SKC Workshop Spring 2025

Moritz René Pretzsch

(University of Kassel)

Philosophy as a Struggle Against the Limits of Human Existence: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Reason and Religion

Kierkegaard in connection with Wittgenstein has repeatedly been the focus of philosophical investigation, most prominently in Creegan (1989), Conant (1995), Mulhall (2001), Nientied (2002) and Schönbaumsfeld (2007). In my opinion, however, too little attention has been paid to soberly reflecting on the concept of reason itself in the thinking of Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. The question is: What concept of reason can be discerned in their thinking, and, more importantly, where are the limits of reason in their philosophical approaches? I would like to clarify this in a first step. Among other things, I come to the conclusion that reason can only be found in the world of facts. It forms a pattern of life and stands in contrast to the supra-rational. However, my contribution is not intended to be a purely theoretical discussion of terminology; I would like to restore an existential claim to Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein. For, as I would like to make clear in a second step, their thinking reveals to us an understanding of philosophy that says a great deal about human beings. Through philosophy, human beings are committed to running against the limits of reason in order to advance towards the absolute. Philosophy itself is this pushing. In a way, it is the reason why we lose ourselves or become entangled, and at the same time it is a form of therapy. Philosophy causes the illness that it cures. Philosophers, on the other hand, are both doctors and patients. If they take their task seriously, one might say that they stand between reason and that which transcends reason.