"One must go further, one must go further." This impulse to go further is an ancient thing in the world. Heraclitus the obscure, who deposited his thoughts in his writings and his writings in the Temple of Diana (for his thoughts had been his armor during his life, and therefore he hung them up in the temple of the goddess), Heraclitus the obscure said, "One cannot pass twice through the same stream." Heraclitus the obscure had a disciple who did not stop with that, he went further and added, "One cannot do it even once." Poor Heraclitus, to have such a disciple! By this amendment the thesis of Heraclitus was so improved that it became an Eleatic thesis which denies movement, and yet that disciple desired only to be a disciple of Heraclitus … and to go further–not back to the position Heraclitus had abandoned"From the Epilogue to Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling.
1
And why add yet another word —is this not going further? Why not let the text fall silent? Any explication would do violence to the text explained, especially in this case, when the text refuses and rejects explication, when obscurity is the essence of the text. And yet only a naïve interpretation would require silence from us —because that would imply that the text contains some esoteric truth that can only be reached through an individual encounter with its mystery, and that is not the case. The message of Fear and Trembling is not a positive assertion nor a secret, but a declaration of ignorance. It follows that an attempt at theoretical clarification is harmless, if not terribly useful: it will simply confirm the honest reader’s suspicion that he did not understand. The only understanding that can be taken from a theoretical assertion of ignorance —be it the text itself or its afterword— is a negative one: the humbling realization that we are not being honest when we say we have understood, and that if we wish to be honest the task that lies ahead of us is daunting.
2
So do not accuse me of going further, for I am only taking a step back. After all, every advance in understanding, if it is truly an advance, constitutes a recession. This conclusion should not surprise us, diligent readers of these beautiful cacophonies, for if Ethics are to collapse upon a paradox, why should Epistemology or any other branch of philosophy be spared? If our thoughts are honest —which is to say: if our thoughts are not merely thoughts but the very substance of our lives— then the only understanding we can ever hope to reach is that we cannot understand. And yet the philistines somehow believe they have made progress! To unmask their dishonesty we need only picture the physiological effects that actual radical doubt would have on someone unfortunate enough to be cursed with such a thought. If doubt is not merely a position assumed like an actor assumes a role, if it is something more than a mere a thought experiment conducted in the safety of an isolated laboratory, it could only result in paralyzing anxiety. Doubt that is something other than hypocrisy could only lead to fear and trembling —and no further. Not that I claim this from personal experience —I confess myself a hypocrite, and offer this afterword as evidence— but this I can say: to speak of doubt as if it were ground solid enough to support the crystal palace of reason implies either enormous naïveté or unfathomable perversity.
3
But do not accuse me, or Johannes, of going further, because the Greeks already understood. If one is good enough an archeologist to discern the Socratic ruins from among the Platonic restoration, the traces of a sublime and self-conscious mis-understanding begin to emerge. The story is well known: a group of beautiful young men kidnap the old teacher and sit him down in the beachfront condo of one of their fathers; for although the beloved begetter may have lost all traces of virility he still needs some kind of entertainment and the teacher is a famed conversationalist. Laughing, the teacher takes his revenge: one by one they try to go further —the theme at hand is Justice, but it could have been anything— and each time he gently pushes them back. The answer that comes at the end of the night, that ridiculous myth that the beautiful young men are to tell to the people, is plaster spread over the cracks of the ruins by the next generation —a sad attempt at going further forwards, the result of perishing to the temptation of providing a positive answer instead of a further question. More than two thousand years ago, the honest spirit of Socrates already knew that the only knowledge he could aspire to was non-knowledge. Such was his honesty that he refused to write anything down: irony could only be learnt through personal experience; it could only be lived.
4
And yet it is possible, even desirable, to take yet another step back, and in a sense go further than Socrates —for irony may be a high passion indeed, but it is not the highest. This is what Johannes de Silentio is describing, with enough courage to admit that he could not perform it. Knowing that we cannot know is still knowing, understanding that we cannot understand is still understanding —and perhaps, just perhaps, there are some spirits who are strong enough to renounce even that renunciation. But make no mistake: behind irony there is more than nothingness and nihilism. Behind irony there is faith, a miraculous reconciliation of the paradox. He who has gone further than Socrates can only live on the basis of faith, which amounts to living without any basis. And yet the crowds of philistines think they can believe! Faith, honest faith, is even more difficult than honest doubt —so difficult that it approaches the impossible. Understanding that contradiction is a step back, but in this paradoxical world that means a step forward.
5
As such, Johannes can only write about faith by pointing out its deficiency, and for that same reason I can add yet another word to the cacophony without contradicting the task. The text forces the reader to take a step back. This is what is meant with the dictum that no generation can learn what is essential from the previous one: no one, not Socrates, not Johannes —certainly not Hegel— can live in place of the individual, and the truly essential is to be lived, not only thought. Therefore the only honest philosopher is he who replies to every question with a “not even that” —which perhaps explains the constant repetition of I cannot understand that runs through Johannes’ text.
6
Heraclitus’ disciple was being honest when he tried to go further —and not back— to what his teacher had already abandoned. He understood the paradox that the only advance possible was a recession. As such, his twisting of the teacher’s sentence was an attempt at removing one more level from the crystal palace. The next step back —the next step forwards— would have been to go ahead and step in the river anyway. That would have been faith. But the next generation did not stay true to their task —which was to live— and tried to make the disciple’s taking-a-step back into a going-forwards Hence the Eleatic denial of motion. The fact that they went on walking around and talking and laughing is proof enough of their dishonesty.
7
So what is this task that we are to bring back to life and make beautiful for honest and earnest spirits? Perhaps it is the Examined Life, which cannot be taught but only learnt. If it is an honest examination, it will inevitably result in fear and trembling. A lucky few will go back further enough and reach the bittersweet laughter of irony. The blessed fewer will go back as far as it is possible and arrive at miracle of faith. Though stating it like that, in such schematic fashion, may already be a foolish going further.
Sinceramente,
NMMP
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