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        Titel: Kierkegaard's POSTSCRIPT and Wittgenstein's
               TRACTATUS: Teaching How to Pass from Disguised
               to Patent Nonsense
        Autor: James *Conant*
               (University of Pittsburgh, PA)
    Dateiname: 11-2-97.TXT
   Dateilänge: 113 KB

Erschienen in: Wittgenstein Studies 2/97, Datei: 11-2-97.TXT;
hrsg. von K.-O. Apel, N. Garver, B. McGuinness, P. Hacker,
R. Haller, W. Lütterfelds, G. Meggle, C. Nyíri, K. Puhl,
R. Raatzsch, T. Rentsch, J.G.F. Rothhaupt, J. Schulte,
U. Steinvorth, P. Stekeler-Weithofer, W. Vossenkuhl,
(3 1/2'' Diskette) ISSN 0943-5727.

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   The madman is not the man who has lost his reason.  The madman
is the man who has lost everything except his reason.

   G. K. Chesterton*1*


   I don't try to make you BELIEVE something you DON't believe,
but to make you DO something you won't do.

   Ludwig Wittgenstein*2*



There is a tradition of philosophical writing -- one which can be
traced back to  Plato's  dialogues -- in  which  the form of  the
philosophical text is thought to be integral to its purpose.  The
form  of the text   is modeled on    a PROCESS of  discovery. The
relation  the reader  is  invited  to  enter into   with the text
mirrors a  relation  that he is   called upon to  enter into with
himself.  This mode of philosophical  writing will often seem  to
be  less concerned  with imparting   a specific  doctrine to  the
reader and more concerned with introducing him to an intellectual
discipline that holds  forth the   promise of transforming   him.
There is another  tradition of  philosophical writing --one  that
can also be traced back to Plato -- in  which the accent falls on
putting  forward substantive  views  by means  of  arguments.  In
reading   such texts, an  attention  to the  specific features of
their literary  form may    often  seem incidental  to  a  proper
appreciation of their content.  Each of these traditions embodies
a mode of  conceptual  accuracy  and  an aspiration to   clarity.
However,  their respective conceptions  of  rigor can, at  times,
appear not only alien  to, but even  to go against the  grain of,
one another.   In  our contemporary  Anglo-American philosophical
culture, the  prevailing  practice of textual  interpretation has
evolved primarily  out of an  engagement with the latter of these
traditions.   When confronted with  a text,  our impulse is often
simply to cut  through  all the rhetorical   dross and to  try to
extract   and evaluate  the  central   chain of  reasoning.   The
questions we bring to the text are "What is its view?"  and "What
are  its arguments?"  Such  questions, when pressed too hard upon
certain authors, can  lead to disastrous misunderstandings.   Two
such authors,  I believe, are Kierkegaard  and  Wittgenstein.  In
this essay, I will mostly be puzzling over the FORM of their work
-- their mode of philosophical presentation. It is interesting to
note in   passing that Wittgenstein  had a  tremendous regard for
Kierkegaard.  He is reported to have  remarked, for example, that
"Kierkegaard was by  far the most   profound thinker of the  last
century."*3* Such a  remark is all the  more striking  given that
Wittgenstein is  not  someone who   is generally known  for   his
generous assessment  of the work  of other philosophers.  Indeed,
as far as I  know, there is no other  philosopher on whom he  was
prepared to lavish the kind of hyperbolic praise that he reserved
for Kierkegaard.*4*  He even went  so far as  to learn  Danish in
order  to be  able to read  Kierkegaard in  the original.*5* This
raises  a  rather   perplexing    question: what  was    it  that
Wittgenstein, one of the   central figures in the  development of
analytic   philosophy,  found to  be     of such  importance   in
Kierkegaard?   One's sense of  perplexity deepens if one turns to
the currently existing body of secondary literature in English on
Kierkegaard,  where one learns   that Kierkegaard is supposed  to
have held a wildly subjectivistic theory of  truth.  After even a
cursory glance through this literature,  this sense of perplexity
is likely to   bloom into something akin   to the bafflement  and
consternation  that Bertrand  Russell expressed in  his letter to
Lady Ottoline  Morrell, when  he wrote  her on December  20, 1919
that he "was astonished" to  find that Wittgenstein "reads people
like Kierkegaard!"*6* 

Encouraged, however, both by  Wittgenstein's euphoric avowals  of
admiration for the Danish  thinker, and, more importantly  by the
pervasive    extent     to  which    Wittgenstein's     TRACTATUS
LOGICO-PHILOSOPHICUS    appears  to echo Kierkegaard's CONCLUDING
UNSCIENTIFIC  POSTSCRIPT, a number of  scholars have attempted to
argue that Kierkegaard in fact exerted a substantial influence on
Wittgenstein's early   thought. The  parallel  moment in  the two
works  that has excited  the  most attention   in this regard  is
summarized in the   POSTSCRIPT by the formula  that  "what can be
indirectly communicated  cannot be directly communicated," and in
the TRACTATUS by the famous and equally cryptic remark that "what
can be shown cannot be said."  The parallel is generally made out
along something  like  the following lines:   each of these works
argues for   a distinction  between that which   can  be said (or
directly communicated) and that which cannot be said (or directly
communicated), and each work  undertakes to EXHIBIT the unsayable
through  a delimitation of the  sayable.  I have argued elsewhere
that this  doctrine   that there   are   truths which cannot   be
expressed in language  (yet, nonetheless, can somehow be gestured
at through language) is neither a  very coherent one nor one that
is able to account for certain  central features of each of these
texts.*7*  I am not going to  rehearse those arguments here.  For
the present, I will  simply assert, without  arguing for it, that
the standard way   of  explicating   the parallel   between   the
POSTSCRIPT  and   the TRACTATUS  succeeds  only  at   the cost of
attributing strikingly  unattractive views to each  of  them.  It
will emerge   that  I, nonetheless, retain   more than   a little
sympathy for the attempt to   account for the uncanny degree   to
which these two  texts do seem to  echo one another.  My own view
is that  the  central parallel  between  them  lies  not in their
sharing some mystical doctrine of ineffable  truth, but rather in
their sharing a     common  twofold  project of   exposing    the
incoherence  of any such doctrine  and diagnosing  the sources of
its attraction.  I therefore also remain broadly in sympathy with
the  thought   that   a  proper   understanding of  Kierkegaard's
POSTSCRIPT  may help  to  illuminate some  of  the more  puzzling
features of Wittgenstein's notoriously elusive early work -- not,
however,   because   I  think  Wittgenstein  adopted  certain  of
Kierkegaard's  philosophical  DOCTRINES.  Rather,  I believe that
what Wittgenstein took from Kierkegaard (and  modified in his own
way) was  a certain conception of  philosophical AUTHORSHIP.  The
suggestion that it is in some shared conception of how one should
WRITE philosophy  that  the connection   between Kierkegaard  and
Wittgenstein should  be sought is made  by Stanley  Cavell in his
essay "Existentialism and Analytical Philosophy": 

Both Wittgenstein and  Kierkegaard see their worlds  as labouring
under illusion.   Both see  their function as   authors to be the
uncovering or diagnosing of  this  illusion, and freeing us  from
it. . . . In both, the  cure is for us to  return to our everyday
existence. . . . [T]his emphasis  on diagnosis and cure continues
the early image of the philosopher  as the physician of the soul,
and it  also aligns these writers  with the characteristic effort
of modern thought to  UNMASK its audience. . .  .  And the effort
to unmask requires a few masks or tricks of its own. . . .  [N]ot
just  any way of addressing and  audience will leave them as they
are, leave them alone,but transformed. . . . 

And in both writers the cure seems no  cure.  All we are given is
the obvious, and  then silence. . .  .  Yet they both  claim that
obviousness and  silence    provide ANSWERS,  and  moreover  that
nothing else does, that is, not to THEIR questions.*8* 


Cavell's topic was the comparison of Kierkegaard's POSTSCRIPT and
Wittgenstein's PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS.   In this essay,  it
will primarily  be the connection between  the POSTSCRIPT and the
TRACTATUS that will be on my mind.  If  Cavell's remarks turn out
to apply equally well to what I have to say about that connection
-- and if  that, in turn, seems  to suggest a stronger continuity
between early  and later    Wittgenstein than it     is presently
fashionable to suppose -- that, as far as I  am concerned, is all
to the good. 

Before embarking upon an examination of  the POSTSCRIPT, I should
say briefly where I see the most interesting (as well as the most
neglected)  parallel between these  two  books: namely, in  their
respective  closing  moments.  Each culminates  in   a gesture of
REVOCATION.  I am  inclined to think that  one  will not be in  a
position  to  understand either  of these  books  until one has a
satisfying account  of the  spirit  in which,  in each case, this
revocation is  intended.   In  the  penultimate section  of   the
TRACTATUS (§ 6.54), Wittgenstein writes: 

My propositions are elucidatory in the  following way: anyone who
understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he
has used them -- as steps -- to climb up  beyond them.  (He must,
so to speak, throw away the ladder after he has climbed up it.) 


The reader who UNDERSTANDS him will recognize his propositions as
NONSENSICAL -- what  is Wittgenstein saying  here?  A great  deal
has been written on  the TRACTATUS, but very  little of it  comes
fully to terms with this question.  Most solutions to the problem
(as to why   the  book  declares   itself to be  nonsense)   rely
ultimately upon the assumption that  Wittgenstein does not really
mean what he certainly appears to be saying here. The tendency is
to try to  dilute the sense in  which Wittgenstein is saying  his
book contains nonsense -- to  attempt to distinguish between mere
nonsense  and deep philosophical nonsense  -- where the latter is
supposed to be  revelatory  of a  certain category  of  ineffable
truth(s).  One can certainly see why  many commentators have felt
driven to assume    that   any workable  interpretation  of   the
TRACTATUS  must presuppose the integrity   of such a distinction.
The   unstated premise  of  their  interpretations generally runs
roughly as follows: Wittgenstein must have thought one could make
sense of the idea  of intelligible nonsense, otherwise  how could
he have concluded  his book  by   declaring that it consists   of
nonsense AND that his  reader  should, nonetheless, persevere  in
his  attempts to "understand" it.   If one argues,  however, as I
have, that the TRACTATUS undercuts a distinction between kinds of
nonsense, then one   will be  forced to  embrace  what might,  at
first, appear to be  an intolerable conclusion: namely, that when
Wittgenstein says "nonsense" he means PLAIN NONSENSE, and when he
says "throw the  ladder away," he  means THROW IT AWAY.  But  how
can a reader be asked  to "understand" a work  of nonsense?  What
is the point of giving him a book that he is asked to throw away?
What would be the  point of writing such a  book?  It is in order
to solve this problem that a doctrine of showing has been pressed
into service.  The  idea being  roughly  that, although the  work
does not "say"  anything, it does  "show" something.  Stated this
vaguely, it is  difficult to quarrel  with such a  description of
the aim  of the  work.   However, the question lingers:  what  is
shown?  Under  the pressure of  this  question, commentators have
usually interpreted the  doctrine  to be that there   are certain
features of reality which,  though  they cannot be  expressed  in
language, are made manifest  through certain forms of nonsensical
language.*9* There has been  little consensus among commentators,
however, on how it is exactly that nonsense can show something or
what it is that is so shown.*10* Most standard attempts to soften
the apparent incoherence of the view (that sentences that fail to
say anything can nonetheless convey truths) have generally failed
to account for the conditions of their  own intelligibility.  How
is it  that these commentators are able  to do the very thing the
TRACTATUS held could  not   be done?   How  is it  that in  their
expositions  of Wittgenstein they are   able  to put into   words
precisely what the TRACTATUS declared could not be said? 

Speaking  more  generally, commentators who   attempt  to offer a
sympathetic exposition of the  TRACTATUS  tend to fall  into four
groups:  1)  Those who   simply   ignore the  final   gesture  of
revocation and  who explicate the work  as if it were an ordinary
philosophical treatise.  2) Those who  acknowledge the problem of
the work's nonsensicality but in  their own interpretive practice
end  up treating it   as a mere   technicality -- conceding  that
perhaps, strictly speaking (given  Wittgenstein's peculiar way of
distinguishing between sense  and nonsense), the  propositions of
the work  might  all be nonsense, yet   believing  that it  still
remains perfectly clear what at each juncture  is being said.  3)
Those who  take the gesture   very seriously and insist  that the
important things are truly ineffable, but who then nonetheless go
on to  tell us what those  things are.  4)  Those who insist upon
the ineffability  of   the work's  teaching   and who then  quite
consistently, but also quite unhelpfully, have nothing further to
say on  the  matter; except perhaps to   offer an  exclamation of
hushed  awe,  betokening that their   further silence is pregnant
with meaning. 

Now commentators   on  Kierkegaard's  POSTSCRIPT, faced   with  a
similar exegetical problem, also  tend to  fall into roughly  the
same four  groups.   Only here,  what is mostly   at issue is the
problem of the  so-called  "pseudonymity" of  Kierkegaard's major
philosophical works.  The  POSTSCRIPT is one such work, authored,
in this  case, by the  pseudonym Johannes Climacus.   Appended to
the  POSTSCRIPT  is   a document  entitled   "A First   and  Last
Declaration."  Unlike the body of the text (which we are given to
understand is not authored by Kierkegaard  but rather by Johannes
Climacus), this document  is, indeed, signed by "S. Kierkegaard."
Confusingly,   however,  the   document   begins with Kierkegaard
apparently exhibiting a willingness to acknowledge his authorship
of the POSTSCRIPT (along with a host of other works): 


Formally  and for the sake of  regularity, I acknowledge herewith
(what in fact hardly anyone can  be interested in KNOWING) that I
am the author, as people would call it, of . . .*11* 


And then  Kierkegaard goes on  to list  all of  the works that he
pseudonymously  "authored."  In declaring that  he is, as it were
"the author, as people  call it," of  the works, he takes himself
to be  conceding  a legal  or  bureaucratic point.  He  wishes to
emphasize that the  point of his strategy  of pseudonymity is not
to conceal the identity  of (something you   might be tempted  to
think of    as) the "real"   author.  The  next  sentence  of the
document is interrupted by  a long parenthesis  which goes on  to
clarify that the strategy was not employed 

.   . . for  fear  of a legal penalty,  for  in this respect I am
confident that  I have committed  no misdemeanor, and at the time
the books were published, not only the printer but the censor, as
a public functionary, was officially informed  who the author was
. . .*12* 


A little later he says: "in a juridical and a literary sense, the
responsibility is mine."  All he is conceding  here is that he is
(as he puts  it later  in the  same document), "responsible  in a
civil  sense"   for  these   works.*13* The   document's  central
declaration,    however, (the    one that   the  long parenthesis
interrupts), runs as follows: 

My  pseudonymity or polynymity has not  had a casual ground in my
PERSON . . . but  it has an  ESSENTIAL ground in the character of
the PRODUCTION.*14* 


The implication here is that these works would not be the kind of
works  they are  unless Kierkegaard were   able to insist in each
case upon a sharp distinction between the bearer of the pseudonym
and himself (the  latter being, only  in an attenuated sense "the
author, as people would   call it").  It   is the pseudonym,   he
wishes to insist, who is rightly  to be considered the author, if
any one is.   Kierkegaard wishes to be  able to  maintain that in
anything other than a legalistic sense of "author," he is not the
author of these works -- that it is somehow incoherent to suggest
that he might be.  He suggests he could not lay claim to anything
in  one of these works  even if he  wished to: One single word of
mine uttered  personally in my  own name would  be an instance of
presumptuous self-forgetfulness,   and  dialectically viewed   it
would  incur    with  one word the     guilt  of annihilating the
pseudonyms.*15* 


To mix his own voice with that of one of the pseudonyms would be,
he says, "an  instance of presumptuous self-forgetfulness" --  it
would   involve    his becoming  completely  confused   about the
character of the literary   undertaking in which he is  involved.
The declaration continues: 

[I]n the pseudonymous works  there is not a  single word which is
mine, I have . . . not the remotest private relation to them.*16* 


All  this  suggests that if we  wish  to go into  the business of
interpreting one of these works, we would  somehow be involved in
a confusion if we were to ascribe (as, in fact, most commentators
do) any  assertions or arguments  in the work to Kierkegaard. But
what sort of confusion are we involved in here?  This question is
apparently considered by  most scholars of Kierkegaard's work  to
be an  insignificant one.  It  is standard practice  to rely upon
the POSTSCRIPT,   or  any   of Kierkegaard's   other pseudonymous
productions,  as unproblematic expressions  of Kierkegaard's  own
philosophical commitments.   A commentator will typically preface
a  quotation  from one    of these   works  with the    words "as
Kierkegaard  says" and  will  then proceed  to quote  an excerpt.
Well,  why shouldn't he --  Kierkegaard DID write the work, after
all, didn't  he?  So what's  all the fuss about?  Nonetheless, in
this same document,  Kierkegaard  makes  it quite clear  that  he
feels compelled to require of  his readers that  they be as fussy
as he is about his relation to these works: 

My wish, my prayer, is that, if it might occur to anyone to quote
a particular saying from the  books, he would do  me the favor to
cite the name of the respective pseudonymous author.*17* 


Now, as I stated earlier, Kierkegaard  scholars tend to fall into
four groups  with respect to how  seriously they take admonitions
such as  the one above: 1)  Those  who completely  ignore all the
warnings and dispense with (what they take to be) the superfluous
formality of attributing the doctrines  (apparently) set forth in
each of these works to the pseudonymous author in question.  They
simply interpret the work as if it were an ordinary philosophical
treatise.*18* 2) Those   who obediently observe the formality  of
invoking the name of the appropriate pseudonym at the appropriate
juncture, though the  point  of this practice remains  a mystery.
This group of scholars actually divides into two subgroups: those
who simply have no account of what the point of the formality is,
and those who  view it as a technicality  that serves to register
slight    nuances of  difference in   opinion  or status  between
Kierkegaard  and his  pseudonyms.*19*   3)  Those who fasten   on
Kierkegaard's remark  that each pseudonymous  work represents  an
"indirect communication" and  interpret this to mean that  direct
quotation   is ruled out here  because  nothing has been directly
communicated.  Like their counterparts in the scholarly community
who write on the  TRACTATUS, after they  explain that the content
of  these  works cannot  be   communicated  directly, they  then,
nonetheless, go on  to communicate  to us  what it  is that these
indirect communications are unable  to communicate.  4) Those who
retreat to a radically esoteric reading and proclaim that only to
the truly religious  reader will the  hidden content concealed in
these works become manifest. 

As in the case of the TRACTATUS, I  am inclined to think that all
four of these responses  fail to come  to grips with the problem.
But rather than  going over  what is intrinsically   unsatisfying
about each of  these four alternatives,   I am going to press  on
with the task of  sketching my own reading  of the POSTSCRIPT.  A
good place to begin is with the final section  of the body of the
POSTSCRIPT proper --  the conclusion of the  portion of the  work
that is signed  by Johannes Climacus.   It is entitled "Appendix:
For    an Understanding with  the     Reader."  It is called   an
"appendix" to signal that it, too, is in some way external to the
body  of the   work.   Here,  in the  frame   of  the work,   the
pseudonymous  author  permits  himself  to communicate relatively
directly with his reader.  The Appendix begins as follows: 

The undersigned,  Johannes  Climacus, who has  written this book,
does  not give himself  out to be a  Christian;  he is completely
taken  up with the  thought  how difficult it    must be to be  a
Christian; but still less is he one who, having been a Christian,
has ceased to be such by going further.  He is a humorist.*20* 


The  CONCLUDING  UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT begins   as  a work that
aspires to clarify the question: how does one become a Christian?
It  appears  to  be engaged in  an  attempt  to elucidate what is
involved in living  a  Christian life by   means of  providing  a
philosophical  account   of  the character    of  the  truth   of
Christianity.  Yet it emerges that the author, Johannes Climacus,
insists that  he is not   prepared to call  himself a  Christian.
Well, what is his relation to his subject?  Is he simply offering
us a  disinterested account  of  what  would  be involved  in his
becoming a Christian  were he to undertake to  become one?   That
would seem to  involve him in  a fundamental irony insofar as  he
will also insist  that it  is  essential to  a concern with   the
matters  that preoccupy   him    in this treatise  that  one   be
interested in them in the right way -- that one's relation be one
of  "infinitely  passionate interestedness."   He  goes to  great
pains to explain   that the difference between  what   he calls a
merely  "aesthetic"  (and    therefore  confused) conception   of
Christianity and a genuinely religious  conception is one that is
reflected  in  the character  of one's  concern with the question
"what is  it to be   a Christian?"  --  it  is a  difference that
reflects itself  in a person's  everyday practice and the kind of
commitment that it exhibits.*21* Yet he insists that he, Johannes
Climacus, in preoccupying   himself with the guiding  question of
the work, "how does one become a Christian?," is himself far from
being a Christian.  What  is he?  And what is  the nature  of his
concern with the  question?  He says he is  a "humorist."  Such a
description should cause us  to  carefully consider what sort  of
conviction he  has in the doctrines he  sets forth.  Part of what
he  wants to insist upon,  no doubt, in saying  that  he is not a
Christian is the DIFFICULTY of becoming a Christian.  Yet we will
want to look more closely at the  sort of difficulty he thinks is
involved here. 

The Appendix goes on to say  that the work cannot  aspire to be a
contribution to knowledge -- something he thinks will be expected
of it in our "age of  speculative philosophers and great men with
peerless  discoveries" -- and   that many will therefore consider
the book  to  be "entirely  superfluous."*22*   Climacus does not
exactly dispute this.  Instead, he writes: 

So then the  book is superfluous; let no  one therefore take  the
pains to appeal to it as an authority; for he who thus appeals to
it has EO IPSO misunderstood it.*23* 


He who appeals to  it has EO  IPSO misunderstood it?  How can the
sheer fact that one appeals to  a book serve  as a criterion that
one has misunderstood it?  If to appeal to the work -- regardless
of how or when one appeals to it  -- is to misunderstand it, what
means   are  left  by  which  one  could  indicate   that one HAS
understood  it?  It appears  now that it is  a  sign that one has
misunderstood  the  book  not only  if  one invokes Kierkegaard's
name, but  even  if one restricts   oneself to an  appeal  to the
persona of the  pseudonym.  Climacus  goes on  to say:  "To be an
authority is far too burdensome an existence for a humorist."*24*
This suggests that even if  we scrupulously ascribe the arguments
of the work  only  to Johannes  Climacus,  we  have  somehow gone
astray as long as we take the book to be forwarding anything like
a doctrine -- as long as we imagine that  it offers us a teaching
that we can quote approvingly.  Climacus continues: 

Above all,   may heaven preserve   the  book and  me  from  every
appreciative violence which might be done  it -- that a billowing
partisan  might quote  it appreciatively  and  enroll  me  in the
census.*25* 


To so much as quote the  work appreciatively, to take  it to be a
partisan of some particular view, is a  further sign that one has
misunderstood it.   Again, what are we to  make of this?  For the
body of  the  work appears  to contain an   elaborate argument in
support of a    substantive  conception of   Christianity and   a
conception of the kind  of truth that  is appropriate to  it; and
yet,  here in the  Appendix, Climacus writes  that if you wish to
quote the book you have misunderstood it, "for  I have no opinion
and wish to have none."*26* If the parallel with the TRACTATUS is
not  evident yet,  it  becomes so  in  the  next  sentence of the
Appendix:  As in Catholic books,  especially  those of an earlier
age, one finds at the back of the volume a note which informs the
reader that everything is  to be understood conformably  with the
doctrine  of the Holy Catholic  Mother Church --  so what I write
contains  also a  piece    of  information to the   effect   that
everything is so  to be  understood  that it is  understood to be
revoked, and    the book  has  not only     a Conclusion  but   a
Revocation.*27* 


This last sentence refers to the fact  that the preceding section
of the body of the work is titled the "Conclusion."  The Appendix
follows it  and   functions (as do  the  preface   and the  final
sections of the TRACTATUS*29*) as  part of the  frame of the work
in  which the author allows  himself to comment  on the work as a
whole and provide directions for how to read it.  As Wittgenstein
does at the  close of his work,  Climacus specifies in  the final
Appendix what his reader must come to understand in order to have
understood what sort of book it is he is reading.  He must: 

. . . understand that to write a  book and revoke it is something
else than not writing it  at all; that to write  a book that does
not  claim importance for anybody  is something else than leaving
it unwritten.*29* 


This is therefore  what we need to  understand if we aspire to be
readers of this work: How it is that "to  write a book and revoke
it" is "something  else" than not to  write it at  all?"  What is
Climacus'  aim  in  writing  such a  book?   He calls   himself a
"humorist."  In  the Appendix  he  identifies  the characteristic
virtue of the humorist to be a certain species of sincerity: 

. . . a sincerity which . . .  in turn comforts  and arms me with
an uncommon sense  for the comic and a  certain talent for making
ludicrous what is ludicrous . . .*30* 


The suggestion here  is that the project  of the body of the book
involves an  effort to bring  out the ludicrousness of something.
The distinctive characteristic of  the humorist, we learn earlier
in the work, is his ability to  discern contradictions and expose
them: 

The humorist constantly . . .  sets the God-idea into conjunction
with other things   and evokes  the   contradiction -- . .  .  he
transforms    himself  into    a    jesting  and    yet  profound
exchange-center for all these transactions . . .*31* 

The humorist's vocation lies therefore in bringing contradictions
to the surface. The role of humor in his activity is to bring out
the ludicrousness of  certain contradictions.  The contradictions
that particularly preoccupy Climacus  arise when the neo-Hegelian
speculative philosophers  of  his day attempt   to comprehend and
clarify the   nature of Christianity.   His  aim in the  work, he
tells us,  is:  "to discover   where  the misunderstanding   lies
between speculative philosophy and Christianity."*32* 

Aside from the  Appendix, there are a  number of other  places in
the book where Climacus attempts  to provide further  indications
as to what sort  of endeavor it  is in which he  is engaged.  For
example, there is another "Appendix" --  only this one is located
in  the middle  of  the  work.  It is   entitled  "A Glance At  A
Contemporary Effort in  Danish Literature."  The  fact that it is
also an  "Appendix" signals that  it, like the final  section, is
appended to the body of the work --  that it functions as part of
the  frame.    In this section  Climacus   remarks   on works  by
(Kierkegaard's)  other   pseudonymous authors.  These  remarks, I
submit,  are meant to  illuminate the  character of Climacus' own
undertaking.  For example, in commenting on EITHER/OR, he remarks
that  the  contradictions that  are inherent  in the structure of
that work are   left for the  reader to  discover.    The work is
constructed as a mirror in which the reader can recognize his own
confusions.  The work will  not  have the  transformative  effect
upon   the reader  to  which   it aspires    unless  the task  of
recognizing the relevant  contradictions is left  to him.  Hence,
Climacus writes: 

It  is   thus left to   the reader  himself to  put   two and two
together,  if he so  desires, but nothing is  done to minister to
the reader's indolence.*33* 


Concerning   another  pseudonymous   work, REPETITION,   Climacus
writes: 

In this  book there  is  no  dogmatizing, far from  it;  this was
precisely   what I  had wished,  since   it  was in my  view  the
misfortune of    the age to have  too   much knowledge,   to have
forgotten what  it is  to exist, and   what inwardness is.  Under
such circumstances it is desirable that an author should know how
to    withdraw himself, and   for     this purpose   a  confusing
contrast-form is always usable.*34* 

In  this remark, Climacus  is   implicitly  referring back  to  a
constant refrain of the first half  of his own  book -- one which
he summarizes at one point as follows: 

My principal thought  was that in  our age, because of the  great
increase of knowledge, we  had forgotten what  it means to EXIST,
and what INWARDNESS   signifies,  and that the   misunderstanding
between speculative philosophy and Christianity was explicable on
that ground.*35* 


The emphasis  on  "forgetfulness" is  a  pervasive theme  of  the
POSTSCRIPT.   It is    as   if  Climacus   saw   the  speculative
philosopher's fundamental malady to be a  form of amnesia and his
task  in the POSTSCRIPT to be  one of assembling certain sorts of
reminders.*36*  If one puts these two  passages together and lets
the one    interpret the  other, we    are offered  the following
suggestion: if what one seeks is a  mode of writing that can help
the   philosophically-inclined     reader to      overcome    his
"forgetfulness,"  then what is  required is a literary form which
will avoid "dogmatizing" and which allows the author "to withdraw
himself" in such a manner  that the reader   is left to  confront
himself.  The idea that the philosopher in our age has "forgotten
what  it means to exist"  is  a formula for summarizing Climacus'
central  topic: that in  his philosophizing  about what goes into
the  ethical or religious life the  philosopher  tends to fail to
bring his own  life properly into  imagination -- he is unable to
recognize the disparity between how he actually lives and what he
says about  how one should live.  Kierkegaard's general  term for
this contradiction between one's life and how one describes one's
life is HYPOCRISY.  It is by no means a problem  that he holds to
be peculiar to   philosophers.  Indeed, he  writes: "Hypocrisy is
quite as inseparable from being human  as sliminess is from being
a  fish."*37*  Nonetheless,  Climacus sees  philosophy as somehow
reinforcing a particular form of blindness as to the character of
one's own life. 

What Climacus' comments  on the other  pseudonymous works in this
appendix indicate is that his own work is also one in which there
is no  "dogmatizing," one in which the  author seeks to "withdraw
himself"    from the  reader,  and    one  in which  "a confusing
contrast-form" is employed.   In a  long footnote,  for  example,
Climacus discusses a review (which has  just appeared in a German
theological periodical)  of  the PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS.*38* The
FRAGMENTS is also "authored" by  CLIMACUS and, indeed, it is  the
book to which the POSTSCRIPT is meant to be a postscript.  In the
review the reviewer furnishes an abstract of  the book.  Climacus
comments: 

The abstract is accurate, and  as a whole dialectically reliable,
but here is the point: in spite  of the accuracy of the abstract,
everyone who  reads that only is  bound to  get an entirely false
impression of the book .  .  . The abstract is doctrinizing, pure
and    unadulterated doctrination;   the   reader  will  get  the
impression that the book is also doctrinizing.  Now this is in my
view is THE MOST DISTORTED IMPRESSION OF THE  BOOK IT IS POSSIBLE
TO HAVE [my emphasis].*39* 


The complaint that Climacus directs   here against this  reviewer
could  be   levelled  equally   well  against most   contemporary
commentaries on the work  -- commentaries, that is, which attempt
to summarize the doctrine that the work (allegedly) propounds and
to scrupulously explicate what  are perceived to be the arguments
marshalled in its favor.  Yet Climacus charges that this  impulse
to simply extract the  basic argumentative structure of  the book
leads  to "the  most  distorted impression  of   the book it   is
possible to have."  But how could a clear summary of the argument
of a  work  result  in the greatest  possible   distortion of its
content?  Because,   Climacus says:  "the   reader  will get  the
impression that the book is  . . .   doctrinizing."  It will give
the impression that the argumentative   structure of the work  is
meant to culminate in  something like a set  of theses.  But this
raises the question:  what  is it,  which  is of  such  essential
importance, that this  dialectically accurate review  leaves out?
Climacus answers: 

The contrast of the  form; the challenging opposition between the
experiment and   the content;  . .   .   the unwearied  incessant
activity  of the  irony;  the parody   on speculative  philosophy
involved in the  entire plan of the  work; . .  . of all this the
reader of the review gets not the slightest intimation.*40* 


Here in a  footnote  to an appendix  to the  POSTSCRIPT, Climacus
allows himself to be quite explicit  on a matter concerning which
otherwise, throughout the main body of his work, he simply offers
hints  (hints, for example, about  how he is  really a "humorist"
and hence  neither   a  philosopher nor   a  Christian).   Again,
Climacus'  remarks here on   his   own earlier work are   clearly
intended   to apply  to the   POSTSCRIPT   as well.  One  has not
attained  an accurate   impression of this    work until one  has
recognized the presence of "the  PARODY on speculative philosophy
involved  in the entire plan of  the  work."  But why is Climacus
engaged in  a parody, and why keep  the fact that  it is a parody
something of a secret?  The footnote continues: 

[T]he book is  written for informed  readers whose misfortune  is
that  they  know too   much.    Because everybody knows  it,  the
Christian truth has gradually become a triviality, of which it is
difficult to secure a primitive impression.  This being the case,
the art of COMMUNICATION at last becomes  the art of TAKING AWAY,
of luring something away from someone.*41* 


The problem is not one  of teaching the  reader something he does
not know but rather one of showing him that,  with respect to the
activity   of becoming a Christian,  there  is nothing further he
needs to KNOW.  His quest for knowledge is an evasion of the task
of achieving (what  one  of Kierkegaard's other  pseudonyms  will
call) "existential resolution." -- the task, that is, of living a
certain      sort  of life.   Wittgenstein,     in  a  famous and
much-discussed letter, wrote concerning  the TRACTATUS  that "the
point  of the  book  is ethical."*42*  This should be interpreted
against Kierkegaard's remark that his pseudonymous authorship has
a   fundamentally ETHICAL purpose.  Ethically,   he says, all one
person  can do for  another is to show him  that he is not living
the  life   he thinks  he  is  living   or wants to   be  living.
Kierkegaard's various   pseudonyms  present  different   sorts of
mirrors in    which  different sorts   of   readers may recognize
themselves.*43*  Climacus is  to  serve   as a  mirror for    the
philosopher  who imagines that   he   is making progress on   the
problem of how one becomes  a Christian.  Kierkegaard's aim is to
show him  that where he takes  there to be  a problem there isn't
one.  The solution to what he takes to be  the problem of life is
to be found in the vanishing of  the problem.*44* The philosopher
is  particularly prone,  on this   view of  him,  to convert  the
practical difficulty of living  a certain sort  of life  into the
intellectual difficulty of trying to understand how it is one can
become a  person who leads such  a life.  The  task of becoming a
Christian,  in the philosopher's hands,   becomes the problem  of
formulating   a    set of   philosophical   categories  which are
appropriate to the task of answering  the question: "How does one
become  a  Christian?"   Consumed by  an  appetite for knowledge,
Climacus suggests  there is   only one  type of  difficulty  that
strikes us (that is, the philosopher in  each of us) as worthy of
our attention: 

[W]hat everyone does not know, so that  it counts as differential
knowledge, that is  a glorious thing to be  concerned with.  What
everyone  knows  on the other   hand, so  that the  difference is
merely the  trivial one of  HOW it is  known, that is  a waste of
effort to be  concerned about  --for  one cannot possibly  become
self-important through knowing it.*45* 


If there is a difficulty,  the speculative philosopher assumes it
must be a  function  of the inadequacy   of our  knowledge.   The
philosopher, in his quest for knowledge, tends to deprive himself
of  a clear  view  of  what  is  otherwise ordinarily visible  to
anyone.  Climacus asks:  "Is it not  the case  that what is  most
difficult of all for the wise man to understand, is precisely the
simple?"*46* His eagerness to be  able to represent his knowledge
to himself as an intellectual  achievement forces the philosopher
to come to know "the simple" (i.e., what we otherwise all already
know) by means of a reflective detour.  Climacus' aim is to guide
that process  of reflection  back to its   point of departure, to
reveal to  the philosopher that for  the  simple task at  hand no
special application of his intellect is required.  Hence Climacus
writes: 

[T]he  difference  between the  wise man  and  the simplest human
being   is merely this   vanishing  little distinction, that  THE
SIMPLE MAN  KNOWS THE  ESSENTIAL, while  the wise  man  little by
little learns TO KNOW THAT HE KNOWS IT . . .*47* 


The problem with speculative   philosophy, in Climacus' view,  is
that  it stubbornly holds fast to  the idea that  the question of
what it is to  lead either an ethical  or a Christian life is one
that   requires   a  certain  degree    of  essential preliminary
clarification -- that it  is incumbent upon philosophy to provide
a thorough understanding of what is  involved in such a task, and
that only philosophy has the resources at its disposal to provide
such an   understanding.   The purpose   of  Climacus' parody  on
speculative philosophy  is to underscore  what he takes to be the
ludicrousness   of  the philosopher's   attempt   to  advance our
understanding  of what it means   to become a Christian. Climacus
represents his literary task as  one  of "taking way" insofar  as
his  aim is  to DEPRIVE the  philosopher of  the illusion  that a
well-conducted speculative inquiry  will equip him with  a deeper
understanding of what it is to be a Christian.  The long footnote
continues its account of what eluded  the reviewer concerning the
conception of communication underlying the work: 

[T]he art of COMMUNICATION at last becomes the art of TAKING AWAY
. .  . . This seems very strange  and ironical, and yet I believe
that I have succeeded in expressing precisely  what I mean.  When
a man  has his mouth so  full of food that  he is  prevented from
eating,  and is  like to  starve in  consequence, does giving him
food consist in stuffing  still more of  it in his mouth, or does
it consist in taking some  of it away, so  that  he can begin  to
eat?   And so  also  when  a  man has   much knowledge,  and  his
knowledge has little or no significance for  him, does a rational
communication  consist   in   giving him  more  knowledge,   even
supposing that he is loud in his insistence that  this is what he
needs,  or  does it not   rather  consist in  taking  some of  it
away?*48* 


The analogy here  is not quite as  neat  as Climacus  makes it at
first sound, however.  For his description  of the philosopher as
possessing too  much  knowledge, and hence   gagging upon it,  is
intended ironically.  It depends upon  the philosopher's image of
himself    as    successfully  advancing   our   understanding of
Christianity, whereas Climacus sees him caught  in the grip of an
illusion  of understanding.  What  suffocates the philosopher, in
Climacus'   view,  is   not a  surfeit    of  knowledge, but  the
compulsiveness of  his appetite  for knowledge.  The  philosopher
interprets the  task  of  becoming  a Christian to    require the
cultivation and  application of his understanding, postponing the
claim that the Christian teaching  makes upon his life, deferring
the insight that what  is required is the  engagement of his will
-- the achievement of resolution.   Climacus's task is to find  a
mode of writing that shatters  the illusion that what is required
is   further knowledge, that there   is something the philosopher
needs to know   that he does  not know,  that  the difficulty  of
Christianity is  a function of its  intellectual complexity.  The
tendency of  the  age is   to  think that   if  something is  not
difficult to understand, then it is not a difficulty at all.  The
pseudonymous work therefore presents the difficulty  in a form in
which it appears as  if it  were one  of the understanding  -- it
attempts to engage the philosopher on his own ground. 

Climacus'  complaint with  the reviewer's dialectically  accurate
abstract  of his book is  that it fails  to attend to the FORM of
the  work and to   recognize how  the  form  is essential  to its
purpose: 

When an author communicates a portion  of the knowledge that such
a well-informed man has, in a form which makes it seem strange to
him, it  is as if  he took his  knowledge away from him, at least
provisionally, until by  having  overcome the opposition  of  the
form he succeeds   in assimilating it.   .  . .  When an age  has
systematically  and rote-recitingly finished the understanding of
Christianity   and  of all difficulties,   so  that it jubilantly
exclaims how   easy it is   to understand the  difficulty,  it is
impossible  not  to entertain a suspicion.    For it is better to
understand  that something  is so  difficult   that it cannot  be
understood than that a difficulty  is so very easy to understand;
for if it is so very easy, then perhaps it is not a difficulty at
all; since  a difficulty  is  precisely recognizable by the  fact
that it is hard to understand.  When a communication, recognizing
the existence of such  an order of things,  does not aim to  make
the  difficulty any easier, then it  becomes a process, of taking
away.  The  difficulty is  clothed in a  new  form,  in  which it
really is difficult.*49* 


The aim  of the work therefore  is to  present something that has
the form of an  intellectual difficulty, inviting the philosopher
to grapple with it, and leading him to the  point where the terms
in which he was tempted to pose the difficulty come apart on him.
The aim is  to  expose the   roots  of his compulsion  always  to
reflect upon the task  of living (a certain  sort of life) rather
than to attend to the task itself. 

Earlier in the POSTSCRIPT, Johannes Climacus writes: 

[M]oved by a genuine interest  in those who make everything easy,
I conceived it as my task to create difficulties everywhere.*50* 


The difficulty for the reader in understanding this authorship is
to recognize that the author's main concern is not to provide him
with further food  for thought. The work, nevertheless,  presents
itself  to  the reader   initially  as one that   is difficult to
understand.  The difficulty   lies in grasping the  contradiction
inherent in the relation between the work's form and its content.
The feature  of the  form that  the philosophical  reader will be
inclined   to neglect, Climacus says,  is  the way  in which "the
entire  plan of  the   work" embodies  a "parody on   speculative
philosophy."  But  how does THE ENTIRE PLAN  of the work do this?
My suggestion is that the work as a whole represents an elaborate
REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM of the  philosophical project of  clarifying
and propounding what it is to be a Christian. 

The first book of the POSTSCRIPT appears,  however, to be engaged
in precisely such a project of clarifying and propounding what it
means  to  be a   Christian.  In  particular,   it appears  to be
concerned  to  argue  that  the  truth of  Christianity cannot be
established   on  objective grounds and  hence  that  there  is a
confusion involved in any  attempt  to provide objective  reasons
why one should believe in the Christian articles of faith.  It is
argued  that no   form  of historical  knowledge can   provide an
adequate basis for a genuinely religious faith, neither testimony
derived from the Holy Scriptures, nor from the Church itself, nor
from the  accumulation   of any additional  evidence  provided by
those who have borne   witness over the centuries.  The  specific
structure of Climacus' argument  here admittedly rests upon  some
debatable assumptions.     Within the polemical context    of the
period, however, they    were   not  likely to   have    appeared
controversial.  It is important  to bear the AD HOMINEM character
of the design of  the work as a  whole in mind.  The most notable
such  assumption   runs  as  follows:  "the   greatest attainable
certainty  with  respect  to    anything historical  is  a   mere
approximation."*51* Climacus'  argument here essentially consists
of a recapitulation of the central argument  of (what was then) a
famous  essay by  Lessing,  "On the Proof   of the Spirit and  of
Power" which  consists of a  succinct rejection of all historical
proofs   for  the truth of  Christian   religious teachings.  The
central   claim is  that with respect    to  any fact  based upon
historical or other forms of  empirical  evidence, no matter  how
firm, doubt can never be entirely  excluded.  Lessing argued that
historical evidence  can never yield the   kind of necessity that
traditionally  had been  claimed on    behalf of  the truths   of
Christianity.  Faith  in the Christian teachings if  it  is to be
fully unconditional,    cannot   be rationally    grounded   upon
historical testimony.  Following Lessing, Climacus concludes: "it
is impossible  in the  case  of historical problems to   reach an
objective decision so certain  that no doubt can disturb it."*52*
Genuine  religious  faith  is,    Climacus insists,   essentially
incompatible with doubt.  It appears here at first, therefore, as
if Climacus  were  advancing an  epistemological argument  to the
effect that   any   form  of objective   reasoning  or  objective
knowledge   cannot attain    the   pitch of   certainty  that  is
appropriate to religious faith.  The form of the argument invites
the reader to picture religious faith as CONTINUOUS with ordinary
forms of  belief,    though     somehow fortified     with     an
epistemologically more   secure  foundation -- as   if  it were a
stronger form of one's  ordinary cognitive relation to the object
of one's  belief. Yet  upon closer  examination it  emerges  that
Climacus  wishes   to challenge the  very    terms in  which  the
philosopher is  tempted to pose   this question.  The philosopher
will be  inclined  to read Climacus'   analysis  as forwarding an
epistemological discovery (namely that  faith must be a  peculiar
sort of epistemic  relation  in which  one's level of  subjective
certainty  lacks  an appropriately  secure objective foundation).
This way of  posing the issue, Climacus thinks,  is  a symptom of
the   fact that the philosopher   is preoccupied by the question:
what kind  of KNOWLEDGE is involved  here?  He therefore mistakes
for   an epistemological  discovery  what  is  actually something
Climacus will  term a "categorical distinction."  The philosopher
is involved here in  what Climacus calls  a case of  "dialectical
confusion."  The procedure Climacus  employs for unravelling such
confusions  he  calls  "qualitative  dialectic."   In  his unduly
neglected  essay  "Kierkegaard's  ON AUTHORITY   AND REVOLUTION,"
Cavell illuminates  Climacus'   procedure  by  highlighting   its
similarity to the procedures of Ordinary Language Philosophy: 

Very generally, a dialectical examination  of a concept will show
how the meaning  of that concept changes, and  how the subject of
which it  is the concept  changes, as the  context in which it is
used changes. . . .*53* 


The indictment of the philosopher here lies in the charge that he
not only fails to command a  clear view of his  life, but also of
the language he  draws upon to  describe it.  He fails, according
to  Climacus,  to attend to   the  decisive change  in meaning  a
concept undergoes as its employment shifts  from an aesthetic, to
an  ethical, to a  religious  context.  A religious inflection of
certain  concepts (such as  authority, obedience, faith, silence,
revelation) only has a sense, he thinks,  within the context of a
certain  kind  of life.  Unable  to  make sense  of the religious
employment of   concepts such as    "faith" and "revelation," the
philosopher sees  them as raising perplexing questions concerning
what  kind of EVIDENCE  is   appropriate   to certain sorts    of
beliefs. The philosopher, Climacus argues, entangles himself here
in a    conceptual confusion.    He  overlooks   the   "essential
incommensurability" between the immanent  or secular use of  such
notions and the     transcendental or religious   use.   When  he
discovers that  evidence does not play the  role  (in the case of
concepts such as faith or revelation) in a religious context that
it would in an ordinary  context, the philosopher concludes  that
evidence must play A PECULIAR ROLE (and he will try to argue that
unconditional faith must be based on an objective uncertainty) or
he concludes that  a peculiar KIND of  evidence must be  involved
(and he   will  try to  distinguish  between  a "direct"  and  an
"indirect" revelation).  Climacus' aim is to show the philosopher
that appeals to evidence have no role to play of the sort that he
imagines in the  logic of  religious  concepts such as faith  and
revelation.  The later    Wittgenstein might have called   such a
procedure a "grammatical  investigation."*54* Remarks such as the
following could be thought of as  being, in Wittgenstein's sense,
"grammatical remarks":  "Religious  faith  excludes doubt,"  "one
must BECOME  a Christian,"  "Christianity is  not plausible."*55*
The  philosopher  tends  to convert remarks  such   as these into
questions  of evidence, mistaking what is  a conceptual truth for
an empirical fact -- or, to put the point in terms that bring out
the   analogy with  the    later Wittgenstein  more clearly:  the
philosopher confuses a  grammatical truth  (concerning the proper
employment of  certain religious concepts) for an epistemological
discovery (concerning the   relevant   quantity and  quality   of
evidence).  He is seduced  into this confusion,  Climacus thinks,
by his inattention to the  decisive categorical shift in  meaning
that takes  place when  the notions of  "faith"  or "belief"  are
transposed from  an  epistemic to  a religious  context. Climacus
says that in our  reflective age we  have simply "forgotten" what
it means to be a Christian  -- we no  longer have a religious use
for  these  terms.  Yet   we continue  to employ  a  term such as
"faith" in purportedly  religious contexts as  if we knew what we
meant by it.  In such  a pseudo-religious employment, the term no
longer  has any clear meaning.  We   do not realize  that we have
failed to give the term a clear sense, for  we are not aware that
we have lost our hold on  any religious sense  it might once have
been able to have.  Indeed, it might be that in OUR lives we will
never have a  use for the  religious concept once associated with
that word.  (This is, in fact, what Climacus suspects.)*56* 

But  why does  he  call  his  procedure  a QUALITATIVE dialectic?
Again Cavell is helpful: 

There is one dialectical shift which  is of critical importance .
.  .  that  which    moves  from  "immanent" to    "transcendent"
contexts.  . . .  [W]hen  he is speaking of  this shift .  . . he
characteristically speaks of a   QUALITATIVE . . . difference  in
meaning.   The procedure is this: he  will begin with an immanent
context,  appealing to ordinary contexts  in  which a concept  is
used, . . .  and then . .  . he will  say that these concepts are
decisively  or  qualitatively   different   when   used  in     a
transcendental  sense, when used,  that  is, to characterize  our
relationship to God. . . .  Sometimes . . . he will describe what
the  life of  a man  will  look like  . .  .  which   can only be
understood  in terms of  -- which  (as he  sometimes  puts it) IS
LIVED  IN -- Christian categories.  . . .  As  if to say: in that
life, and for that  life,   the Christian categories have   their
full,  mutually implicating meaning, and  apart from  it they may
have any or none.*57* 


Examples of the procedure of qualitative dialectic run throughout
the first  chapter of the  POSTSCRIPT; for example, when Climacus
writes: "an approximation  is  essentially incommensurable"  with
the  "infinite  personal interest"  that  characterizes religious
faith.*58* What status  is an assertion  such as this supposed to
have?  What sort of work is it supposed to do?  As the POSTSCRIPT
progresses, it  becomes increasingly clear   that remarks such as
these will be asked to support the weight  of an elaborate theory
concerning the relationship between the subjective and passionate
character of religious   faith and the  essentially disinterested
nature of  objective reasoning.   Climacus,  therefore,  does not
remain faithful to his own claim that all he  is doing is marking
categorical distinctions -- assembling   reminders that bring  to
the philosopher's  attention what, in some  sense, he cannot help
but already know.  It  becomes clear that Climacus'  remark about
the  "essential   incommensurability"    of faith and   objective
reasoning    will   be invoked  as    a   thesis, contesting  the
philosopher's counter-thesis that  ordinary  belief and religious
faith  represent commensurable   kinds  of cognitive   states  --
different points, as it were, along a single spectrum of possible
degrees of   epistemological  certainty.    Climacus   himself is
therefore driven in his polemic against the philosopher to INSIST
upon something that by his own lights is a grammatical truth.  He
ends   up   representing what  is   a  mere   truism  as his  own
intellectual discovery,  HIS contribution to  knowledge.   Rather
than simply   showing   the  philosopher that  he    has  run the
categories together  in a  fashion   that has led him   to  speak
nonsense, Climacus offers his thesis  in the form of the negation
of the philosopher's claim.  But the attempt to negate a piece of
nonsense results in another  piece of nonsense.  For this reason,
as well  as because of Climacus' incessant  warnings that what he
is up to cannot be taken at face  value, our suspicions should be
alerted as   we notice that Climacus'  arguments  in  Chapter One
build towards  the   following  overarching thesis:   an infinite
personal interest,  insofar as it is  essentially incommensurable
with ordinary forms of rational justification, requires a leap of
faith -- an act of resolve that  closes its eyes to the objective
probability  of the article  of   faith.   It would  appear  that
Climacus has arrived here  at a result --  a conclusion about the
nature of Christian faith and what its relation to reason is. 

Our  suspicions  should  deepen as  we  turn to   Book  II of the
POSTSCRIPT  which is entitled   "Something About   Lessing."  The
canniness of this transition has  gone unnoticed because scholars
have neglected to ponder the   significance of the fact that  the
argument  of Book One (concerning why  religious  faith cannot be
founded  on historical evidence) is  drawn straight from Lessing.
In a   chapter in Book II entitled   "Theses Possibly or Actually
Attributable  to Lessing," Climacus  cites the essay of Lessing's
mentioned above   and  makes it    explicit that it  (apparently)
advances a thesis broadly similar to the one advanced by Climacus
himself   in Book One.  The  irony  embedded in the  title of the
chapter lies in  the  fact that the  attribution  of "theses"  to
Lessing will prove to involve, on Climacus' reading of Lessing, a
misunderstanding  -- it fails  to   take into account   Lessing's
employment of a  strategy   of irony.   Once again,  Climacus  is
providing his  reader with  directions  for how to  read the book
before him.  The passage from  Lessing that Climacus comments  on
runs as follows: 

If on  historical grounds I  have  no objection to  the statement
that Christ raised to life a dead man; must I therefore accept it
as true that God has a son who is of the same essence as himself?
What  is   the connection   between  my inability   to  raise any
significant  objection  to the  evidence  of  the  former and  my
obligation to believe  something against which my  reason rebels?
. . . 


But to leap with that historical truth to a quite different class
of truths, and   to demand  of   me that  I  should form   all my
metaphysical and moral ideas accordingly . . .  if that is not an
instance of a "transition to another realm of thought," then I do
not know what Aristotle meant by this phrase . . . 


That, then, is the  ugly, broad ditch  which I cannot get across,
however  often and  however earnestly  I have  tried to  make the
leap.  If anyone can help me over it, let him do it, I beg him, I
adjure him.  He will deserve a divine reward from me.*59* 


Lessing's argument  here  --  concerning the  impossibility  of a
rational transition from purely historical (or empirical) grounds
to  the  metaphysical and  moral     truths associated with   the
Christian teaching -- is broadly  parallel to the one outlined by
Climacus in  the  opening portion  of  the POSTSCRIPT.   Climacus
focuses on Lessing's final remarks here, however, and argues that
they  are   drenched with  irony.   He fastens,   for example, on
Lessing's saying  that  the ditch is  "broad,"   pointing out the
implicit categorical confusion such a description involves, given
that  Lessing's own  argument turns  on the  idea that the  chasm
between where he stands and where he needs  to leap is infinitely
wide.*60* Climacus also focuses on Lessing's saying "I cannot get
across .  . . however EARNESTLY  I have tried  to make the leap."
[I]t is a  bit of cunning on  Lessing's  part to make  use of the
word EARNESTLY . .  .[T]he reference to  earnestness is droll . .
. because it stands  in no relation, or  in a comic  relation, to
the leap; for it  is not externally the width  of the chasm which
prevents the leap, but  internally the dialectical  passion which
makes the chasm  infinitely wide.  To  have been very near  doing
something  has in itself a  comic aspect,  but  to have been very
near  making the leap is absolutely  nothing, because the leap is
the category of decision -- And now to have tried with the utmost
earnestness to make the leap --  aye!  That man Lessing is indeed
a wag; for it  is in no  doubt rather with the utmost earnestness
that he has endeavored to make the chasm wide -- does it not seem
as if he were making fun of people?*61* 


Climacus' commentary on  Lessing's  essay  is  to be applied   to
Climacus' own work.    Each purports to  advance  a philosophical
doctrine concerning   the  nature   of   Christianity.   Climacus
suggests however, that if one scratches  the surface of Lessing's
essay one finds, concealed within it, a  parody of the philosophy
and  theology  of his day.  One  must  grasp that Lessing is what
Climacus calls "an ironical personality" --that his references to
earnestness are droll,  that   under the  guise  of advancing   a
doctrine he is  making fun of  people.  Climacus underscores this
claim by reviewing the final conversation that took place between
Lessing  and Jacobi.  The relevant stretch  of this (once) famous
conversation runs as follows: Jacobi: Even the greatest mind will
hit  upon absurd things when he  tries  to explain everything and
make sense of it according to clear concepts. 

Lessing: And who does not try to explain things? 

Jacobi: Whoever does not  want  to explain what is  inconceivable
but only wants to  know the borderline where  it begins: he  will
gain the largest space for human truth. 

Lessing: Words, dear Jacobi, mere words!  The borderline you want
to fix  cannot be determined.  And on   the other side of  it you
give free reign to dreaming nonsense and blindness. 

Jacobi: I believe that the borderline can  be determined.  I want
not to draw it, but only to recognize what is already there.  And
as far as dreaming, nonsense and blindness are concerned . . . 

Lessing: They prevail whenever confused ideas are found. 

Jacobi: More where false ones are  found.  Someone who has fallen
in love  with   certain explanations will   blindly accept  every
consequence  .   .  .  As   I  see it,  the  first  task  of  the
philosopher is to  reveal, to disclose existence.  Explanation is
only a means, a way to this goal -- it is  the first task, but it
is  never the last.   The last task is  what cannot be explained:
The irresolvable, immediate and simple.*62* 


Notice that the   position which Jacobi defends   here strikingly
resembles the  one  generally attributed to the   POSTSCRIPT: the
task  of the  philosopher should  be  to  disclose the  nature of
existence, revealing its  essential character  to lie beyond  the
reach  of    rational    explanation   or    justification.   The
philosopher's task is  not to explain  what  is inconceivable but
rather only to demarcate the borderline  where it begins.  As one
presses on in  the POSTSCRIPT, Climacus appears  to be engaged in
precisely  such   a project of   delineating   the point at which
Christian faith  begins  by exhibiting the specific  junctures at
which   it eludes  the    grasp of  reason.   Moreover,  Jacobi's
published    writings,  for the  most part,   are   devoted to an
impassioned  defense   of faith, very similar    to  the one most
commentators have claimed to find the POSTSCRIPT.  In particular,
in his famous public controversy  with Mendelssohn, Jacobi argues
that only faith   can play the role   of serving as an   ultimate
touchstone of truth -- a role which Mendelssohn wishes to reserve
for  reason.*63*    Jacobi  further   resembles the    prevailing
stereotype of Kierkegaard in that he advances a doctrine in which
the achievement of  faith ultimately rests  upon a  decisive and,
(from the  standpoint  of reason)  irrational act  of the will --
what   he terms  a  SALTO MORTALE.*64*  The  significance of  the
similarity between the doctrine that Jacobi champions and the one
that is generally  attributed and apparently espoused by Climacus
lies in the following important  detail: In his commentary on the
dialogue,  Climacus  applauds Lessing,  siding  with him  against
Jacobi. This is  initially  obscured by  Climacus' references  to
Jacobi  as "the inexhaustible   spokesman for enthusiasm" and  to
"the subtle  Lessing" as a "catechumen"*65*  -- i.e.,  a neophyte
receiving rudimentary  instruction  in  the  basic  doctrines  of
Christianity.  This suggests  that Jacobi   is the  teacher   and
Lessing the learner.    But Climacus'  commentary on   the  final
portion of their dialogue repudiates such a view.  Their dialogue
continues with   Lessing  commenting on   Jacobi's  last  remark:
LESSING: Good, very good, I can use all that; but I cannot follow
it  in the  same way.   In general, your  SALTO MORTALE  does not
displease me . . . Take me along with you if it works. 

Jacobi: If you will  only step on  the elastic spot from which  I
leap, everything else will follow from there. 

Lessing: Even that would demand  a leap which  I cannot ask of my
old legs and heavy head.*66* 


Lessing's saying  to Jacobi "Take me  along with you if it works"
echoes the  sentence (quoted above)   from his famous  essay: "If
anyone can help me over it [the  ugly, broad ditch which I cannot
get across], let him  do it."  Climacus comments: "Here Lessing's
irony  beautifully reveals itself."*67* For if  one is to perform
this  leap, one must    do it  oneself.*68* Jacobi's   philosophy
unwittingly  represents  itself   as  somehow assisting   one  in
performing this task.  It  aspires  to offer assistance where  no
one can  ease the burden of another.   Jacobi does not notice the
peculiarity of Lessing's request.  Rather  he suggests that he is
in a position to mark out the point of  departure for such a leap
so that   "everything  else will  follow  from  there."  Climacus
comments that  Jacobi's formulation here  betrays his inclination
(despite  Jacobi's  constant protestations  that  the  leap  is a
fundamentally  subjective   act)   "to transform  the leap   into
something objective, and   to interpret the  act of  the  leap in
analogy with finding the Archimedean point."*69* Jacobi's form of
expression  reveals    his temptation   to   picture   the  right
philosophical  analysis  of  faith as   serving  for the aspiring
believer as a springboard  upon which he  can step and then faith
itself  will follow  automatically.*70*  The irony   in Lessing's
final response appears in his  suggestion that even the tiny step
he is invited to make onto  Jacobi's philosophical springboard is
more  than he   can  manage.   Climacus'  attention  is  directed
throughout his commentary to the FORM in which Lessing and Jacobi
express    themselves -- here  is where   the decisive difference
between   them    can    be discerned.   Despite    his  constant
disparagement   of  reason,   Jacobi's  form of   expression   is
symptomatic of the  way in which  his project (of determining the
boundaries of reason in order to demarcate the scope of faith) is
ultimately impelled by the same temptation that fuels the project
of the rationalist   theologian he so opposes.  Precisely,   this
same criticism will  apply to  the pseudo-doctrine that  Climacus
will go  on to propose in the  POSTSCRIPT - his own philosophical
attempt to  explicate   the nature   of  the opposition   between
Christianity and  reason. Jacobi attempts  to  offer an objective
argument for why  objective reasoning should transcend itself and
embrace the rationally  inassimilable content of Christian faith.
Climacus summarizes his critique of Jacobi by saying: 

The last thing that human thinking can will to  do, is to will to
transcend itself in the paradoxical.*71* 

Remember Lessing's response to Jacobi: 

Words, dear Jacobi,  mere words!  The borderline  you want to fix
cannot be determined.  And on the other side  of it you give free
reign to dreaming, nonsense and blindness.*72* 


The same charge, I submit,   is to be directed against  Climacus'
own  dialectical  construction in the  POSTSCRIPT.  Climacus goes
on, in the   subsequent chapter, to  drive  a firm  wedge between
subjective and objective thought, arguing that only the former is
appropriate  to religious faith   and  that an admixture  of  the
latter can play no role.  In subjective thought, Climacus argues,
the accent falls on "the how" rather than  on "the what" -- it is
directed towards the character of one's relation to the object of
faith   rather  than  to the   object  itself.   As the  argument
progresses, however, it becomes evident that this distinction, if
firmly insisted  upon, has some rather unattractive consequences.
Climacus writes: 

[I]f   only the  mode  of  the   relationship is  in   truth, the
individual  is in  the truth,  even  if  he should  happen to  be
related to what is not true.*73* 


The  argument therefore moves towards  the  conclusion that it is
only the authenticity of the commitment  that matters here -- HOW
one is committed to the object of one's belief -- and it is of no
importance WHAT it  is  to  which  one  is  committed.   Such  an
argument   obviously threatens   to   license  grisly  forms   of
fanaticism. Indeed,   this   is the most  common   criticism made
against what many commentators have perceived to be Kierkegaard's
teaching.  The secondary literature is primarily preoccupied with
the question as to  whether Kierkegaard is opening the floodgates
of  irrationalism and, if so,  whether  one should mind.  Someone
who clearly minds, Walter Kaufmann, writes: 

It would  be an understatement to  say that no safeguard whatever
remains  against fanaticism:     fanaticism and the  lack  of   a
sensitive  intellectual   conscience   are  made the    proof  of
authority,  and   Kierkegaard    wistfully   deplores  his    own
intelligence.*74* 


Climacus,    however, appears  to   be  concerned   later in  the
POSTSCRIPT, to head off  just such an objection by distinguishing
between genuine  faith and what   he calls "subjective  madness."
Genuine faith requires that the object of one's interest admit of
an  "infinitely  passionate interestedness,"   something Climacus
argues no  finite object can support.   He  takes Don  Quixote as
"the prototype" of "a subjective  madness in which the passion of
inwardness embraces a particular finite fixed idea."*75* 

One  can  distinguish between faith  and  such forms  of madness,
Climacus says, because only  one sort of "what" can appropriately
correspond to  the "how" of  true inwardness  -- one  that  fully
accentuates  the   opposition  between   subjective  belief   and
objective thought.  True  subjectivity turns out on this analysis
to have  an   objective  correlate!   In  the  case of  genuinely
subjective  truth, Climacus argues, "The conceptual determination
of  the truth must include  an  expression for the antithesis  to
objectivity."*76* What  began as an  argument for the  claim that
the  infinitely  interested   character  of  religious   faith is
incompatible   with   the  essentially   disinterested nature  of
objective thought now culminates in the considerably more radical
claim that, from the  standpoint of objective thought, the object
of faith  must  be maximally  indigestible  to reason.   Climacus
attempts to argue that the more repellent to reason the object of
one's   faith  is, the  greater one's    passion will be spurred.
Climacus concludes: 

Faith is precisely the contradiction between the infinite passion
of the individual's inwardness and the objective uncertainty.*77* 

Where Kant had wished  to draw limits  to reason in order to make
room  for faith, Climacus argues  that faith,  in order to attain
the appropriate decisiveness  of commitment, must be continuously
involved in  running up against the limits  of reason. This leads
Climacus through a series of  arguments that propose to determine
what object of belief  would be intrinsically the most  repellent
to reason.   He  attempts to   demonstrate that  the  paradoxical
content of Christian doctrine can only be embraced at the cost of
an  absolute  "crucifixation of the  understanding":  a  complete
sacrifice of one's reason.  This is appropriate, Climacus argues,
for nothing  else will generate  the requisite  pitch of passion.
Faith therefore involves  believing directly against the grain of
one's understanding.*78*   The central contradiction  embedded in
the dialectical structure of the POSTSCRIPT lies in the fact that
Climacus' argument also seems to require that the believer RETAIN
his understanding in  order to be able  to use it to discriminate
between the objective  absurdity  of Christian doctrine  and less
repulsive forms of nonsense.*79* Climacus writes: 

Nonsense  . .  .  [the   believer]  cannot believe  against   the
understanding, for  precisely the understanding will discern that
it is nonsense and prevent him from believing it.*80* 


Climacus' analysis therefore commits him to a distinction between
mere absurdity  and "objective  absurdity"  - a category of  deep
nonsense which is supposed to  be qualitatively more repellent to
reason than ordinary  nonsense.   The Christian paradox  is  then
proposed       as   the highest  possible       instance  of such
incomprehensibility   -- it is   not  merely incomprehensible but
objectively incomprehensible.*81* Climacus' parody on speculative
philosophy reaches its climax with the following obvious problem:
Why  reach   for the  absurdity of  Christian    doctrine at this
juncture rather than some  other absurdity?*82* Can we make sense
of the  idea  of a   maximally paradoxical belief?   Can we  rank
incomprehensible "thoughts"   by the  degree of their  absurdity?
Does   absurdity come   in   degrees?  A   surprising number   of
commentators  have tried to  dutifully  water  down and clean  up
Climacus' argument here in the POSTSCRIPT  (to the effect that it
is precisely on account of  the unique extremity of its absurdity
that Christian doctrine should    be  adopted as the object    of
faith).  While completely ignoring the   form of the work,   many
scholars   have attempted to  be  as   charitable as possible  in
interpreting its content  -- doing their  best  to keep  the work
from   ending  up  looking anything  like   a  parody of  serious
philosophy.   When  approaching   the  POSTSCRIPT,  a   scholarly
commitment   to  adhere at  all   costs  to such a  principle  of
sympathetic   textual  interpretation  -- while    systematically
neglecting what Climacus  calls the "incessant activity of irony"
in the work -- will lead  one astray.  Indeed,  this has been the
fate of all  of the standard  attempts to extract the argument of
the work while  ignoring Climacus'  vehement warnings about   the
work's peculiar character -- in particular, his remark at the end
that the book was written in order to be revoked. 

"Climacus" is  the latinized form of the   Greek word for ladder.
The   dialectical ladder of    the  POSTSCRIPT  culminates  in  a
demonstration and  declaration   of the   nonsensicality  of  its
doctrine.  Its doctrine turns out to be a pseudo-doctrine.  It is
a ladder which once we have climbed up  it, we are asked to throw
away. 

Wittgenstein writes in §  6.54 of the TRACTATUS: "My propositions
serve  as   ELUCIDATIONS in the      following  way: anyone   who
understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical, when he
has used  them -- as steps  --  to climb up  beyond  them." It is
significant  that  Wittgenstein   speaks  here of    "anyone  who
understands ME": we cannot  understand his PROPOSITIONS (for they
are nonsense), but we can come  to understand THE AUTHOR and what
sort of activity he is  engaged in*83* --  one of showing that we
suffer from  the illusion of thinking  we mean  something when we
mean nothing.  The  aim therefore is  to  undo our attraction  to
various grammatically well-formed strings  of words that resonate
with an aura of sense.  The silence that  both the POSTSCRIPT and
the TRACTATUS  wish to leave us  with at the end  is one in which
nothing has been  said and there  is nothing to  say (of the sort
that we   imagined there to  be). To  recognize  it AS  a silence
requires  recognizing  that this  book  does  not aspire   to say
anything.  It is a silence they see as  produced by an attempt to
assert philosophical   truths of  a certain sort.    It is  not a
silence that  is opened up through  a procedure of delimiting the
sayable and hence which  is exhibited only  once we have  reached
the conclusion of the  philosophical  discourse.  The silence  is
itself a symptom of the philosophical discourse.  It is therefore
not a silence the work itself confers  upon us, but rather one it
discovers us in  -- one that we mistake  for meaningful speech in
our attraction  to words that fail to  assert  anything.  That we
are subject to such attractions is what these works hope to show.
They aspire  to serve as a mirror  in which  we can recognize our
own philosophical inclinations.  The silence we  are left with is
not the pregnant silence that comes  with a censorious posture of
guarding the sanctity of  the ineffable.   (The standard Pears  &
McGuinness translation of  the final passage  of the TRACTATUS --
"What we cannot speak about we must PASS OVER in silence" -- with
its implication  that there is  SOMETHING to  pass over loads the
text in favor of a  notion  of pregnant  silence.)  One can  call
this activity of unmasking nonsense a kind  of "showing," as long
as one remains clear that there is no "it" (which cannot be said)
that is shown.  One piece of nonsense may (or  may not) show that
another  (less self-evidently nonsensical)  piece of  nonsense IS
nonsense -- and  that  is all nonsense   can show.  This  is  the
assumption upon which the construction of these ladders is based.
It is an insight into the EMPTINESS of its predecessors that each
successive rung of  the    ladder hopes  to trigger  about    the
sentences put forward in each of the rungs that come before it. 

The preface and   the conclusion of  the TRACTATUS  serve, I have
said  (following Cora  Diamond),  as the  frame  in  which we are
provided directions  for how to   read that book.    It is in the
preface that Wittgenstein  first tells us  that what  lies beyond
the  limit of  what  can  be  said is  EINFACH  UNSINN --  simply
nonsense.  The preface begins with the following words: 

This book will  perhaps  only  be understood  by  those who  have
themselves already thought the thoughts which are expressed in it
-- or  similar thoughts.   It is  not a  work  of doctrine.   Its
purpose would be achieved  if it affords satisfaction to  someone
who reads it with understanding (my translation). 


Wittgenstein's insistence here that what he has given us is not a
work of DOKTRINE goes with his later remark that "philosophy," as
exemplified  in the TRACTATUS,  comprises "not a body of doctrine
but an activity.*84*   Naturally,   I  wish to interpret     this
insistence against  the background of  Climacus' parallel warning
that his work should not be read as  presenting doctrine -- that,
indeed,    that   would    constitute   THE   GREATEST   POSSIBLE
MISUNDERSTANDING of his work.  When interpreted in this light the
first sentence of  Wittgenstein's preface is initially  puzzling:
for what we learn by  the conclusion of his book  is that part of
what  he means in  saying that it   is not engaged in propounding
doctrine  but      rather in a   certain    kind  of activity (of
elucidation) is that the work contains no thoughts -- no thoughts
are expressed in it.  But the point  here is not that it contains
thinkable thoughts that one could share with the author, but that
one must share (or have shared) with the author the experience of
mistaking its (pseudo-) propositions for  thoughts that one takes
oneself to be thinking.  So  the  implicit distinction we saw  in
the penultimate section of the TRACTATUS -- between understanding
THE     PROPOSITIONS  of the  book    (which   is impossible) and
understanding THE AUTHOR (by recognizing his "propositions" to be
nonsensical) -- parallels  the implicit distinction  in the first
sentence of the preface  between understanding what one  reads IN
THE BOOK  (which turns out  to be nonsense) and understanding THE
BOOK (by grasping its point: that in the end  we have to throw it
away).  This parallel  is recapitulated in  the third sentence of
the preface in the implicit distinction between someone who reads
the book (imagining himself to be) UNDERSTANDING WHAT IT SAYS (in
which  case  its purpose would NOT   be achieved) and someone who
reads  it WITH  UNDERSTANDING.   This distinction rests  upon the
idea  that, although there is no  such thing as understanding the
propositions in the book,  there is such a  thing as the illusion
of    understanding them.  The   guiding  assumption  of both the
POSTSCRIPT and the  TRACTATUS is that the philosopher (typically)
suffers from an illusion of understanding, from the projection of
an  illusory sense   onto  a (pseudo-)proposition  which  lacks a
(clear)  sense.  The  task therefore  is  not  to refute what  he
thinks, but to show him that there is nothing of the sort that he
imagines himself to be thinking.*85* Kierkegaard writes about his
pseudonymous works: 

[A]n  illusion  can  never  be  destroyed directly,   and only by
indirect means can it be radically removed. . . . A direct attack
only strengthens a person in his illusion.  There is nothing that
requires such gentle  handling as an  illusion, if  one wishes to
dispel it. . . . That is what is achieved by the indirect method,
which . . . arranges everything dialectically for the prospective
captive, and then shyly withdraws.*86* 


The method  employed  in both  the POSTSCRIPT  and the  TRACTATUS
relies upon  the thought that under   such circumstances the only
procedure  that will  prove  genuinely  elucidatory  is one  that
attempts   to   enter  into    the   philosopher's  illusion   of
understanding and   explode  it from  within.    In this respect,
Wittgenstein's description  of his  method  in the  PHILOSOPHICAL
INVESTIGATIONS applies equally well  to  both the POSTSCRIPT  and
the TRACTATUS: "My aim is: to  teach you to pass  from a piece of
disguised   nonsense to something   that  is patent  nonsense" (§
464).*87* The distinction implicitly drawn in section 6.54 of the
TRACTATUS  between   understanding the propositions   in the book
(which we are not asked to do) and understanding THE AUTOR of the
book (which   we are asked   to  do) depends   on this  idea that
although  we cannot understand  what an utterer of nonsense says,
we can understand the  utterer -- i.e., enter  into the point  of
view   from  which this   piece    of  nonsense appears   to  say
something.*88* To speak  here of "understanding the utterer"  is,
in one  sense, misleading: it  invites  the idea that there  is a
definite semantic content to be grasped.  Wittgenstein's words in
the  preface are that  we should  read  the work  MIT VERSTÄNDNIS
("with understanding")  -- as, for  example, in English  we might
speak  of treating  someone  in  difficulty "with understanding,"
i.e.,  with appreciation and compassion  for  their plight.   The
goal here is not  to grasp WHAT the  other says, but to  make his
IMPULSE  to  these particular    words  humanly  intelligible  to
oneself.  The criterion of our having successfully performed this
act of imaginative identification with the utterer of nonsense is
that   we are able     to successfully anticipate the  (apparent)
logical relations   that  he will   imagine   obtain between  the
nonsensical string  in question and other (pseudo-) propositions.
Wittgenstein's aim in  the TRACTATUS is  to lead  the philosopher
from  the original "disguised" piece of  nonsense (to which he is
attracted) through this network  of (apparent) logical  relations
to some  more   patently nonsensical  (pseudo-)consequence.   The
criterion  of our having understood the  author of the TRACTATUS,
our   having both  grasped  his  elucidatory strategy and  worked
through  the consequences  of his pseudo-doctrines  -- our having
climbed, that  is, all the way up  the ladder --  is,  as he says
("eventually")  that    we  recognize    his   "propositions"  as
nonsensical and  throw them away.   Some such distinction between
understanding the  character  of the work   and understanding the
content of  the doctrine  it appears  to propound is,  I believe,
essential to illuminating  the central exegetical puzzle that has
plagued commentaries on  both the  POSTSCRIPT and the  TRACTATUS:
namely  in  what  sense   can  the reader   be   called upon   to
"understand" these works, if  they consists of nonsense and hence
fail  to advance doctrine? -- as  well as  the related puzzle: in
what sense can the propositions  of the work  be said to form the
structure  of  a ladder? -- i.e.,  how  can one piece of nonsense
follow  from,  or entail, another?  According  to  the readings I
have attempted to sketch in this paper,  we are not asked, at the
end of each  of  these works,  to  understand the theses  each of
these authors  appears to advance,  but we  are asked to  try  to
understand what they   are  up   to  in  constructing  such    an
appearance, and the sign that we have succeeded in doing so, they
tell us, is that we are no  longer tempted to advance such theses
ourselves -- that we throw them away.*89* 


NOTES

*1* From "The Maniac," Chapter Two of ORTHODOXY, in
G. K. Chesterton: COLLECTED WORKS, Vol. I, San Francisco:
Ignatius Press (1986), p.  222.

*2* Quoted by Rush Rhees in DISCUSSIONS OF WITTGENSTEIN, London:
Routledge and Kegan Paul (1970), p. 43.

*3* Maurice O'C. Drury, "Some Notes on Conversations with
Wittgenstein," in LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: PERSONAL RECOLLECTION
(1981), ed. by R. Rhees, Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield,
p. 102.

*4* Take, for example, his remark in a letter to Norman Malcolm
that "Kierkegaard is far too deep for me"; cited in Norman
Malcolm, LUDWIG WITTGENSTEIN: A MEMOIR, (1984), p. 106.

*5* H. D. P. Lee reports: "He told me that he learned Danish in
order to be able to read Kierkegaard in the original, and he
clearly had a great admiration for him"; "Wittgenstein
1929-1931," PHILOSOPHY 54:218.

*6* Quoted by the editor in Ludwig Wittgenstein, LETTERS TO
RUSSELL; KEYNES AND MOORE, ed. with an introduction by G. H. von
Wright, with B. F.  McGuinness, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University
Press (1974).

*7* See my "Must We Show What We Cannot Say," in THE SENSES OF
STANLEY CAVELL, edited by Richard Fleming and Michael Payne,
Lewisburg, PA: Bucknell University Press (1989), pp. 242-283; and
my "Throwing Away the Top of the Ladder," forthcoming in THE YALE
REVIEW.

*8* THEMES OUT OF SCHOOL, San Francisco: North Point Press
(1984), pp. 217, 218, 220, 225.

*9* The most lucid presentation of such a reading that I know of
is Peter Geach's essay "Saying and Showing in Wittgenstein and
Frege," in ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF G. H. VON WRIGHT, J. Hintikka,
ed., ACTA PHILOsOPHICA FENNICA, 28, pp. 54-70.

*10* Candidates for what it is that is shown include the logical
structure of language, the logical structure of the world, the
sheer existence of the world, the nature of the Ethical, and the
mystical.

*11* CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT, translated by David
Swenson and Walter Lowrie, Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press (1941), p.  551.  Kierkegaard insisted that a "First and
Last Declaration" be appended to the end of the POSTSCRIPT
without pagination to emphasize the discontinuity between it and
the work by Climacus of which it was in no way to form a part.
Princeton University Press in the English edition of the
POSTSCRIPT has scrupulously observed Kierkegaard's wishes.  In
the reckless interests of scholarly convenience (since the
POSTSCRIPT ends on p.  550), I shall refer to the four pages of
the document as pages 551, 552, 553, and 554.

*12* POSTSCRIPT ,p. 551.

*13* Ibid, p. 552.

*14* Ibid, p. 552.

*15* Ibid, p. 551.

*16* Ibid, p. 551.

*17* Ibid, p. 552

*18* This first group forms a much larger percentage of the
community of Kierkegaard scholars than is the case with the
corresponding group of TRACTATUS scholars.  TRACTATUS scholars
have, by and large, felt that they should have SOMETHING to say
about the peculiar status of the work.

*19* A relatively clear-minded justification of this conception
of the authorship is provided by C. Stephen Evans in the opening
chapter of his book KIERKEGAARD's FRAGMENTS AND POSTSCRIPT;
Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press (1983).

*20* POSTSCRIPT, 545.

*21* Compare Wittgenstein's strikingly Kierkegaardian remarks on
religious belief in LECTURES ON AESTHETICS, PSYCHOLOGY, AND
RELIGIOUS BELIEF, edited by C. Barrett; Berkeley, CA: University
of California Press (1967).

*22* POSTSCRIPT, p. 546.

*23* Ibid, p. 546.

*24* Ibid, p. 546.

*25* Ibid, p. 546.

*26* Ibid, p. 547.

*27* Ibid, p. 549.

*28* This observation concerning the structure of the TRACTATUS
can be found in Cora Diamond's invaluable essay "Ethics,
Imagination and the Method of the TRACTATUS (forthcoming in
WIENER REIHE: THEMEN DER PHILOSOPHIE, BanD 5, edited by Richard
Heinrich and Helmuth Vetter, Vienna: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 1990).

*29* Ibid, p. 548.

*30* Ibid, p. 549.

*31* Ibid, p. 451.

*32* Ibid, p. 216.

*33* Ibid, pp. 264-5.

*34* Ibid, p. 235.

*35* Ibid, p. 223.

*36* Cf. PHILOSOPHICAL INVESTIGATIONS, §  127.

*37* The remark occurs in THE LAST YEARS: JOURNALS, 1853-1855,
edited by Alexander Dru, and is quoted in John Updike's essay
"The Fork," collected in KIERKEGAARD: A COLLECTION OF CRITICAL
ESSAYS, edited by Josiah Thompson; Garden City, NY: Doubleday
(1972), p. 165.

*38* The anonymous review is reprinted under its original title
"Philosophische Brocken oder ein Bisschen Philosophie," collected
in MATERIALIEN ZUR PHILOSOPHIE SOEREN KIERKEGAARDS, edited by
Michael Theunissen and Wilfried Greve, Frankfurt am Main:
Suhrkamp (1979), pp.  127-131.

*39* POSTSCRIPT, p. 245n.  This theme is also sounded when
Climacus comments on the works of the other pseudonymous authors:
"It has never been a mystery to me why the pseudonymous authors
have again and again asked to be excused from being reviewed.
Since the contrasting form of the presentation makes it
impossible to report the content in an abstract, because the
abstract takes away the feature of greatest importance and
falsely transforms the book into a doctrinizing treatise, the
authors are fully justified in contenting themselves with a few
actual readers, rather than being misunderstood by the many who
by means of a review have found something they can run with"
(p. 252).

*40* POSTSCRIPT, p. 245n.

*41* Ibid, p. 245n.

*42* "Letters to Ludwig von Ficker," edited by A. Janik,
translated by B. Gillette; in WITTGENSTEIN: SOURCES AND
PERSPECTIVES, edited by C.  G.  Luckhardt, Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press (1979), pp. 94-95.

*43* This is perhaps the place to emphasize that the reading
sketched in this paper -- insofar as it takes seriously the idea
that the entire plan of Climacus' work embodies a parody on
speculative philosophy -- is proposed only as an account of the
structure of the three works authored by Johannes Climacus: the
(unfinished) DE OMNIBUS DUBITANDEM, the PHILOSOPHICAL FRAGMENTS,
and the CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT.  These works are
designed to engage, exhibit, and defeat the form of temptation
(to evade the demands of the religious life) which Kierkegaard
sees as typical of the philosopher: namely, the temptation to
construe every difficulty as requiring the application of one's
intellect.  Climacus can, in this sense, be thought of as
Kierkegaard's PHILOSOPHICAL pseudonym.  The other pseudonymous
works are designed to engage, exhibit and defeat other forms of
temptation and evasion.  The different pseudonymous works all
share a common structure only in a very general sense: namely,
each serves as a mirror (though each kind of pseudonymous work in
a different way) in which a certain kind of reader can recognize
himself -- in this sense they all employ what Kierkegaard calls
"a strategy of indirection."  It would be a mistake, however, to
look for an exact analogue to the ladder-structure of Climacus'
works in the writings of the other pseudonymous authors.

*44* Cf. TRACTATUS §  6.521.

*45* POSTSCRIPT, p. 80.

*46* Ibid, p. 143.

*47* Ibid, p. 143.  Climacus makes it explicit later on that it
is specifically against the temptations of "the wise man" that
his authorship is directed: "It is not for the simple-minded that
this introduction undertakes to make it difficult to become a
Christian. . . . [E]very essential existential task puts human
beings on a level with respect to it, the difficulty . . . is
thus equally difficult for the wise and for the simple, and
perhaps more difficult for the wise, because the wise man's
reflection will serve him with many evasions" (p. 342).

*48* Ibid, p. 245n.  This analogy between liberating someone from
a surfeit of knowledge and liberating him from a surfeit of food
occurs at an earlier juncture within the body of the text:
"[E]ven though my effort may be misunderstood, I am convinced
nevertheless that it is just as noble as that of the others.
When at a banquet, where the guests have already overeaten, one
person is concerned about bringing on new courses, another about
having a vomitive at hand, it is perfectly true that only the
first has interpreted correctly the requirement of the guests,
but I wonder whether the other might not also say that he is
concerned about what their requirement might be" (p.  166).

*49* Ibid, p. 246n.  The footnote continues: "This then becomes a
real communication -- to one who has already found the difficulty
easy to understand."  The enduring misunderstanding here, for
Climacus, is the philosopher's assumption that the difficulty
calls primarily for the offices of the understanding.  To simply
say this to the philosopher, however, simply invites the idea
that THIS is what he needs, above all, to understand: "If men had
forgotten what it means to exist religiously, they had doubtless
also forgotten what it means to exist as human beings; this must
therefore be set forth.  But above all it must not be done in a
dogmatizing manner, for then the misunderstanding would instantly
take the explanatory effort to itself in a new misunderstanding,
as if existing consisted in getting to know something about this
or that.  If communicated in the form of knowledge, the recipient
is led to adopt the misunderstanding that it is knowledge that he
is to receive, and then we are again in the sphere of knowledge.
Only one who has some conception of the enduring capacity of a
misunderstanding to assimilate even the most strenuous effort of
explanation and still remain the same misunderstanding, will be
able to appreciate the difficulties of an authorship where every
word must be watched, . . ." (p. 223).  This enduring capacity of
the philosopher to misunderstand the problem (by devoting himself
to an understanding of his misunderstanding in a fashion that
precisely enacts his original misunderstanding) is summed up by
Kierkegaard in the following entry in his journal: Even though
this be printed and read again and again, the lecturers will
still make a profit out of me, teach about me, maybe adding a
comment like this: "The peculiar thing about this is that it
cannot be taught" (THE DIARY OF SOREN KIERKEGAARD, edited by
Peter Rohde, Seacaucus, NJ: Citadel Press (1960), pp. 147-148).

*50* Ibid, p. 166.  This should be connected, however, with
Climacus' later qualification: "My purpose is to make it
difficult to become a Christian, yet not more difficult than it
is" (p. 495).

*51* Ibid, p. 25.

*52* Ibid, p. 41.

*53* MUST WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY?,  pp. 169-170.

*54* I owe this observation to Cavell; Ibid, p. 169.

*55* Ibid, p. 169.

*56* I am borrowing here from my "Must We Show What We Cannot
Say?"  op. cit., pp. 255-256.

*57* MUST WE MEAN WHAT WE SAY?, p. 170.

*58* POSTSCRIPT, p. 26.

*59* LESSING'S THEOLOGICAL WRITINGS, translated by Henry
Chadwick, Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press (1956),
pp. 54-55.

*60* Cf. POSTSCRIPT, p. 90.

*61* Ibid, pp. 90-91.

*62* The translation of the dialogue I am relying on here is by
Frederick C. Beiser and is provided in his THE FATE OF REASON,
Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press (1987), p. 67.

*63* Cf. Beiser, p. 89.

*64* Cf. Beiser, p. 66.

*65* POSTSCRIPT, p. 92.

*66* Beiser, pp. 67-68.

*67* POSTSCRIPT, p. 932.

*68* Climacus' full commentary on Lessing's remark to Jacobi that
"your SALTO MORTALE does not displease me . . . take me along
with you if it works" runs as follows: "Here Lessing's irony
beautifully reveals itself, since he is presumably aware that
when one is to leap, one must be alone about it, and hence also
alone about understanding its impossibility.  One cannot help
admiring his urbanity, and his affectionate predilection for
Jacobi, and the conversational art which so politely says:
"NEHMEN SIE MICH MIT -- WENN ES ANGEHT" " (p. 93).

*69* Ibid, p. 93.

*70* Climacus comments: "When one is indisposed to make the leap,
so indisposed that this passion makes the chasm infinitely wide,
then the most ingenious contrivance for the purpose will help one
not at all.  Lessing sees very clearly that the leap, as being
decisive, is subject to a qualitative dialectic, and permits no
approximating transition.  His answer is therefore a jest.  It is
very far from being dogmatic, it is entirely correct
dialectically, and it is personally evasive" (p. 94).

*71* Ibid, p. 95.

*72* Lessing's response here appears to agree with the criticism
of Jacobi's SALTO MORTALE offered by Mendelssohn which Climacus
closes his discussion of Jacobi by quoting approvingly (p. 95).
The full passage from Mendelssohn to which Climacus alludes at
this juncture runs as follows: "To doubt if there is something
that not only transcends, but also lies completely outside the
sphere of our concepts is what I call a leap beyond myself.  My
CREDO is: doubt about what I cannot conceive does not disturb me.
A question I cannot answer is to me as good as no question at
all" (Beiser, p. 71).  Mendelssohn's response here would appear
to parallel Lessing's perfectly. The difference between them,
however, is that Mendelssohn wishes to oppose Jacobi's thesis
(that the content of religious faith cannot be rationally
conceived or justified) by affirming its negation.  Mendelssohn
simply ends up with the polar opposite of Jacobi's doctrine.
Hence Mendelssohn writes: "My religion recognizes no obligation
to resolve doubt other than through rational means; and it
commands no MERE faith in eternal truths" (Beiser, p. 79).
Lessing, on Climacus' reading of him, sees Jacobi's
anti-rationalism and Mendelssohn's rationalism as dialectical
twins -- the apparent integrity of each conferred upon it through
participation in its quarrel with the other, each feeding on and
sustaining the other.  Lessing's achievement, on this view of
him, is to achieve a form of expression that resists the reader's
temptation to assimilate him to either one of these two poles.
Rather than seeking to participate in their quarrel, he seeks to
help the reader achieve a perspective from which the very terms
of the quarrel might appear suspect.

*73* This line of thought attains its most radical expression in
the following passage: "If one who lives in the midst of
Christendom goes up to the house of God, the house of the true
God, with the true conception of God in his knowledge, and prays,
but prays in a false spirit; and one who lives in an idolatrous
community prays with the entire passion of the infinite, although
his eyes rest upon the image of an idol: where is there most
truth?  The one prays in truth to God though he worships an idol;
the other prays falsely to the true God, and hence worships in
fact an idol" (POSTSCRIPT, pp. 179-180).

*74* FROM SHAKESPEARE TO EXISTENTIALISM, Garden City, NY:  Anchor
(1960), p. 181.

*75* POSTSCRIPT, p. 175.

*76* Ibid, p. 182.

*77* Ibid, p. 182.

*78* Climacus writes: "Every man, the wisest and the simplest,
can qualitatively . . .  distinguish just as essentially between
what he understands and what he does not understand, . . . and he
can discover that there is something which is, in spite of the
fact that it is against his understanding and way of
thinking. . . . In case this absurd is Christianity, he is a
believing Christian; but if he understands it as not the absurd,
he is EO IPSO no longer a believing Christian .  . . until he
annuls his understanding again as an illusion and a
misunderstanding, and relates himself to the Christian absurd"
(pp. 495-496).

*79* Climacus explains: "So the believing Christian not only
possesses but uses his understanding, . . . in relation to
Christianity he believes against the understanding and in this
case also uses understanding -- to make sure that he believes
against the understanding" (p. 504).

*80* Ibid, p. 504.

*81* This concept of objective absurdity -- absolute
paradoxicality -- paves the way for the transition from the
penultimate rung of the ladder of the POSTSCRIPT (Religiousness
A) to the final rung (Religiousness B).

*82* This observation also serves as the central pivot in the
reading of the POSTSCRIPT offered by Henry E. Allison in his
excellent article "Christianity and Nonsense" (THE REVIEW OF
METAPHYSICS, March 1967, Vol.  XX, No. 3).

*83* I owe this observation to Diamond, op. cit.

*84* This activity is further specified as one of ELUCIDATION: "A
philosophical work consists essentially of elucidations.  The
result of philosophy is not a number of philosophical
propositions,' but that propositions become clear" (§ 4.112).  It
should be evident from the weight that I am asking them to bear
that I view these remarks here (in the precise middle of the
book) as also functioning as part of the frame of the work.

*85* This parallel between the structure of the TRACTATUS and
that of the POSTSCRIPT, however, has its limits: whereas the
author of the TRACTATUS identifies virtually all of the sentences
in his book as "plain nonsense," the author of the POSTSCRIPT
identifies only the final doctrine, with which the work reaches
its climax, as an "absurdity."  Therefore, whereas the reader who
understands the author of the TRACTATUS needs to recognize
(virtually) ALL of the book's sentences as nonsense (with the
exception of those sentences which comment on the overall
elucidatory strategy of the work), the reader who understands the
author of the POSTSCRIPT needs to see only that the author's
earlier propositions are marshalled in support of an argument
that eventually CULMINATES in a piece of nonsense. So, whereas
the entire body of the TRACTATUS forms a continuous train of
nonsense, the entire body of the Postscript does not.  In the
latter work, the level of unintelligibility gradually rises to a
shriller and shriller pitch as it moves from propositions for
which a clear sense can be given (depending upon whether we
construe them aesthetically or religiously), to ones which teeter
on the brink of sense (when mere truisms are INSISTED upon) to
sheer nonsense (an affirmation of objective absurdity).

*86* THE POINT OF VIEW FOR MY WORK AS AN AUTHOR, New York: Harper
and Brothers (1962), pp. 24-26.  At the level of generality at
which Kierkegaard speaks here, it is proper to speak therefore
(despite the qualification offered in the preceding footnote) of
an overarching analogy between the PROCEDURE of the TRACTATUS as
a whole and that of the POSTSCRIPT as a whole; both works employ
an "indirect method" in which the author "arranges everything
dialectically for the prospective captive, and then shyly
withdraws."  But whereas the author of the TRACTATUS wishes to
exhibit the NONSENSICALITY of the philosophical claims with which
his book begins, the author of the POSTSCRIPT wishes to exhibit
the LUDICROUSNESS of the philosophical claims with which his book
begins.  The author of the TRACTATUS attempts to lead his reader
from the latently nonsensical to the patently nonsensical.  The
author of the POSTSCRIPT attempts to lead his reader from the
latently ludicrous to the patently ludicrous (and hence barely
sensical), and then on to the patently nonsensical.  Where the
TRACTATUS begins directly with nonsense, the POSTSCRIPT begins
first with "ludicrousness" which it then elaborates into nonsense
in an attempt to make it philosophically respectable. The
disanalogy is therefore that the latter work employs a strategy
of PARODY (with its concomitant devices of irony and humor) that
the former does not. The analogy is that both works culminate in
patent nonsense and hence both are -- as each declares at its
conclusion -- written in order to be revoked.

*87* The relation between the TRACTATUS and the INVESTIGATIONS is
therefore misconceived, in my view, if one pictures the
INVESTIGATIONS as attacking doctrines (e.g., the picture-theory
of meaning) that the TRACTATUS was concerned to propound.  The
tendency has been to read the doctrines that Wittgenstein attacks
in (especially sections § 65-105 of) the INVESTIGATIONS back into
the TRACTATUS -- as if the relation between the two books could
be comprehended by seeing the one as repudiating the theses
affirmed in the other.  Both works are self-avowedly concerned to
show (many of) the same doctrines to be nonsensical. Furthermore,
the conception of nonsense at work in both is in many respects
the same.  (This conception is nicely summarized in section § 500
of the INVESTIGATIONS where Wittgenstein says that it is not
(what we are tempted to call) "the sense" of a nonsensical
proposition that is nonsensical.  A nonsensical proposition is
simply devoid of sense -- although it will generally be the case
that, if we try, we will be able to find a use, and therefore a
sense, for it.  In the TRACTATUS this point concerning nonsense
is summarized in section § 5.4733: "[I]f it has no sense, this
can only be because we have given no MEANING to some of its
constituent parts.  (Even if we believe that we have done so.)"
In neither work is there room for the idea of an intrinsically
nonsensical proposition -- one which has, as it were, a
nonsensical sense.  In the TRACTATUS this thought is summed up in
the remark that "We cannot give a sign a wrong sense" (§ 5.4732).
The difference between these works cannot be grasped therefore by
saying that what the TRACTATUS conceives of as instances of deep
and intelligible nonsense, the INVESTIGATIONS sees as mere
nonsense.  For mere nonsense is the only kind of nonsense either
of these works allows for.  The difference in their respective
teachings lies not so much in WHAT they each diagnose as
nonsense, but in HOW they do so.  At the level of what can be
captured in one or two metaphilosophical slogans, these two works
cannot be easily distinguished from each other.  For example,
section § 4.112 of the TRACTATUS -- "Philosophy is not a body of
doctrine but an activity.  A philosophical work consists
essentially of elucidations "-- applies as aptly to
Wittgenstein's later as to his early work.  The decisive shift in
his thought lies, for the most part, not in his coming to
repudiate certain clearly formulated philosophical views or in
his coming to see philosophy as an activity which eschews
doctrine, but rather in his understanding of what sort of
activity philosophy must be if it is to hold forth the promise of
proving genuinely elucidatory.

*88* The distinction I am relying on here is drawn by Diamond,
op.  cit.

*89* I am indebted to conversations with Steven Affeldt, Stanley
Cavell, Cora Diamond, Arata Hamawaki, John McNees and Lisa Van
Alstyne, to comments on an earlier draft by Hilary Putnam and
Martin Stone, to criticisms made in the discussions that followed
readings of earlier versions at Santa Barbara and the University
of Pittsburgh, and finally to Peter Winch for suggesting the
epigraph from Chesterton.