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This document provides an introduction and overview of a talk on the ideas of Søren Kierkegaard. The talk will discuss Kierkegaard's view that certain truths can only be communicated indirectly by first introducing an argument from Frege's The Basic Laws of Arithmetic about whether logical aliens could exist. It then outlines Aristotle's view of indirect demonstration as trying to reduce one's opponent to silence through argument. Finally, it previews how the talk will use Frege's argument as an example of indirect demonstration and its limitations before contrasting this with Kierkegaard's conception of indirect communication as eliciting spontaneous agreement.
This document provides an introduction and overview of a talk on the ideas of Søren Kierkegaard. The talk will discuss Kierkegaard's view that certain truths can only be communicated indirectly by first introducing an argument from Frege's The Basic Laws of Arithmetic about whether logical aliens could exist. It then outlines Aristotle's view of indirect demonstration as trying to reduce one's opponent to silence through argument. Finally, it previews how the talk will use Frege's argument as an example of indirect demonstration and its limitations before contrasting this with Kierkegaard's conception of indirect communication as eliciting spontaneous agreement.
This document provides an introduction and overview of a talk on the ideas of Søren Kierkegaard. The talk will discuss Kierkegaard's view that certain truths can only be communicated indirectly by first introducing an argument from Frege's The Basic Laws of Arithmetic about whether logical aliens could exist. It then outlines Aristotle's view of indirect demonstration as trying to reduce one's opponent to silence through argument. Finally, it previews how the talk will use Frege's argument as an example of indirect demonstration and its limitations before contrasting this with Kierkegaard's conception of indirect communication as eliciting spontaneous agreement.
My aim today is to introduce, in a roundabout way, an idea central to the writings of Sren Kierkegaard. The idea is that if certain truths are to be communicated, the communication must take an indirect form. Since this idea is caught up in Kierkegaards writings with many other eccentric things, and since its subject to widely divergent interpretations, it may be helpful to approach the matter obliquely. In fact, I shall spend much of the time discussing an argument in Freges The Basic Laws of Arithmetic; an argument that has to do with whether or not there might be logical aliens. So Ill be trying to approach Kierkegaard via Frege. To the extent that I dont manage to pull it off, perhaps youd be gracious enough to view it as a satire on that genre of paper that delights in bringing improbable philosophers together. I should confess that this is something I wrote quite some time ago. I think it does have something to do with internal critique, though perhaps only in the sense of internal critique that Titus characterized as the one youre likely to get from a quick Google search. Certainly, the issues Im concerned with here are rather formal ones and Ill not do more than hint at their implications for social critique (we can take up this question in discussion). You might think of my talk as a rather long appendix to Fabians Internal Resource Number Five (the one about satire and caricature.) But Im grateful in any case for this opportunity to elicit your help. Im hoping to use some of this material in a chapter of my projected book on Kierkegaard which has the projected title, The Art of Communication. (Ive projected this book so many times in various proformas and declarations of intent that it seems to me now to lack only the relatively trivial property of existence.) 2
Now, one sort of argument in philosophy is often characterised as the attempt to reduce your opponent to silence, in cases where direct refutation is impossible. Such arguments can be called indirect insofar as they aim to demonstrate, not, directly, that an opposing view is false, but rather that it cannot be meaningfully stated. In Aristotles gently comic image, the aim of such arguments is to lead your opponent into a state of mute inarticulacy similar to that of the vegetable. In what follows, Ill first illustrate this indirect argument strategy by presenting an argument of Freges against the view that the so-called laws of logic merely describe psychological processes. Ill go on to argue that, construed as an attempt to demonstrate that his opponents view cannot be meaningfully stated, Freges argument signally fails. The form that this failure takes will help us to highlight some general worries about how indirect demonstration is supposed to work. By contrast with the orthodox notion of indirect demonstration, I want to suggest that the basic idea behind Kierkegaard conception of indirect communication is the idea of a means of eliciting spontaneous agreement in judgement. Since, as I shall argue, the indirect strategy as traditionally conceived faces intractable problems, and given also the desirability of continuing a conversation when direct proof is not possible, I hope to show that Kierkegaards distinctive conception of indirect communication is well-motivated. Finally, Ill outline what I think the Kierkegaardian alternative comes to: first, by sketching a reading of Freges argument in terms of what I shall call the rhetorical reductio; and second, by briefly illustrating Kierkegaards own use of this same device.
I. Indirect Demonstration
In 1844, Kierkegaard made the following entry in his journals:
3
Basic principles can be demonstrated only indirectly (negatively). This idea is frequently found and developed in Trendlenburgs [sic] Logische Unterschungen [Logical Investigations]. It is significant to me for the leap. 1
Now, its hardly philosophical news that some principles are so basic that they cannot be directly, proved, justified, demonstrated, grounded. Heres Aristotle in a passage that Kierkegaard may well have had in mind when he penned the entry Ive just cited:
Some, owing to lack of training, actually demand that...[the Law of Non-Contradiction] be proved; for it is lack of training not to recognise of which things proof ought to be sought and of which not. For in general it is impossible that there should be proof of everything, since it would go on to infinity so that not even thus would it be a proof. But if there are some things of which proof ought not to be sought, they could not say what they regard as a principle more fully of that kind. 2
According to a familiar line of argument, some principles, such as the Law of Non-Contradiction, cannot be directly proved since these constitute the very conditions of proof. And generally speaking, one such condition is that the proof does not depend on an infinite number of steps: demonstrations must, as they say, come to an end somewhere. 3 Not to recognize this, Aristotle says, is simply incompetent.
1 JP III, V A 74 n.d., 1844, p. 16. Cf. CUP, p. 220: The highest principles for all thought can be demonstrated only indirectly (negatively). Compare also Kierkegaards remark that since the highest principles for all thought, or the proof of them, are negative, human reason has a boundary. He goes on: Boundary engagements are negative, one is forced backwards. But there is a chattering and conceited conception of human reason, especially in our age when it is never some thinker one has in mind, a reasoning human, but pure reason and the like, which simply does not exist, since nobody, whether a professor or what have you, can be pure reason. Pure reason is a fantasy, and with it belongs that fantastic boundlessness wherein there are no negative concepts but which grasps everything, as did the witch who ended everything by eating her own stomach (JP 50 X 2 A 354 (Hannay), p. 463). 2 Met. 4 1006a5-11 (Aristotle (1993), p. 8). For discussion see Lear (1980). 4
But Aristotle himself certainly felt the pressure of the demand for a demonstration of the LNC, not least because Heraclitus had apparently denied it. 4 Indeed, if a direct rebuttal was out of order in this context, that was by no means the end of it for Aristotle. He continues:
But even this [i.e. denying the LNC] can be proved to be impossible in the manner of a refutation if only the disputant says something. If he says nothing, it is ridiculous to look for a statement in response to one who has a statement of nothing, in so far as he has not; such a person, in so far as he is such, is similar to a vegetable. By proving in the manner of a refutation [sometimes translated, negative demonstration] I mean something different from proving, because in proving one might be thought to beg the original [question], but if someone else is cause of such a thing it must be refutation and not proof. In response to every case of that kind the original [step] is not to ask him to state something either to be or not to be (for that might well be believed to beg what was originally at issue), but at least to signify something both to himself and to someone else; for that is necessary if he is to say anything. 5
So Aristotle evidently wants to deny to the disciples of Heraclitus the luxury of so much as formulating their denial of the LNC. And since there is little to be gained from talking to a vegetable, a silent opponent is, Aristotle appears to think, as good as refuted. Now, in The Basic Laws of Arithmetic, Frege, too, develops something like an indirect demonstration. The example is, I think, especially instructive. I will suggest later on that it sounds a surprisingly Kierkegaardian note, but for now it will serve to illustrate the limitations of
3 Cf. An. Post. 71b 26-9 (Aristotle (1994), p. 3) [Proofs must] proceed from items which are primitive and indemonstrable because otherwise you will not possess a demonstration of these (to understand something of which there is a demonstration non-incidentally is to possess a demonstration of it.
4 Cf. Met 3 1005b22 (Aristotle (1993), pp. 7-8): For it is impossible for anyone to believe that the same thing is and is not, as some consider Heraclitus said. 5 Met. 4 1006a11 (Aristotle (1993), pp. 8-9). 5
the indirect strategy. (I should say at the outset that my discussion of Freges argument is much indebted to James Conants seminal paper The Search for Logically Alien Thought.) As is well known, a major battleground for Frege was the psychologism he found to be rife amongst his contemporaries. This, for present purposes, is the doctrine that the so-called laws of logic simply describe psychological processes. Frege wants to show that this doctrine conflates the subjective act of taking-to-be-true with the objective truth. Like Aristotle, however, Frege recognises that a direct proof is out of order here. To prove the psychology-independence of logic by means of logic, conceived as independent of psychology, would plainly be to beg the question. Instead, Frege advances a thought-experiment. The strategy, it seems, is by indirections to find directions out. Frege invites us to imagine what it would be like to encounter beings that do not accept a basic law of logic the Law of Non Contradiction, say. This scenario is at least consistent with psychologism in that this theory treats logical laws as rules for beings like us: as merely the way homo sapiens are compelled to think. Indeed, it seems essential to the very formulation of this view of logic that there could be beings that do not think like us. So lets try to imagine that we encounter some logical aliens. Now, a natural question that seems to arise in this scenario is: whose inferences are correct, ours or the logical aliens (or neither)? But, Frege argues, as soon as his opponent grants this as an intelligible question as it seems he must, inasmuch as he thinks we are psychologically compelled to think of our patterns of inference as the right ones he has also granted the distinction between logic and psychology:
Anyone who understands laws of logic to be laws that prescribe the way in which one ought to think to be laws of truth, and not natural laws of human beings taking a thing to be true will ask, who is right? Whose laws of taking-to-be-true are in accord with the 6
laws of truth. The psychological logician cannot ask this question: if he did he would be recognising laws of truth that are not laws of psychology. 6
But suppose the psychological logician simply refuses to grant the intelligibility of the normative question. Then, says Frege, he must also deny the intelligibility of the question whether the doctrine of psychologism is itself true. And if he does that, he forfeits the resources so much as to advance his own theory his theory is self-defeating in the sense that it cannot allow for there being any conditions under which it can itself be said to be true. Like Aristotle, Frege apparently wants to reduce his opponent to silence. But surely the advocate of psychologism might reason somewhat as follows:
You have shown that I cannot state that my theory is true in any other sense than that I am compelled to think that it is true. And you claim to have shown that, even though I am compelled to think that the logical aliens are wrong, because Im compelled to think that my inferences are right, I cannot give any sense to the difference between right and wrong here. But all you really show is that if my thesis is true, it cannot be meaningfully stated. So much the worse for the meaningful statement of true theses! Moreover, it is not, in fact, the case that I am compelled to think that the logical aliens are wrong: I can quite readily purge my talk of normative commitments without being reduced to silence by distinguishing merely in terms of the rules that are followed by them, and those that are followed by us.
Freges next gambit anticipates Davidsons line against the very idea of radically incommensurable conceptual schemes. Insofar as the psychological logician blithely abandons the resources to distinguish between himself and a logical alien in normative terms, Frege argues, he abandons the resources to make any kind of distinction between himself and a
6 Frege (1967), p. 14. 7
logical alien other than that they make noises and movements he does not make. And this, in turn, is to forfeit the resources to make sense of the very idea of a logical alien in particular: for, as Conant observes, creatures who moo and eat grass, for example, are not thereby manifesting a logically alien form of thought. 7 So psychologism cannot, within its own terms, make sense of the very possibility that there might be logically alien thought which would allow it to define itself as a genuine alternative to the Fregean view of logic.
2. Obstacles to Indirect Demonstration
How, then, is Freges internal critique of psychologism supposed to work? We might be tempted to construe his argument as a reductio ad absurdum, roughly as follows:
(1) Psychologism admits the possibility of logical aliens. (2) The concept logical aliens is intelligible only on a normative conception of logic. (3) So, psychologism admits a normative conception of logic. (4) But, psychologism does not admit a normative conception of logic (5) So, psychologism both does and does not admit a normative conception of logic. (6) No intelligible theory both does and does not admit the same conception of logic. (7) Therefore, psychologism is absurd.
On this reading, (1) should be taken as assumed for the sake of reductio. This assumption is supported, however, by the observation that commitment to the possibility of logical aliens appears to be essential to the formulation of psychologism. For what else can capture the contrast implied by laws that bind those of a particular psychological constitution? Premise (2)
7 Conant (1991), p. 147. 8
embodies the thought that the concept of logical aliens is hopelessly vague unless conceived in normative terms. For how else are we to distinguish between logical aliens and, say, creatures who moo and eat grass? And (4) is simply a statement of psychologism's commitment to a purely descriptive account of logic. For how can logic prescribe how we ought to think if it is merely a description of psychological processes? So far so good. The problems come when we consider what conclusions we are permitted to draw from these premises. Conclusions (3) and (5) look innocuous enough though its worth noting that these inferences, on a psychologistic view, are nothing more than psychological processes. But (6) and (7) are obviously illicit. For these plainly rely on a normative conception of logic, in particular on the LNC. And its open for the advocate of psychologism simply to deny (6) for the issue whether there are some intelligible theories that do not conform to the so-called laws of logic is precisely whats at stake in the debate about logical aliens. (Notice that its also available to Freges opponent to relativize intelligibility to psychological constitution.) Indeed, perhaps in this respect Freges opponent is living proof, not only that logical aliens are possible, but that logical aliens exist! As a matter of fact, Frege did not explicitly formulate his thought-experiment as a reductio. That decision was well motivated. Instead of using a reductio model, we might try to salvage some kind of quasi-direct argument from Freges thought-experiment by reading it as an argument to the conclusion that logical aliens are impossible. For example:
(1) If logical aliens are possible then the concept logical aliens is intelligible. (2) If the concept logical aliens is intelligible then psychologism is false. (3) If logical aliens are possible then psychologism is false. (From (1) & (2)). (4) Either psychologism is false or logical aliens are impossible. (From (3)). (5) If psychologism is false then logical aliens are impossible. (6) Therefore, logical aliens are impossible. (From (4) and (5)). 9
Clearly (2) and (5) do the main work here. Again, (2) is the conclusion of Freges argument to the effect that his opponent both must and cannot give normative content to the concept logical aliens he must because this is the only intelligible conception and he cannot because his theory does not admit normative concepts. And (5) is supported by the observation that, on any non-psychologistic view, logic binds all beings and not just beings like us. Now, again, there are worries about the probative force of this argument for someone who does not accept the prescriptive force of the laws of logic (notice that it, too, relies on the LNC). But this formulation brings to the fore a rather different worry to the one about question-begging. Freges thought- experiment seems to have yielded the conclusion that a certain kind of being is logically impossible; i.e. a claim of the form:
(x) (Gx)
This of course requires that the concept G ( ) is well formed. But notice that the relevant concept here is supposed to be logically impossible thought; for logical aliens are supposed to be thinkers who do not conform to the laws of logic. So the claim can be read: It is logically impossible that there is any logically impossible thought. And this, of course, is just what the psychologistic philosopher wants to deny he maintains that it is (in some sense) possible that there is logically impossible thought. But if this claim means anything at all it is surely itself an instance of a logically impossible thought: on Freges own analysis, it is the thought that a particular logical impossibility namely logically impossible thought is possible. So it seems that Frege is guilty of self-contradiction: he wants to deny that there are any instances of logically impossible thought in order to refute what he wants to recognise as just that. But perhaps Frege ought therefore to deny that the psychologistic claim does mean anything at all; to deny its status as the kind of thing, to echo Freges own phrase, for which the 10
question of truth or falsity can arise at all. 8 (Compare Wittgensteins remark that it is not as it were the sense of a senseless utterance that is senseless. 9 ) If this is the right way to interpret Freges stance, however, it is clear that he cannot straightforwardly make any claim about the necessary non-existence of logical aliens. For on this reading, the putative concept logically alien thought is entirely contentless and to dismiss a would-be concept as contentless is surely to say that nothing can be inferred from it. But if the notion of logical aliens is simply unintelligible rather than necessarily uninstantiated it starts to look very unclear how Freges thought-experiment is supposed so much as to get off the ground. For how can he expect his opponent to reflect on the content of, and imaginatively engage with, something unintelligible? And how, in particular, are we to take the claim that to adequately distinguish the nonsensical idea of logical aliens from any such notion as the concept of creatures who moo and eat grass would require a normative determination of the former?! The prospects for Freges argument do not look good. If we read it as a reductio, it begs the question by assuming the absurdity of a logical contradiction. If we read it as an argument to the conclusion that the concept logical alien is necessarily uninstantiated, it is incoherent because it implies that logically impossible thought is both impossible (in the case of logical aliens) and actual (in the case of the advocate of psychologism). And if we read it as an argument that the concept of logical aliens is unintelligible, it is hard to see how it can intelligibly appeal to this concept in supporting the claims it makes. These considerations highlight some general worries about how indirect strategies are supposed to work. For it is not necessary to detail Aristotles argument against Heraclitus to see that an indirect demonstration of the LNC one that would show that an objection cannot be meaningfully stated is subject to precisely similar constraints: (i) it must not assume the absurdity of a contradiction; and (ii) it must show how, if not via reductio, an argument can
8 Frege (1984), p. 355. 9 Cf. PI, 500. 11
intelligibly appeal to the possibility or concept it reveals to be inconceivable or meaningless. In short it seems that in attempting, as it were, to reduce those they regard as logical aliens to vegetables, indirect demonstrators are in danger of succumbing to the same fate.
3. Indirect Communication and The Leap
Now, as is testified by the journal entry I cited at the beginning [1], Kierkegaard thought he saw a connection between the strategy of indirect demonstration and what he calls the leap. I want now to show how this connection, weird as it might seem, offers a valuable diagnosis of just why indirect demonstration faces intractable problems, as traditionally conceived, and further indicates how the indirect strategy might be reconceived in a more fruitful way. Why, then, does Kierkegaard link up the image of a leap with Aristotles claim that some principles can be demonstrated only indirectly? It is well beyond my scope here to explore the various nuances of the leap motif in Kierkegaards writings. But we might expect to find an emphasis on immediacy or spontaneity. For leaping usually has to do with getting from A to B without touching the intervening ground; and spontaneous activity usually has to do with the achievement of some result without the mediation of any external power or influence. And an emphasis on freedom from mediation is indeed the salient feature of discussions in which Kierkegaard and his fictional authors apply the image of a leap. This typically reflects the rhetorical context of Kierkegaards sustained polemic against Hegels theory of dialectical mediation and logical necessity. What in one place he playfully calls his theory of the leap, gets worked out in Kierkegaards writings into a complex alternative to the Hegelian treatment of qualitative transitions as immanent and necessary moments in the self-determining process of thought thinking itself through. But why should Kierkegaard link indirect demonstration with the notion of spontaneous or unmediated activity? The answer, I believe, is his implicit understanding of what my teacher 12
David Bell formulates as a general constraint on any theory of judgement. This is what, in the context of Kantian exegesis, he calls the Principle of Spontaneity:
If the performance of an act of type is learned, or rule-governed, then it cannot be a general requirement of my performing an arbitrary act of type that I have already performed an act of that type or, indeed, of any other type that in its turn requires the prior performance of an act of type .
This principle precludes any theory that implies a vicious regress of conditions on the possibility of a given thinker performing a judgement of a certain kind. That is, it cannot be a general condition of ones performing a judgement of a certain kind that one has already performed a judgement of that self-same kind. (It rules out the kind of regress to which Peter referred yesterday). But, as Bell goes on to emphasize, the positive import of the Principle of Spontaneity is that there must be some point, in a given thinkers thinking and judging, at which the relation between act of judgement and object of thought is immediate and direct that is, unmediated by any other judgement and in just that sense spontaneous. What I want to suggest, then, is that the link between indirect demonstration and the image of a leap comes to this: in Kierkegaards conception, the aim of the indirect method, properly understood, is to elicit spontaneous, that is non-coercive but also non-reflective, agreement in judgement. Crucially, on this conception, indirect communication stands in contrast with any mode of argumentation that is designed to convince your opponent to reflectively endorse a proposition (such as the conclusion that his or her professed view is false or incoherent). Indeed, Kierkegaards conception indicates a certain diagnosis of the problems that beset any attempt to reduce to silence the would-be denier of basic principles. The problems arise when we construe such arguments as direct arguments to indirect conclusions (such as the internal incoherence of a given belief-set). For, supposing that what we need in a 13
given context of communication is a method of criticism appropriate to the aim to elicit spontaneous agreement, since the context is one that precludes direct demonstration, it looks plausible that no direct mode of argumentation is going to fit the bill, however weak or negative the form of its conclusion. From this perspective, whatever hopes we might have for the strategy of indirect demonstration, we ought not to be hoping for anything like a discursive justification or rational grounding of basic principles. Thus, to conceive the indirect strategy in the way I think Kierkegaard conceives it that is, as a means of eliciting spontaneous agreement in judgement - is to resist the temptation to construe this strategy in terms of the provision of any kind of quasi-direct argument whatsoever. This may indeed explain his shift from talk of indirect demonstration to talk of indirect communication. The question, of course, is how indirect communication conceived as a strategy for eliciting spontaneous agreement in judgement is supposed to work. At one point in Kierkegaards Concluding Unscientific Postscript, its fictional author one Johannes Climacus offers the following insight into another pseudonymous book:
[T]he book Repetition was called an imaginary psychological construction. That this was a doubly reflected communication form soon became clear to me. By taking place in the form of an imaginary construction, the communication ... establishes for itself a chasmic gap between the reader and the author ... so that a direct understanding is made impossible. The imaginary construction is the conscious, teasing revocation of the communication, which is always of importance for existing persons, lest the relation be changed to that of a rote reciter who writes for rote reciters.
The basic contrast here is between a text that involves the direct transmission of an authors views and one that denies its readers any such access. The first form of writing, Climacus claims, encourages learning by rote; the latter can open up the possibility of a genuine 14
intellectual exercise. In other words, a text that deploys a strategy of indirect communication is one that aims to get the reader to spontaneously see something for himself. As Climacus writes elsewhere: the secret of communication specifically hinges on setting the other free. 10
But how, then, can one ensure that an indirect communication will result in spontaneous agreement as opposed to disagreement? For Kierkegaard, this all depends on the artistry of the communication and will vary according to the subject-matter at issue. But there are some general criteria. A Kierkegaardian indirect communication with the aim of eliciting spontaneous agreement will typically do two things. First it will appeal to certain forms of imaginative engagement (hence the rubric, imaginative construction) and will therefore involve the use of examples or paradigms (hence Kierkegaards own prolific use of pseudonymous authors, stories, parables, diaries and so on). And, second, it will display or manifest the incoherence of the views to be opposed (hence the prominent roles of parody, satire, irony, humour, in Kierkegaards texts). The strategy is thus to communicate in such a way that is consistent with the Principle of Spontaneity where the aim is not to directly transmit propositional content (as though, to use one of Kierkegaards expressions, thoughts were just like real estate) but rather to engage the inwardness of the thinking subject. Consider Annie. 11 Annie used to see herself as cool and detached. Until, that is, during a conversation with Clarabel, she shouted out I dont care what you think! Clarabel, who had been looking for a way to correct Annies self-image and had long given up on direct means (Annie was also stubborn), seized her moment. Well I dont care what you think either! she screamed. In a flash, Annie saw herself reflected in another. She saw the incongruency between what she said and how she said it. More generally, she saw the way her actual practice betrayed her reflectively endorsed self-image. This little interaction (adapted from an illustration of Katherine Ramslands) has all the ingredients of a Kierkegaardian indirect
10 Ibid., p. 74. 11 Ramsland (1987), p. 333. 15
communication. Clarabel offers herself as an example to engage Annies imagination, an example that manifests the dissonance between her self-image as cool and detached and her tendency to be anything but that. In this way, we may suppose, Clarabel secured Annies spontaneous agreement about her being a little less the person she thought she was. Of course Clarabel might have just carried on trying directly to persuade Annie to give up her deluded self-image. Besides argumentative contexts in which we reach the limits of proof, however, Kierkegaard thinks there are other, more widespread, contexts in which we can have good reasons for an indirect mode of communication. In particular, as he makes clear in his retrospective The Point of View for My Work as an Author, he thinks indirection is called for whenever what we are up against is an illusion or delusion of self-understanding (as opposed to beliefs that are false or inconsistent or otherwise inadequate). From the practical point of view, he argues that if we try to remove a persons illusion directly we risk antagonizing them and simply reinforcing their illusion. More fundamentally, however, he also observes that a direct approach presupposes that the recipients ability to receive is entirely in order, but here that is simply not the case indeed an illusion is also an obstacle. Kierkegaards general advice in the face of such obstacles to communication is, in a word, mimetic: we should begin, he recommends, by taking the persons self-understanding at face value - as good money - exaggerating and mimicking the very delusions we are trying to dispel. Only then, he suggests, though perhaps with great difficulty, might we be able to elicit a moment of spontaneous self- recognition.
4. The Rhetorical Reductio
Now there are all sorts of further things to be said about Kierkegaard on indirect communication. Many of these pertain to his distinctive account of the peculiar difficulties of communicating ethical and religious truths. However, in the interests of a better understanding 16
of the formal structure of Kierkegaards conception indirect communication, as this is shaped by his reflections on the limits of direct demonstration, I want to see whether this conception can be made to do any work in rescuing Freges little discourse about logical aliens from the morass in which we left it. This was the situation: to the extent that Frege does not beg the question, he either implies that logical aliens are both impossible and actual or he is arguing from the normative content of a contentless pseudo-concept. Id like to suggest, however, that Freges argument can be broadly described in terms of a Kierkegaardian indirect communication. Recall that the advocate of psychologism likes to think of himself as open-minded about logical aliens. Frege, on the other hand, thinks there is no such space for the mind to occupy. On his understanding his logic, the term logical alien is an oxymoron. But, as we saw, Frege recognises that this understanding cannot be directly demonstrated. Instead, he proposes a thought-experiment in Kierkegaards terms, an imaginary construction in which, rather than directly argue for his view, Frege pretends that the concept of logical aliens is perfectly in order. That is, he pretends that psychologism is true: for, again, the only way he can begin to make sense of logical aliens is in terms of that theory. The point of this pretence seems to be by way of showing that psychologism cannot make sense of logical aliens within its own terms. But, as we also saw, this purpose is ill served by a formal reductio argument. My suggestion is that we can regard Freges argument rather in terms of what I shall call the rhetorical reductio. Aristotle distinguished between the formal syllogisms of dialectic and the informal arguments of rhetoric. An important feature of the latter, he observed, is their capacity to affect decisions and judgements:
But since rhetoric exists to affect the making of decisions the hearers decide between one political speaker and another, and a legal verdict is a decision the orator must not 17
only try to make the argument of his speech demonstrative and worthy of belief; he must also ... put his hearers in the right frame of mind. 12
So a rhetorical argument aims to elicit a decision of a certain sort by affecting someones frame of mind, over and above providing reasons to change their mind. (It is worth noting that Kierkegaard habitually associates the metaphor of leaping with decision and resolution and explicitly links his conception of indirect communication with Aristotelian rhetoric. 13 ) With this in mind, let me introduce what I propose to call the rhetorical reductio. The rhetorical reductio is a species of argument that, rather than proving that a given assumption implies a contradiction, manifests the absurdity of the position it attacks by reduplicating and satirising it. The rhetorical reductio aims to achieve in a target audience a frame of mind in which they will feel, as it were, pulled in different directions, in which the incoherence in their stance is perceived as an internal tension. Crucially, however, we need not suppose that the relevant sort of incoherence here can be explained in terms of ones being committed to incompatible theses or inconsistent propositions; for it may be that the tension, rather, is between what one merely seems to think, to others and to oneself, and what one actually thinks. Indeed, this is perhaps what is most distinctive about the way Kierkegaard takes up Hegels conception of internal critique: namely, his emphasis on the idea of contexts in which what calls for internal critique is not a contradiction between two determinate positions within a given shape of consciousness, or a failure to live up to the determinate standards to which one is implicitly or explicitly committed, but rather the radical lack of fit between what a given thinker merely takes to be his or her position and how he or she is truly oriented in this regard. Rather than being between
12 Bk II, Part I, 1377b (Aristotle, (1952), p. 622). 13 Cf. JP III VI A 33, n.d. (1845), 20: In the final analysis what I call a transition of pathos Aristotle called an enthymeme. Enthymeme is, of course, the name Aristotle gives to a rhetorical proof. Compare also Kierkegaards reference to the need for a new science which would develop the Christian art of speaking to be constructed admodum Aristotles Rhetoric (cited in J. Thomas (1992), p. 121). 18
proposition and proposition, or explicit and implicit norms, this sort of contradiction is between pretence and reality, mere pose and true orientation. Clarabel deploys a rhetorical reductio against Annie by mirroring back the incongruence between what she says and how she says it, so as to secure her spontaneous agreement. And Frege can be seen to deploy a similar strategy by reflecting back to the psychologistic logician the incongruence of wanting to mark a normative distinction without saying anything normative. If the argument works, Freges opponent will come round to the Fregean view of logic. He will not have done so solely on the basis of reflection, however, but by means of a spontaneous leap away from the dissonance of his own internal conflict. To briefly flesh this out: Frege pretends to seriously entertain (what he himself takes to be) an internally incoherent perspective. (Just as Clarabel pretends to take Annie seriously by responding in kind.) This seems to lead Frege into the paradoxical business of denying there can be any instances of illogical thought in order to refute what he takes to be an instance of just that. More generally, it draws him into an attempt to rule out logical aliens without saying anything normative, for he knows he cannot rely on normative distinctions without begging the question. So Frege wants to rule out logical aliens in a way that precisely mirrors his opponents attempt to rule them in: both want to mark a normative distinction without saying anything normative. Frege, it seems, ends up reducing himself to silence. But that, Im suggesting, is just the point; namely, to bring his opponent to a spontaneous recognition of the form, Thats like me!. The hope is that, in this frame of mind that of recognising himself in an incongruous position, of feeling pulled in different directions, of wanting to speak without having the resources so to speak the psychologistic logician will change his mind. Clearly, this would disarm any objection to the effect that Freges own talk about logical aliens is incoherent for, on this reading, an incoherent impression is exactly what hes aiming for. In this way, Frege might be 19
seen as putting into practice the Kierkegaardian wisdom that [f]ixed ideas are like cramp, for instance in the foot yet the best remedy is to stamp on them. 14
My claim here is not that Freges argument, qua rhetorical reductio, is in fact successful. Still less of course am I trying to insinuate any historical influence on the author of The Basic Laws of Arithmetic by the author of Concluding Unscientific Postscript! (As a historical curiosity, however, we might just note that it was from Trendelenburg - to whom Kierkegaard refers apropos Aristotle on indirect demonstration - that Frege took the term Begriffsschrift.) What I do think is that a Kierkegaardian reading of Freges thought-experiment gives it half a chance of success where no other reading can and that this reading displays the formal structure of an indirect communication. Finally, then, let me very briefly illustrate Kierkegaards own use of the rhetorical reductio.
5 Impractical Wisdom
As with the case of Aristotle vis--vis Heraclitus, and Frege vis--vis psychologism, Kierkegaard evidently thought of himself as confronted, in his own milieu, not in the first instance by false doctrines to be directly refuted, but by illusions to be indirectly dispelled. Short of showing how this strategy plays out in works as a whole, a passage from Either / Or may serve as exemplary. The section of the Diapsalmata entitled Either / Or: An ecstatic lecture begins famously as follows:
If you marry, you will regret it; if you do not marry you will also regret it; if you marry or if you do not marry, you will regret both; whether you marry or you do not marry, you will
14 JP 6 July 38 II A 230 (Hannay), p. 97. 20
regret both. Laugh at the worlds follies, you will regret it . [And so it goes on ad nauseum] This, gentlemen, is the sum of all practical wisdom.
Commentators often subsume such ironical expressions of disillusionment and detachment under the rubric of Kierkegaards poetic characterisation of the internal logic of an aesthetic life- view. But I think this cannot be quite right. To have a life-view is, in Kierkegaards quasi- technical sense of that term, to consistently express in ones life a coherent project or ideal. For example, Judge William, who we encounter in the second part of Either / Or, embodies and advocates the life-view of civic virtue in general, and marriage in particular. But the adoption of any such ground project is precisely what the so-called aesthete in the first part of the book declines since he holds that regret is attendant upon any course of action, no course of action can constitute a practical identity for him. Indeed, Kierkegaards aesthete seems particular keen to preclude the impression that he has any positive view to advance:
My practical wisdom is easy to understand, for I have only one principle, which is not even my starting point. One must distinguish between the successive dialectic in either / or and the eternal dialectic touched on here. In saying that I do not start from my principle, the opposite of this is not a starting-out from it, but simply the negative expression of my principle, the expression for its grasping itself in opposition to a starting-point or a not-starting out from it. I do not start out from my principle, because were I to do so, I would regret it. If I were not to start out from it, I would also regret it.
Clearly, then, our ecstatic lecturer is less the representative of a certain life-view than one who poses as rejecting any such attempt to express a coherent project through ones moment-by- moment decisions. His is a pose of retreat from the dilemmas of daily life the successive dialectic in either / or to an eternal dialectic in which no commitments whatsoever are made. 21
But having marked his distinction between the dialectics of time and eternity, he draws a disarming conclusion. Therefore, he declares, if it seemed to any of my highly esteemed hearers that there was something in what I was saying, he would only prove that his mind was unsuited to philosophy. At this juncture it seems to me that any reading in terms of Kierkegaards presentation, through the voice of the ecstatic lecturer, of a certain weltanschauung or life-view completely breaks down. To understand the aesthetes practical wisdom - so he himself insists - is to understand that it literally comes to nothing, that there is no sense to made of it whatsoever, and that to think otherwise would be to show a singular lack of philosophical acumen. In this light, one may very well wonder what the import of the ecstatic lecture is at all. That what is going on here is the rhetorical reductio is indicated by the lecturers claim to have achieved an eternal perspective: I am, he brags, constantly aeterno modo. Now the first audience of his lecture his highly esteemed hearers would of course have been familiar with such claims. They might even have been inclined to lay claims to such a perspective themselves. Perhaps, under the influence of Hegel, some regarded themselves as pure, speculative thinkers, having managed to transcend the either / or structure of the finite understanding by making a presuppositionless beginning and getting caught up with the eternal activity of pure thought itself. In Postscript, Kierkegaard will satirise the legacy of such unearthly achievements as one in which as soon as someone hints at an aut / aut [either / or] a Hegelian comes riding trip-trap-trap on a horse...and wins a victory and rides home again. And the aesthetes claim to be aeterno modo a claim he himself insists comes to nothing at all is surely supposed to mimic the claim to have transcended the realm in which we temporally situated beings face difficult dilemmas. (Recall the objection to Freges thought-experiment that, by Freges own lights, logical aliens is meaningless.) In case the speculative thinker should miss his own reflection in the mirror of the aesthetes empty eternal dialectic, the screw is turned: 22
[F]or those hearers capable of following me, in spite of my not making any movement, I will now unfold the eternal truth whereby this philosophy remains in itself and admits of nothing higher Experience has shown that it isnt at all difficult for philosophy to begin. Far from it: it begins with nothing. What seems so difficult to philosophy and the philosophers is to stop. This difficulty, too, I have avoided. For if anyone believed that in stopping at this point I really am stopping, he proves he has no speculative insight. For I do not stop: I stopped that time I began. My philosophy, therefore, has the advantage of brevity and irrefutability. For if anyone were to contradict it, I would surely be justified in pronouncing him insane.
Kierkegaards mimetic irony is hardly subtle: we are to see that the philosophy which, in a Hegelian trope, remains in itself and admits of nothing higher fails to transcend so much as the non-project of a fictive non-person let alone, we might add, the exacting life-view of a Socrates, say, or an Abraham. To sum up: Just as Freges indirect strategy reflects his recognition that psychologism cant be directly refuted, so Kierkegaard evidently thinks there is a sense in which the Hegelians claims to an ecstatic perspective cant be directly refuted. Indeed, a Hegelian might agree to that: he or she may want to say that this is so because the eternal perspective of speculative thought subsumes all other views within its systematic orbit. For his part, Kierkegaard thinks that a direct mode of criticism against such claims would already grant too much. Accordingly, he deploys an indirect form: the rhetorical reductio. If the strategy works, those inclined to lay claim to the ecstatic perspective of speculative thought will come to recognize themselves reflected in the aesthetes absurd pose of not commit himself to anything whatsoever including the very commitment not to commit to anything. Hopefully but there can be no guarantee a given reader may, as a result, become less inclined to assume the 23
pose of existing aeterno modo, beyond the temporality of difficult decision and dilemma. But, if so, this will not be because he or she has become convinced of any direct or quasi-direct argument to the conclusion that the content of his or her thought is false or incoherent. Rather, it will be through a moment of spontaneous self-recognition, in which the reader recognizes the dissonance in his or her own case between pretence and reality. And it is in this and similar ways, I think, that Kierkegaard takes up and transforms the notion of internal critique, turning it against Hegels own claim to have achieved, by way of internal critique, an eternal perspective on the whole.