Name: Either/Or
ISBN: 9780140445770

Søren Kierkegaard

Philosophical writing that explores two distinct points of view and reflects on the search for a meaningful existence, Mozart, boredom, and other topics.

A Fragment of Life

Either/Or

This is one of my favorite things I've read. Reading the Diapsalmata was quite interesting, but this concluding paragraph really stands out above the rest to me.

I get his point generally, despising the hedonistic life of pleasure and aesthetic desire, but to conclude such deeply dark and morbidly introspective writing with this wonderfully haunting story and its depressing irony, it's so beautiful and perfect. I felt like I was transported to the confrontation that Kierkegaard wants us to embrace; I was forced to reconcile with the arrogance of being a man who always aims to have laughter on his side. How beautiful.

Also, to choose laughter above youth, beauty, power, life, sex and all other aesthetic desires, it speaks to the power of irony that Kierkegaard so dearly loves and sews into his work. This quote from his thesis on Socratic irony really stuck out to me and helped me understand his perspective on expressing ideas through irony.

"If we turn back to the foregoing general description of irony as infinite absolute negativity, it is adequately suggested therein that irony is no longer directed against this or that particular phenomenon, against a particular existing thing, but that the whole of existence has become alien to the ironic subject and the ironic subject in turn alien to existence, that as actuality has lost its validity for the ironic subject, he himself has to a certain degree become unactual."

What a great paragraph to conclude the Diapsalmata. Like the quote on back of the book says, "What if everything in the world were a misunderstanding, what if laughter were really tears?"

Kay so Queso

Something wonderful happened to me. I was transported into the seventh heaven. All the gods sat there in assembly. By special grace I was accorded the favour of a wish. 'Will you,' said Mercury, 'have youth, or beauty, or power, or a long life, or the prettiest girl, or any other of the many splendours we have in our chest of knick-knacks. So, choose, but just one thing.' For a moment I was at a loss. Then I addressed myself to the gods as follows: 'Esteemed contemporaries, I choose one thing: always to have the laughter on my side.' Not a single word did one god offer in answer; on the contrary they all began to laugh. From this I concluded that my prayer was fulfilled and that the gods knew how to express themselves with taste, for it would hardly have been fitting gravely to answer, "It has been granted you."

I like this. I think young love will always feel special because of its exciting nature, but this kinda makes me think of the self-deception that occurs in young love. It reminds me of something about Vilhelm in the introduction that says a man has an unspecified lust for life and that a woman "awakens" this unspecified lust and "specifies" it. Like a man may not be in love with life until he meets a woman who makes him realize the love he has for life's content. Idk, something I'm thinking through.

I have more to say on Soren and love, but the thing that sticks out to me here is how badly this man, 'A', wants to feel his first love again. I think it's a completely natural desire, but it's probably really as simple as adolescence is a time of intense feeling and passion (due to hormones and shi, yeah, ik, I'm so deep), so this man is just such a victim to his desire for good feelings that he can't open himself up to any idea of companionate love. Disappointing, and a good reminder from Mr. Kierkegaard to choose the life of faith! Although his writing of Vilhelm's love also paints a picture of an egoist so we'll see what happens

Then I am reminded of my youth and my first love - I longed then, now I only long for my first longing. What is youth? A dream. What is love? The dream's content.

I didn’t expect to enjoy the preface so much, but I was totally enamored with his infatuation with the escritoire. It’s such an interesting way to set up his philosophical insights. 

Also, I didn’t expect this escritoire to birth the Either and the Or writings that are then presented. It’s an interesting representation of how his (our) indulgence in aesthetic pleasure leads to this critical dichotomy within oneself.

Oh and I love that he acts like the writings aren’t his works (and creates this whole backstory for it lmao). The man is truly dedicated to irony and I love him for it.

So the escritoire was set up in my apartment, and as my pleasure in the first period of my enamourmnent had been to look upon it from the street, so now I walked by it at home.

I was skeptical of the introduction (just cuz I’m too much of Kierkegaard a fanboy) but I was absolutely elated to see it conclude with a position I agree with. I’ve heard Nietszche is the alter ego of Kierkegaard (having chose the either rather than the or) and this very eloquently combines the two.

I wonder if this is perhaps a bit too arrogant though. I guess if Kierkegaard and Nietszche meant to push us to think harder, they provide an interesting idea as to how faithful art can provide a way out, but idk. Part of what I respect about them is their willingness to embrace difficult questions and be a unique individual, and I think this take that splits the difference completely misses the point of being a brutally honest individual.

Having said that, I’m not as Great as these men and will gladly accept the compromise, but I’m excited to see if Kierkegaard can change my mind in the next few hundred pages.

An aesthetic ‘either’ is one that its ‘or’ can sympathize with because that is where it can come from; and it has the imagination and depth needed to grasp the force of appeals made it to choose the ‘or’.

Interesting ending to the preface by Kierkegaard. It intrigues me that he addresses his reader and ‘lady reader’ differently. Personally, I found the lady reader insight way more helpful, but is perhaps that’s just Kierkegaard calling me a pussy? 😂

I just find it so interesting how much more politely and delicately he addresses the female reader. I’m unsure of what to make of it. It seems more respectful but also more condescending? Idk, not my place to say but it’s an interesting nuance of Kierkegaard that I’d like to understand better.

‘Go out into the world, then; avoid if possible the attention of the critics, call on a single reader in a favourable attention of the moment and should you stumble upon a lady reader, I would say: “My fair reader, in this book you will find something you ought perhaps not to know, and something else you might well profit from knowing; so read the first something in such a way that you who have read it can be as though one who has not read it, the other in such a way that you who have read it can be as though one who has not forgotten what has been read." As editor I will only append the wish that the book meets the reader in a favourable hour, and that the fair lady reader succeeds in scrupulously following B's well-intentioned advice.

Axel with Valborg, Homer with the Trojan War, Raphael with Catholicism, Mozart with Don Juan. A wretched unbelief exists which seems to contain much healing healing power. 

Im sorry but this man does not stop spitting. 

He’s so wonderfully melancholic and ironic; the introduction to this section is wonderful

It thinks such a connection fortuitous and sees in it no more than a lucky concurrence of the different forces at play in life. It thinks it an accident that the lovers get each other, an accident that they love each other; there were a hundred other girls he could have been just as happy with, whom he could have loved just as deeply. It thinks many a poet has existed who would have been just as immortal as Homer had that marvellous material not been seized on by him, …

I’m gonna say it just one more time, this is amazing

Mozart has literally been my go to reading music on the few occasions I settle down with a book and background music, and I’m literally listening to him on the airplane while reading this rn

Kierkegaard knocking my socks off, the mad lad’s done it again (insert Rio Ferdinand “THIS IS WHAT HE DOES” meme)

Edit: This passage’s theme of immortality and egoistic loving of brilliance is killing me rn, I love it.

Immortal Mozart! You, to whom I owe everything to whom I owe the loss of my reason, the wonder that over whelmed my soul, the fear that gripped my inmost being

I don’t know if agree with this. I appreciate the point he’s making, especially with respect to Homer; however, I think he’s touching on the idea of a Magnum Opus and not so much the immortal value of an artist’s body of work

Interested in what more he has to say though, I think George Lucas is a particularly interesting modern example of this distinction

Now Mozart's case is similar: there is one work alone of his which makes him a classic composer and absolutely immortal. That work is Don Giovanni. 

This makes me happy I read his work on Socratic irony prior to reading this

Also I love his disgust with Hegel haha, idk if I agree but I damn respect the intellectual rigor with which he strikes

Strictly speaking, one would be urging the opposite of what one really intended, as always happens when one operates abstractly in dialectical categories, where it isn't just that we say one thing and mean another but we say the other; we say not what we think we are saying but the opposite. So it is when we make the subject-matter the principle of classification.

Lucas

He says he could talk with a woman in such a way that, if the devil caught him, he could talk himself free if only he was given a chance to talk with the devil's great-grandmother. This is the real seducer;

I really enjoy this passage because it’s so wonderfully written, but I think I already agree w Kierkegaard so it got kinda like “yeah, I know” halfway through

This unity, this inward mutuality, is possessed by every clasic work, and thus one easily sees that any attempt at classifying the different classics based on a separation of matter and form, or of idea and form, is by virtue of that very fact a failure.

Okay nevermind, he’s done it again. I’m intrigued

This is something I wish to develop in a little more detail. The more abstract the idea, the less the probability. But how does the idea become concrete? By being permeated with the historical. The more concrete the idea the greater the probability. The more abstract the medium the less the probability, the more concrete the greater. 

I love this whol argument about abstract and concrete in classics so much. It’s so metaphysically intriguing and written in a beautiful, thought provoking manner. It really eloquently places the value and beauty of good music in place, but most importantly , I love the note for 7. The editor’s description of his use of spirit and sensual really helps paint the picture of what he’s talking about. I respect the editor’s distinction to getting such a detail absolutely correct in his work. I love it, thank you Mr. Alistair Hannay.

The most abstract idea conceivable is the spirit of sensuality (7). But in what medium can it be represented? Only in music. It cannot be represented in sculpture, for in itself it is a kind of quality of inwardness. It cannot be painted, for it cannot be grasped in fixed contours; it is an energy, a storm, impatience, passion, and so on, in all their lyrical quality, existing not in a single moment but in a succession of moments, for if it existed in a single moment it could be portrayed or painted. 

This guy 😂😂 he’s such a fucking dick I love him

He spends so much time making this whole wonderful, captivating and intriguing argument and then says “nah fuck all that, none of it really matters” 😂😂 well, I mean, it does if you want it too, I think is the general point of his work, but fuck he’s brilliant imo

… but, in bringing the idea to light, reveals its own innermost being. Therefore Mozart with his Don Giovanni stands highest among the immortals. 

But now I shall abandon this whole inquiry. It is written only for those in love. And just as it takes little to please a child, everyone knows how the most curious things can bring pleasure to those in love.

She must owe me nothing, for she must be free: love exists only in freedom, only in freedom are there recreation and everlasting amusement. For although I intend her to fall into my arms through, as it were, natural necessity, and am striving to bring things to the point where she gravitates towards me, it is nevertheless also important that she does not fall as a heavy body, but gravitates as spirit towards spirit. Although she is to belong to me, it mustn't be just in the unaesthetic sense of resting on me like a burden. She must neither be a hanger-on physically speaking nor an obligation morally. Between the two of us must prevail only the proper play of freedom. She must be so light for me that I can take her on my arm.

What you are drawn to is the first rapture of love. You know how to drown and hide yourself in a dreamy, love-intoxicated clairvoyance. All around yourself you spin the finest spider's web and then lie in wait. But you are not a child, not a waking consciousness, and the look in your eye means something else; but for you that is enough. You love the accidental. A smile from a pretty girl in an interesting situation, a captured glance, that is what you are after, that is a theme for your idle imagination.

A certain callousness of reason then teaches a way out: ’Enjoy yourself in constantly discarding the conditions.’ But self-evidently, the person who enjoys himself in discarding the conditions is just as much dependent on them as the one who enjoys them. His reflection turns constantly back on himself, and since his enjoyment  consists in the enjoyment’s being given as little content as possible, he is, as it were, hollowing himself out, since naturally such a reflection is incapable of opening up the personality.

God he’s too funny, that last line got me

The important thing in this respect is to be able to see the concept in each art, and not let oneself be put off by what it can do besides. Man's concept is spirit and we must not allow ourselves to be put off by the fact that he is also able to walk on two legs. Language's concept is thought, and we must not let ourselves be put off by the view of certain sensitive people that its greatest significance is to produce inarticulate sounds.

Sick take, Kierkegaard. Bro’s describing depression fr

I can't be bothered. I can't be bothered to ride, the motion is too violent; I can't be bothered to walk, it's strenuous; I can't be bothered to lie down, for either I'd have to stay lying down and that I can't be bothered with, or I'd have to get up again, and I can't be bothered with that either. In short: I just can't be bothered.

Diary of a Seducer records Johannes's discovery of a girl with the Shakespearean name Cordelia, whom he sets out to control. Intricately, meticulously, cunningly, the seduction proceeds. No detail is too small to escape Johannes. "She sits on the sofa by the tea table and I sit on a chair at her side. This position has an intimate quality and at the same time a detaching dignity." Less erotic than an intellectual depiction of seduction, Diary of a Seducer shows the casuist Kierkegaard in what he characterized as the aesthetic mode. A new introduction by Michael Dirda puts this influential novella into high relief.

Diary of a Seducer

Rachel Edwards 

In Either/Or, using the voices of two characters - the aesthetic young man of part one, called simply 'A', and the ethical Judge Vilhelm of the second section - Kierkegaard reflects upon the search for a meaningful existence, contemplating subjects as diverse as Mozart, drama, boredom, and, in the famous Seducer's Diary, the cynical seduction and ultimate rejection of a young, beautiful woman. A masterpiece of duality, Either/Or is a brilliant exploration of the conflict between the aesthetic and the ethical - both meditating ironically and seductively upon Epicurean pleasures, and eloquently expounding the noble virtues of a morally upstanding life.

Either/Or A Fragment of Life