Last time we looked at Hegel's analysis of the importance of Socrates for Greek culture and for world history. Kierkegaard studied Hegel's text carefully and in the concept of irony, he responds to it almost point for point. Our goal for the lecture today is to have a look at Kierkegaard's understanding of Socrates. And to see where he agrees with Hegel and where he disagrees. We'll look at the Kierkegaard's analysis of Socrates' Daimon, the trial and conviction of Socrates, the relation of Socrates to the sophists and to the later schools of philosophy. We'll also see that Kierkegaard was quite exercised by Hans Lasen Martensen in his lectures at the University of Copenhagen. Today, we'll explore Kierkegaard's response to Martensen's article on Faust. In Kierkegaard's two satirical works that were aimed at Martensen and his students, namely the conflict between the old and the new soap sellers and or The Omnibus. Finally, we also want to introduce a lesser-known, Danish figure Andreas Friedrich Bach who wrote the first book review of The Concept of Irony. This review is insightful in many ways. It gives us a brief snapshot into the contemporary assessment of the work. We can also gain some insight into Kierkegaard's view of it. When we see his negative reaction to Bach's comments. Kierkegaard agrees with Hegel understanding of the Daimon as a part of Socrates' subjectivity that supposed to the traditional values in customary ethics of Athens. Along these same lines, he also agrees with Hegel in seeing the Daimon as a private to the public oracle that the Greeks revered. Kierkegaard points out a discrepancy in the account of the Daimon in the ancient sources. According to Plato the Daimon was something purely negative. It warned Socrates not to do certain things, but it never proposed or demanded positive actions. By contrast, according to Xenophon's account, the Daimon was not just negative, but also positive, prompting and enjoining Socrates to do specific things. Kierkegaard was less obliged to make some kind of judgment about which of the ancient sources to follow on this point. And here, he wholeheartedly affirms the view of Plato. He believes that Socrates is fundamentally a negative figure, and thus it's a confusion and wants to ascribe something positive to it. This is important to Kierkegaard, since he wants to see Socrates's irony as his defining characteristic. Irony is in its essence, negative or destructive. It negates and criticizes various elements of the established order. Kierkegaard believes that Xenophon has not properly grasped this important negative mission of Socrates, and for this reason, he mistakenly attributes something positive to Socrates' Daimon. By contrast, Plato was the more perceptive student, who recognized the importance of the negative elements in Socrates. When Kierkegaard was growing up, the tragic drama Faust by the famous German writer Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a very famous and much discussed work. When he was studying at the University of Copenhagen, Kierkegaard became very interested in this story, and the figure of Faust. In 1836, in his journal BB, he made a bibliography of different interpretations of Goethe's work, and of the Faust legend generally. Kierkegaard was clearly planning to write something about Faust, perhaps an article or perhaps a monograph. Perhaps he even thought it might be a possible topic for his master's thesis. In any case, he became very upset when in June of 1837, Hans Lasen Martensen published an article in the first issue of the academic journal entitled, Observations on the Idea of Faust with reference to Lenau's Faust. When he heard about this, Kierkegaard because very upset and wrote in his journal, how unlike I am, Martensen has written a treatment of Lenau's Faust. Why was Kierkegaard so upset about this? Why was he so interested in the figure of Faust in the first place? The answer to these questions becomes clear when we take brief look at Martensen's article. Instead of treating Goethe's well-known version of Faust, Martensen chose instead to treat a version written by the Austro-Hungarian poet, Niembsch von Strehlenau who wrote under the pseudonym Nicolaus Lenau. On his journey, Martensen had met Lenau personally in Vienna and became interested in his work. Martensen saw in the figure of Faust as portrayed by Lenau a representative of the modern world. In his dissertation on the autonomy of human self consciousness, Martensen examined the concept of autonomy that is the idea that humans could act on their own and determine the truth by themselves. He regarded this as a wide spread and dangerous tendency in modern thought that lead away from Christian belief. The figure of Faust represents exactly this principal. He's the symbol of modern secular knowledge. Faust embodies "the deep feeling of the corruption of the human will, its desire to transgress the divine law, its arrogant striving to seek its center in itself instead of God". According to the Christian view, humans are by nature sinful and ignorant. They can know nothing without the help of God. It's thus only human pride and arrogance that believes it can discover the truth on its own. Faust believes he has no use for God or Christianity since he can discover the truth himself by means of secular scientific knowing. He writes Faust quote represents the human race's striving to ground a realm of intelligence without God. Faust also represents the principle of doubt. What cannot be demonstrated with tools of science must be the subject of skepticism. This includes the doctrines of religion. This few rejects traditional beliefs and exposes everything everything to it's merciless skepticism. This however leads Faust to despair, and he becomes separated and alienated from society and accepted ethics. Martensen thus portrays Faust as the model for the ills of the modern world. Kierkegaard's reaction to the publication of Martensen's article can be explained by the fact that he too was interested in seeing Faust as a paradigmatic example of modern existence. And Martenson had anticipated his assessment of the nature of the modern age. Kierkegaard was interested in Faust for the same reason that he was interested in Socrates. They were both negative figures that called into question traditional beliefs and values. But Socrates and Faust believed that the critical reasoning of each individual must decide the truth of the matter. Socrates reduces people to aporia and ends with a negative conclusion. Just as Faust's skepticism leads him to despair. Kierkegaard's attentive to the fact that both Socrates and Faust represent something at the heart of the modern spirit. Kierkegaard draws this parallel explicitly in his Journal AA from the year 1837 when Martensen published his article. He writes, I quote, "Faust may be seen as parallel to Socrates, for just as the latter expresses the severing of the individual from the state, so Faust, after the abrogation of the Church, depicts the individual severed from its guidance and left to itself.". While Faust and Socrates represent an emphasis on the individual at the cost of a larger institution or aspect of the objective world. Kierkegaard addresses the same question that Hegel did about the assessment of the condemnation of Socrates. Like Hegel, he's critical of what he calls, "the scholarly professional mourners and the crowd of shallow but lachrymose humanitarians", who regard Socrates as an honest and righteous man who was unfairly persecuted by the Rabble. Also in agreement with Hegel, Kierkegaard sees the diamond of Socrates as something that clearly puts him at odds with the traditional religion. With regard to the question of whether Socrates was an atheist who rejected the gods of the state, Kierkegaard claims that this was based on a misunderstanding. This was a typical charge leveled against ancient Greek philosophers like Anaxagoras, who were interested in exploring the phenomena of nature. The Greek gods were conceived as closely related to the natural forces. For example, Zeus with lightning and Poseidon with the sea and with earthquakes. When the early Greek philosophers took it upon themselves to study nature, they distinguished themselves from the religious tradition that sees the gods as causal agents in nature. The early Greek philosophers developed the rudiments of what we know today as the natural sciences by trying to understand the phenomena of nature without the agency of the gods. Since they didn't make any appeal to the gods in their explanations of the natural world, there arose the suspicion that they didn't believe in the gods at all and, thus, were atheists. Kierkegaard points out that this is a misunderstanding, since Socrates was never interested in the investigation of the natural scientific phenomena and thus it's a mistake to associate him with these early Greek philosophers. Kierkegaard goes on to explain that the charge of atheism can best be understood in connection with Socrates' well known claim to ignorance. In other words, when Socrates claimed to know nothing, this was mistakenly taken to mean that he knew nothing about the gods worshiped by the state. But this was of course not the point of Socrates's self-proclaimed ignorance. He clearly knew many empirical things about the world around him. But he claimed not to know the universals and was constantly trying to get people to formulate clear definitions of them. What is piety? What is justice? What is beauty? Kierkegaard claims that an important element in the condemnation of Socrates was regarded as his attempt to alienate individuals from the state. He brings this into connection with the famous maxim, know yourself. According to Kierkegaard, Socrates' understanding of this command was that each individual should seek the truth in him or herself. But this meant turning away from the world of objective truth which included traditional ethics and religion. Kierkegaard explains quote the phrase, know yourself means, separate yourself from the other. And the individual is thus alienated from other individuals in society, since after the Socratic interrogation, it's impossible to continue to maintain the traditional values and customs as before. By means of just calling everything into question, Socrates destroys the individual's belief in all the things that hold society together. This is according to Kierkegaard rightly regarded as a dangerous matter. Quote, "it is obvious that Socrates was in conflict with the view of the state--indeed, that from the viewpoint of the state his offensive had to be considered most dangerous, as an attempt to suck its blood and reduce it to a shadow.". Given this, Kierkegaard agrees with Hegel that the Athenian state was justified in condemning Socrates, since he was, in fact, a revolutionary figure who was undermining the foundation of the state. But it should be noted that he was not revolutionary in the sense that he was forming a specific political party or a positive platform. Rather, his mission was purely negative. He separated individuals from the state, and isolated them from one another, by undermining their accepted beliefs, and custom and tradition. He called each individual to withdraw into him or herself, and to find the truth there. [SOUND] At the end of the chapter the actualization of the view, Kierkegaard gives an assessment of the last part of Socrates' trial, where he proposes his alternative punishment. Kierkegaard draws attention to the fact that, in The Apology, Socrates makes a lot out of the specific number of people who voted for his acquittal and his condemnation. By doing this, Socrates regards the jury, not as a collective whole or as the Athenian state as such, but rather as individuals. Each of them individually made a decision and cast his vote. Socrates thus recognizes the importance of the subjectivity of individuality of each person. But he refuses to recognize the authority of the abstract state or the collective whole. Here Kierkegaard's in agreement with Hegel's account which sees Socrates' condemnation as being the result of his refusal to accept the legitimacy of the court. Kierkegaard explains quote, "The objective power of the state, its claims upon the activity of the individual, the laws, the courts-everything loses its absolute validity for him.". Kierkegaard sees Socrates as occupying a position of complete negativity towards the state. Socrates accepts the truth and validity of each single individual but refuses to accept it in any collective group: the state, the jury, the political party, etc. Such groups undermine one's individuality and reduce people to the common mean. This view alienated Socrates from his fellow Athenians, and is regarded as a real and serious threat to the state. Much of Athenian society was built upon principles of community and democracy, and thus to call this into question was very alarming for most people. So according to this interpretation, the great menace to Greek society came not from the mighty forces of the Persian empire but rather from an impoverished old man. The tool used to undermine the Athenian state was not great armies or engines of war but rather irony. Irony was a negative force that spared nothing in its path. The most sacred and time honored institutions of the Athenians were at grave risk.
