's anxiety.
The first statement — that Adam's anxiety will never come again — is directly contrary to chapter I §1, where any man can become anxious, have the qualitative jump and make an instance of the inherited sin just as good as Adam; here it is stated Adam's anxiety was unique and will not return.
2. Subjective anxiety: in the individual, more than Adam's anxiety.
Som Angesten var i Adam kommer den aldrig mere igjen, thi ved ham kom Syndigheden ind i Verden. Paa Grund heraf fik hiin Angest nu tvende Analogier, den objektive Angest i Naturen, og den subjektive Angest i Individet, af hvilke den sidste indeholder et Mere, den første et Mindre end hiin Angest i Adam.
The anxiety in Adam will never again return, because with him sinfulness entered the world. On account of this yonder {Adam's} anxiety became two analogies, the objective anxiety in nature and the subjective in the individual, of which the latter contains a More, the former a Less than yonder anxiety in Adam.
At this point of the story, it would appear that Adam had one kind of anxiety, which will never come again, and the rest of us subjective anxiety, which both leads to the qualitative jump and sins thereafter.
As you can see, Mr. Haufniensis is on a discovery voyage in the wide spaces of anxiety and keeps developing the ideas as he goes along and changing definitions drastically and even changing the story on the effects of the first sin and whether Adam is just like any other man in sinning or not.
7. Mr. Haufniensis on the Origin of Language.
In treating the original, inherited sin, Mr. Haufniensis has to begin with the first sin, Adam's sin, Chapter I §5 p. 138:
Naar det saaledes hedder i Genesis, at Gud sagde til Adam: »blot af Kundskabens Træ paa Godt og Ondt maa Du ikke spise«, saa følger det jo af sig selv, at Adam egentlig ikke forstod dette Ord; thi hvor skulde han forstaae Forskjellen paa Godt og Ondt, da denne Adskillelse jo først fulgte med Nydelsen.
When it is said in Genesis, that God said to Adam: "But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat", then it follows self evidently, that Adam did not really understand that word; because how should he understand the difference between good and evil, when this division first came through the enjoyment.
Another similar example is found in Chapter I §5 p. 139:
Efter Forbudets Ord følge Dommens Ord: da skal Du visseligen døe. Hvad det vil sige, at døe, fatter naturligviis Adam slet ikke, ...
After the ban comes the words of the sentence: "thou shalt surely die." Adam does not at all fathom what it means to die, ...
Mr. Haufniensis is being overly simplistic here. He seems to presuppose, that only words have been invented and flutter around with no meanings attached to them, so that you have to catch them one by one and tack on a meaning: good, bad, death.
Chapter I §5 p. 139:
Jeg knyttede mig her i Slutningen til den bibelske Fortælling. Jeg lod Forbudet og Straffens Røst komme udenfra. Dette har naturligviis piint mangen Tænker. Den Vanskelighed er dog kun at smile ad. Uskyldigheden kan jo godt tale; forsaavidt eier den i Sproget Udtrykket for alt Aandeligt. Forsaavidt behøver man blot at antage, at Adam har talet med sig selv. Den Ufuldkommenhed i Fortællingen, at en Anden taler til Adam om hvad han ikke forstaaer, falder da bort. Fordi Adam har kunnet tale, deraf følger jo ikke i dybere Forstand, at han har kunnet forstaae det Udsagte. Fremfor Alt gjælder dette om Forskjellen mellem Godt og Ondt, hvilken vel er i Sproget, men kun er for Friheden. Uskyldigheden kan godt sige denne Forskjel, men Forskjellen er ikke for den, og har for den kun den Betydning, vi i det Foregaaende have viist.
I based myself here at the end on the biblical story. I let the voice of ban and punishment come from the outside. This has pained many a thinker. But this difficulty just earns a wry smile. Innocence can surely speak; in as far it has in language the expression of all spirituality. In so far you only need to suppose, that Adam talked to himself. The imperfection in the story, that someone else talks to Adam about something he does not understand then disappears. Just because Adam could talk does not follow in a deeper sense, that he understood what was said. This particularly applies to the difference between Good and Evil, which certainly exists in language, but only is for freedom. Innocence is able to tell this difference, but the difference is not for it {innocence}, and for it only has the meaning, which we have shown above.
First he forgets, that it was God who talked to Adam. God, who created Adam in his (human) image, can surely talk. Mr. Haufniensis here thinks of Adam being all alone in the garden of Eden and nobody to talk to and nobody to talk to him. So Innocence, of all things, suddenly starts talking spirituality and this, according to Mr. Haufniensis, is within Adam himself, who thus would become af beehive of talking conceptual entities like innocence, anxiety, guilt, dreaming spirit, etc. What a cacophony.
The difficulty of somebody else talking to Adam in words he does not understand disappears, because he is talking to himself? When he does not understand the words spoken by somebody else, he won't understand them, when he speaks them himself or one of his constituent conceptual entities does. This is so clever, that it is dumb.
Now some more cleverness: innocence understands good and evil, but not for it - innocence - but for freedom. This is about purpose and what not, but it is not about language and how one understands language.
It is clear, that Mr. Haufniensis is fascinated by the problem of how language was created — rather than more to the point evolved — and how meaning was communicated. But he did not have the conceptual apparatus needed to deal with this question.
The simplistic view of language is seen again in chapter I §6 p. 140:
Adam var da skabt, havde givet Dyrene Navne (her er altsaa Sproget, om end paa en lignende ufuldkommen Maade, som Børnene lære det ved i Fibelbrættet at kjende et Dyr), ...
Adam had been created, then, had given the animals their names (here is, then, Language even if in a similar way to how children learn it in books with animals), ...
Hvad der i § 5 er sagt om Forbudets og Dommens Ord maa her mindes. Den Ufuldkommenhed i Fortællingen, hvorledes Nogen skulde falde paa at sige til Adam, hvad han væsentlig ikke kan forstaae, falder bort, naar vi betænke, at den Talende er Sproget, og det altsaa er Adam selv, der taler*).
{Fodnote:} *) Hvis man her yderligere vil sige, at saa bliver det et Spørgsmaal, hvorledes det første Menneske lærte at tale, saa vil jeg svare, at det er ganske sandt, men tillige, at det ligger udenfor denne hele Undersøgelses Omfang. Dette maa dog ikke misforstaaes, som om jeg ved mit undvigende Svar efter moderne philosophisk Skik tillige vilde give mig Mine af, at paa et andet Sted kunde jeg besvare det. Men saa meget staaer dog fast, at det ikke gaaer an, at lade Mennesket selv have opfundet Sproget.
{Fodnote:} *) Hvis man her yderligere vil sige, at saa bliver det et Spørgsmaal, hvorledes det første Menneske lærte at tale, saa vil jeg svare, at det er ganske sandt, men tillige, at det ligger udenfor denne hele Undersøgelses Omfang. Dette maa dog ikke misforstaaes, som om jeg ved mit undvigende Svar efter moderne philosophisk Skik tillige vilde give mig Mine af, at paa et andet Sted kunde jeg besvare det. Men saa meget staaer dog fast, at det ikke gaaer an, at lade Mennesket selv have opfundet Sproget.
What was said in §5 about the words of the ban and the sentence needs to be remembered. The imperfection in the story, how anybody could get to say something to Adam which he essentially cannot understand, this imperfection disappears, when we consider, at the speaker i Language and it is thus Adam himself, who speaks *).
{Footnote:} *) If you want to say, that it then becomes a question of how the first man learned to talk, then I will answer, that this is quite true, but also, that it falls outside of this investigation's compass. This should not be misunderstood, as if I, by avoiding an answer after the modern philosophical custom, also would indicate, that I could answer it some other place. But so much is sure, that it will not do to have man himself invent language.
{Footnote:} *) If you want to say, that it then becomes a question of how the first man learned to talk, then I will answer, that this is quite true, but also, that it falls outside of this investigation's compass. This should not be misunderstood, as if I, by avoiding an answer after the modern philosophical custom, also would indicate, that I could answer it some other place. But so much is sure, that it will not do to have man himself invent language.
So here now Language itself talks and it apparently is also a constituent conceptual entity of Adam, because he is talking to himself.
This gets cleverer and cleverer.
Mr. Haufniensis footnote makes clear just how utterly fascinated he is by the question of the origin of language.
The comments to the text in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (see link above) refer to an article apparently by Hamann, the German philosopher whom Kierkegaard fancied, about the divine origin of language. If man cannot invent language by himself, then it must have a divine origin.
These meanderings about language shows some of Mr. Haufniensis' strengths as well as some obvious weaknesses. He is an extremely curious man wanting to penetrate as far as possible into the nature of things in the mental universe.
In a tight place he will — as would the great actor (Sir) Lawrence Olivier, when he had forgotten Shakespeare's text, fall into a fake Shakespearean collection of words, which sounded as if they meant something — fake an understanding or let concepts have intentions and feelings so that you think it means something and leave you standing there philosophically bamboozled.
8. Hereditary Sin.
After all this book by Mr. Haufniensis is called:
Begrebet Angest. En simpel psychologisk-paapegende Overveielse i Retning af det dogmatiske Problem om Arvesynden
The Concept of Anxiety. A simple psychologically-pointing Consideration bearing on the Dogmatic Problem of Original, Hereditary Sin.
That is a valid question, but the book does not answer it, curiously enough. Instead it treats hereditary sin more in the sense of Original Sin, that Adam committed first, but which Mr. Haufniensis insists furiously that every man commits anew in order to propagate the lineage of man and this happens in the qualitative jump. He will have no truck with Original Sin turning Adam out of bliss and the Garden of Eden. What does increase in the lineage, and so to an extent is inherited, is the level of sin, which increases quantitatively (that is the word i. e. in degrees).
But the book does variously indicate and let on certain things regarding inheriting sin, I §1 p. 125:
{det er} ... ikke i Kraft af Sympathiens Begeistring og Pietetens Overtalelse vi beslutte os til at dele Skyld med ham {Adam}, som Barnet ønsker at være skyldigt med Faderen; ... men det er i Kraft af Tanken vi fastholde ham.
{it is} ... not on account of enthusiastic sympathy og the persuasive piety that we decide to share Guilt with him {Adam}, as the child wishes to be guilty with the father; ... but it is on account of the thought, that we hold on to him.
This phrase as the child wishes to be guilty with the father is strange, you instantly recognize there is something unusual behind that. If we take the example Kierkegaard, we can guess how that came about through his father damning God on the heath. The phrase is just a hint, though, that the author does not want to expand upon, he would have insurmountable difficulties demonstrating the functioning of it and it might be too personal for him. Even stronger than this is II §2 A p. 163:
Hvad Skriften lærer, at Gud hjemsøger Fædrenes Brøde paa Børnene i 3die og 4de Led, det forkynder Livet høirøstet nok. At ville snakke sig fra det Forfærdelige ved den Forklaring, at hiint Udsagn er en jødisk Lære, hjælper Intet. Christendommen har aldrig vedkjendt sig at privilegere hvert enkelt Individ til i udvortes Forstand at begynde forfra. Ethvert Individ begynder i en historisk Nexus og Naturens Consequentser gjælde endnu som nogensinde. Kun deri er Forskjellen, at Christendommen lærer, at opløfte sig over hiint Mere, og dømmer den, som ikke gjør det, at han ikke vil det.
What the Scripture teaches, that God visits the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, that is proclaimed loudly by life. To talk yourself out of this terrible saying through the explanation that yonder statement is Jewish teaching does not help. Christianity has never admitted to giving each individual the privilege to start over from the beginning. Each individual starts in a historic nexus and the consequences of nature are still valid as ever. This, only, is the difference, that Christianity teaches to lift oneself up over yonder More and condemns the person, who does not do it, that he does not want to.
Let us look at how this can be modeled with classes (class description reduced for better overview):
CLASS Person
end of CLASS
name (Kierkegaard)
sex (male)
father (Michael-K)
inherited-sin = value of father.other-sins
original-sin (initially empty)
other-sins (initially empty)
sex (male)
father (Michael-K)
inherited-sin = value of father.other-sins
original-sin (initially empty)
other-sins (initially empty)
Above we have one generation and have a reference to the father, which we use to set the inherited sins, the valid ones can only be other sins:
CLASS Person
end of CLASS
name (Michael-K)
sex (male)
father (Peder-K)
inherited-sin = value of father.other-sins
original-sin (committed)
other-sins (Cursing God)
sex (male)
father (Peder-K)
inherited-sin = value of father.other-sins
original-sin (committed)
other-sins (Cursing God)
In this model even minor sins would be heritable, which is certainly not the intention. So a real life model would split other-sins in two: on the one hand small fry (minor-sins) and on the other huge heritable sins (one would imagine even worse than deadly sins) to be passed on. So you would need a minimum of four different types of sin.
CLASS Person
end of CLASS
name (Michael-K)
sex (male)
father (Peder-K)
inherited-sin = value of father.heritable-sins
original-sin (have to commit that yourself)
heritable-sins (for example Cursing God)
minor-sins (for example being disrepectful to parents)
sex (male)
father (Peder-K)
inherited-sin = value of father.heritable-sins
original-sin (have to commit that yourself)
heritable-sins (for example Cursing God)
minor-sins (for example being disrepectful to parents)
You cannot model this by just copying the father's inherited-sin values, because the next generation does not get all of them but only those which are one to three generations back (the recipient is himself one generation, so to cover four generation we go three back from him). This is no problem with classes, but the class definition gets ugly to look at, because you need to initialize inherited-sin with values from up to three fathers (father.heritable-sins + father.father.heritable-sins + father.father.father.heritable-sins) being four generations with the inheriting son.
Why not just have one list of sins with each sin marked as to its kind?
Computer language design answers this question: that is a much worse solution leading to confusion, terrible code and many hard to find errors. Whenever you need to pick up some kind of sin, you would need to look at all of them and pick those with the right marker, so you get a great number of cases, which lead the straight path to perdition (unworkable, overcomplicated programs). Anybody who has been down that path will never take it again.
Another way of explaining this is that when the computer language does the classification of sin or something else you can for one: read the code, two: be sure the computer language does it right. If a person, programmer, examines each sin for its kind and then does different actions he will one: make mistakes, two: it will be unreadable. It has to do with organizing your thoughts and models in the most practical way leading to the least misunderstanding and making it the least error prone.
This model is static, which means that the son gets the inherited sins at birth. In a live model, the father can commit inheritable sins after the birth of the son, so you would need a live transfer to pass it on to the son when it occurs or at regular intervals. You cannot model that with the classes of computer languages, you would need live objects for example in a database, which get updated at regular intervals or when certain changes in other objects14 occur.
In connection with inheritable sin, Mr. Haufniensis never talks about women. Can sins of the mothers be visited on the children unto the third and fourth generation?
If it were so, the model would need to be expanded with a reference to the mother. The class becomes a little unsightly, but as for modeling it, there is no problem. In light of Mr. Haufniensis saying, as we have seen above: 'that man and woman are essentially equal despite the difference', it does seem that they should have equal rights as to passing on heritable sins to their children. But Mr. Haufniensis' world is a man's world of fathers and sons. Similarly Kierkegaard never mentions his mother but his father all the more.
So how would an actual model with equal feminine and masculine rights look:
CLASS Person
end of CLASS
name (Søren-Kierkegaard)
sex (male)
father (Michael-Kierkegaard)
mother (Ane Sørensdatter III Lund)
inherited-sins = value of father.heritable-sins + father.father.heritable-sins +father.father.father.heritable-sins + mother.heritable-sins + mother.mother.heritable-sins + mother.mother.mother.heritable-sins
original-sin (own responsibility)
heritable-sins (commit yourself, pass on to offspring)
minor-sins (small fry)
sex (male)
father (Michael-Kierkegaard)
mother (Ane Sørensdatter III Lund)
inherited-sins = value of father.heritable-sins + father.father.heritable-sins +father.father.father.heritable-sins + mother.heritable-sins + mother.mother.heritable-sins + mother.mother.mother.heritable-sins
original-sin (own responsibility)
heritable-sins (commit yourself, pass on to offspring)
minor-sins (small fry)
This is just the straight paternal and maternal lines, but there is still the many mixed forms like father.mother.heritable-sins or mother.father.mother.heritable-sins in other words a complete gallery of ancestors up to the fourth generation. Not two ancestors per generation but 2 in the second generation, 4 in the third generation and 8 in the fourth generation.
The reasons, that Mr. Haufniensis does not delve further into passing on sins from one generation to the next, should be clear: with his implicit model it is unreasonably complex. The deeply personal aspect of it would be no problem for an author as intelligent as him, who could disguise that easily.
Mr. Haufniensis surely does not think of inheriting sin the way this model shows with the ugly details. One would suppose he thinks of inherited sin, as inherited in some sense, but 'refreshed' anew by each generation in their own qualitative jump. But that is not what he says, which this model brings out. So Mr. Haufniensis has to admit to producing a model of inherited sin, where you cannot inherit Original Sin. He might enjoy that savagely considering his paradoxical inclinations.
An example of a whole country inheriting sin, in a broader sense, is Germany. The Nazis killed millions of Jews and others in the Holocaust which rests as an unshakable sin on all Germans, of which the third generation after World War II now (2012) carries the burden of their forefather's sins for example through penitence and compensations. In the biblical sense there is one more generation to go, which may come to pass.
9. Paganism.
Mr. Hafnuensis often refers to the heathen or heathendom. Who would that be, aboriginees, cannibals, Ceylonese, anybody that is not Christian?
No, for him it is Grecism, the Greek. It is the Greek language of the New Testament, the Greek language and thought of Plato, Aritstotle and first and foremost Socrates. It is the Greek art and culture, which he thinks highly of.
Paganism or heathendom or heathen are not useful, terribly misleading categories, because they throw everything that is not of a certain type (Christian) into one big amorphous bucket. All peoples have belief systems which need to be respected in their own right. Mr. Haufniensis is very narrow minded in an almost gracious manner, knows the absolute truth and those who do not are outside the perimeter. In one sense this is exceedingly naive and parochial but with this touch of grace.
S. 133 Hedenskab ikke i synd.
s. 137 Hedenskab sandselighed
Socrates:
s. 26 Motto: Socrates var stor ...
Indledning s. 41, at kunne samtale.
S. 103-105 med Xantippe.
S. 135 største humanist, skelne mellem hvad man forstår og ikke forstår.
Christ:
S. 61 mere end et individ.
S. 67 mere end et individ.
S. 115 Christi person.
Greek:
S 42-42 Socrates, de græske
S. 47 Aristoteles
S. 98 Greek beauty
S. 119-22 stor fodnote: Gorgia, Parmenides
S. 128 ikke det evige.
S. 147 Epimetheus (Plato)
10. Attempt at Overview of Book.
Caput I treats mainly Orginal Sin.
Caput II mainly Objective and especially Subjective Anxiety.
Caput III mainly Genius.
Caput II mainly Objective and especially Subjective Anxiety.
Caput III mainly Genius.
Caput II is experimental, it is not thought through, Mr. Haufniensis tries different definitions of Objective and Subjective Anxiety. He has five of them in all of which the last one manages to undo the central statement i Caput I, that Adams original sin is just like other men's original sin.
Dependence on Hegel and his methods is quite pronounced particularly in the first chapters. Disregard Mr. Haufniensis ridiculings of Hegel, for he uses thesis + antithesis = synthesis with abandon. It is just that Mr. Haufniensis cannot withstand making fun of others, sometimes bitter fun. Except that he is essentially making fun of methods he uses himself.