Philosophy, Theology, Ethics: Some Open Questions

Abstract

through a comparison of kierkegaard and Hegel, the author demonstrates, among other things, also the difference between idealism and materialism: for the idealist, we experience our situation as “open” insofar as we are engaged in it, while the same situation appears as “closed” from the standpoint of finality, i.e., from the eternal point of view of the omnipotent and all-knowing god who can only perceive the world as a closed totality; for the materialist, the “openness” goes all the way down. kierkegaard’s theology presents the extreme point of idealism, however, it is extremely ambiguous – it should be minimally rectified to obtain the proper materialist theory of subjectivity. so when, in a move described by kierkegaard, one withdraws from the dizziness of freedom by seeking a firm support in the order of finitude, this withdrawal itself is the true Fall. kant already pointed out how the very need for an external master is a deceptive lure: man needs a master in order to conceal from himself the deadlock of his own difficult freedom and self-responsibility. this is why it is crucial to note that kierkegaard jumps over the first contraction of finitude, the first emergence of a sinthome which makes the subject a creature proper, and passes directly from the primordial repose to the Prohibition. one should focus on the difference between the two withdrawals from the void of infinity: the first one is the primordial contraction that creates the sinthome – it precedes Prohibition –, while it is only the second one, the retreat from the “dizziness of freedom”, which is the fall proper: with it, we enter the domain of the superego, of the vicious cycle of the law and its transgression.