SKC Workshop Autumn 2025

Alexander Jech

(University of Notre Dame, US)

Johannes de silentio as a pupil of Plato’s Phaedrus

Kierkegaard scholars have connected Kierkegaard’s method of indirect communication with Plato’s Phaedrus before, seeing his method of indirect communication as both inspired by Socrates’ indictment of writing in the Phaedrus and as seeking to correct its presentation of the doctrine of recollection as the solution to how it might avoid implicating itself. But God is in the details, as they say; here I will analyze one Kierkegaardian text in detail, Fear and Trembling, paying close attention to how Kierkegaard, through his invented pseudonym Johannes de silentio, responds to the Phaedrus’s indictment and its recommendation of a form of discourse that practices dialectic, that accepts “reminding” rather than “teaching” as its proper function, and that pays proper attention to the “soul” of the learner: like the Platonic solution, Kierkegaard speaks through a pseudonym who practices dialectic and resists attempts to treat him as an authority. Johannes’s “dialectic,” while not Hegelian, is also not precisely Socratic or Platonic, and the process of “reminding” no longer leads to the recollection of eternal truth; instead, built upon a foundation of lyricism, it produces shock, paradox, and the need for decision. I particularly analyze the literary methods by which Johannes introduces themes and modifies the reader’s mood to prepare the make authentic dialectic possible.