Kierkegaard--theory extended

Kierkegaard’s structure for tensed time is fully derived from the “lives of the selves” (Taylor, 318). It is born from the temporal interplay of man as object (matter) and man as subject (consciousness). One is finite and limited while the other feels limitless by way of imagination. Taylor begins his breakdown of Kierkegaard’s theory with a passage from A Concept of Dread. The passage reads as a series of equations (if a=b=c, than a=c and the like). In the interest of clarity, I’ve decided to break the passage down into a simple list:

1. man is spirit
2. spirit is self
3. self is the relation
3a. this relation is one that relates itself to itself
4. man is synthesis
5. synthesis is the relation of two factors through a third
6. the four factor pairings synthesized by man are a) infinitude/finitude b) soul/body c) possibility/necessity (actuality) d) temporal/eternal
7. self is the third factor bringing all four factor pairings together

(Kierkegaard, 315/Taylor 318-9)

Taylor then provides two caveats posited by Kierkegaard to this synthesis of man. The first caveat arises through the soul-body pairing. “The synthesis of the soulish to the bodily is to be posited by the spirit, but the spirit is the eternal” (Kierkegaard, 360-1/Taylor, 319) If the self is spirit and the spirit is eternal, then the self cannot synthesize temporality and eternality; the self is equivalent to one of these factors through the spirit.

Kierkegaard’s second caveat is this:

The self is composed of infinity and finiteness. But the synthesis is a relationship which, though it is derived, relates itself to itself, which means freedom. The self is freedom. But freedom is the dialectical element in terms of possibility and necessity
(Kierkegaard, 162/Taylor, 321)

Taylor explains the second caveat (self = freedom) this way: man is self and self is freedom. That (wo)man is the synthesis of the finite/infinite as well as possibility/actuality refers to his/her “historical situation and [his/her freedom] to act within the limits of that situation” (Taylor, 322). One’s finitude speaks to the concrete trappings of one’s situation, a place “from which the self must proceed” (Taylor, 322). “Infinitude” is, in part, the “capacity of the individual (historically situated) to imagine alternate courses of action” (Taylor, 322). It is his/her ability “to entertain different possibilities” (Taylor, 322). The actuality of one’s “historical position,” will affect the amount of seemingly infinite possibilities a creature of finitude is able to comprehend.

This passage speaks to the problem of enslavement. How can the self be freedom when one is in bondage? Since imagination is a key factor in regard to the “entertainment of possibility” and imaginative thinking, this will most likely vary from person to person depending on their “finite” or “historical” condition, their actuality. Imagination is a place where the real and ideal meet up. It is “by means if imagination that an individual can envision different possibilities which can be enacted…Here he can distinguish between his possible self and his actual self.” (Taylor, 322).