SKC Workshop Autumn 2024

Lanxin Shi

(Cornell University, USA)

The Ladder of Paradox: On Kierkegaard’s Account of Anfægtelse

In this paper, I aim to examine and clarify the concept of Anfægtelse in Kierkegaard’s works. I argue that its meaning varies: besides the religious connotation that scholars often mention, Anfægtelse can also occur at the esthetic and the ethical stages. Moreover, there exists a hierarchy among the esthetic, the ethical, and the religious Anfægtelse. As Johannes Climacus remarks in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, “[w]ithin religious suffering lies the category of Anfægtelse, and only there can it be defined.” That is, Anfægtelse is most properly defined in the religious category.
I thus reconstruct Kierkegaard’s discussion of Anfægtelse in the form of Diotima’s ladder, which metaphor perfectly captures the hierarchical structure of the three Anfægtelser in an ascent to a more and more adequate understanding of the very concept. Just as how one, according to Diotima’s speech, starts with the earthly, erotic love so that she can ultimately reach the Form of Love, here, too, the ladder of Anfægtelse leads one from the lowest to the highest, while the collision that defines each Anfægtelse’s paradox penetrates more and more. Every comparison Kierkegaard and his pseudonyms draw is to give us an (imperfect) analogy to the ultimate, religious Anfægtelse. In section 1, I will start with Johannes Climacus’s discussion of the erotic love’s Anfægtelse in Philosophical Fragments, and its similarity to the absolute paradox of the understanding. Then in section 2, I will proceed to the analysis of the ethical Anfægtelse in Fear and Trembling, together with the discussion of ordeal in Repetition. Finally, in section 3, I will present Kierkegaard’s analysis of the religious Anfægtelse that is scattered in both his published works and journal entries.