Kierkegaard Anxiety, Repetition and Contemporaneity Vasiliki Tsakiri Kierkegaard RenewingPhilosophy GeneralEditor:GaryBanham Titlesinclude: KyriakiGoudeli CHALLENGESTOGERMANIDEALISM Schelling,FichteandKant KeekokLee PHILOSOPHYANDREVOLUTIONSINGENETICS DeepScienceandDeepTechnology JillMarsden AFTERNIETZSCHE SimonO’Sullivan ARTENCOUNTERSDELEUZEANDGUATTARI ThoughtBeyondRepresentation CelineSurprenant FREUD’SMASSPSYCHOLOGY AlbertoToscano PHILOSOPHYANDINDIVIDUATIONBETWEENKANTANDDELEUZE TheTheatreofProduction VasilikiTsakiri KIERKEGAARD Anxiety,RepetitionandContemporaneity PhilipWalsh SKEPTICISM,MODERNITYANDCRITICALTHEORY MartinWeatherston HEIDEGGER’SINTERPRETATIONOFKANT Categories,ImaginationandTemporality RenewingPhilosophy SeriesStandingOrderISBN0–333–91928–9 (outsideNorthAmericaonly) You can receive future titles in this series as they are published by placing a standingorder.Pleasecontactyourbookselleror,incaseofdifficulty,writetous attheaddressbelowwithyournameandaddress,thetitleoftheseriesandthe ISBNquotedabove. Customer Services Department, Macmillan Distribution Ltd, Houndmills, Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XS,England Kierkegaard Anxiety, Repetition and Contemporaneity Vasiliki Tsakiri ©VasilikiTsakiri2006 Allrightsreserved.Noreproduction,copyortransmissionofthis publicationmaybemadewithoutwrittenpermission. Noparagraphofthispublicationmaybereproduced,copiedortransmitted savewithwrittenpermissionorinaccordancewiththeprovisionsofthe Copyright,DesignsandPatentsAct1988,orunderthetermsofanylicence permittinglimitedcopyingissuedbytheCopyrightLicensingAgency, 90TottenhamCourtRoad,LondonW1T4LP. Anypersonwhodoesanyunauthorisedactinrelationtothispublication maybeliabletocriminalprosecutionandcivilclaimsfordamages. Theauthorhasassertedherrighttobeidentified astheauthorofthisworkinaccordancewiththeCopyright, DesignsandPatentsAct1988. Firstpublished2006by PALGRAVEMACMILLAN Houndmills,Basingstoke,HampshireRG216XSand 175FifthAvenue,NewYork,N.Y.10010 Companiesandrepresentativesthroughouttheworld PALGRAVEMACMILLANistheglobalacademicimprintofthePalgrave MacmillandivisionofSt.Martin’sPress,LLCandofPalgraveMacmillanLtd. Macmillan(cid:2)isaregisteredtrademarkintheUnitedStates,UnitedKingdom andothercountries.PalgraveisaregisteredtrademarkintheEuropean Unionandothercountries. ISBN-13:978(cid:3)1(cid:3)4039(cid:3)8629(cid:3)0hardback ISBN-10:1(cid:3)4039(cid:3)8629(cid:3)0hardback Thisbookisprintedonpapersuitableforrecyclingandmadefromfully managedandsustainedforestsources. AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary. LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Tsakiri,Vasiliki,1974(cid:3) Kierkegaard:anxiety,repetition&contemporaneity/VasilikiTsakiri. p. cm.“(Renewingphilosophy) Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN1(cid:3)4039(cid:3)8629(cid:3)0(cloth) 1. Kierkegaard,S(cid:4)ren,1813(cid:3)1855. I. Title. II. Series. B4377.T732006 198(cid:2).9“dc22 2006042267 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 15 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 PrintedandboundinGreatBritainby AntonyRoweLtd,ChippenhamandEastbourne To my family This page intentionally left blank Contents SeriesEditor’sPreface ix Acknowledgements xi Abbreviations xii ‘TakingNotice’:AnIntroduction 1 Part I Anxiety and Individuality 17 1 TheToposofAnxiety 19 2 Anxiety,DeathandtheLeap 30 Part II Time, History and the Fall: St Augustine and Kant 53 3 StAugustineonFallenandRedeemedTime 57 3.1 Onpre-fallentime 57 3.2 Theconceptionofhumanorpsychologicaltime 64 4 History,Fall,Freedom:ReflectionsonKant 68 Part III Freedom and Eternity: Schelling’s Saga 85 5 Schelling’sConceptionofFreedomandIdentity 87 6 Theo-cosmo-gony:TheEternalPastandHumanFreedom 98 6.1 Godandtheinexpressible 98 6.2 Beforegoodandevil:onhumanfreedom 117 Part IV Kierkegaard’s Creed of Faith: Contemporaneity and Repetition 125 7 Repetition:ATranscendentMovementtowardsFaith? 127 7.1 TheBookofJob:aprototypeofhumanordeal 135 7.2 Silentsacrifice:thestoryofAbraham 137 8 DoubleContemporaneity,ortheParadoxofRepetition 148 vii viii Kierkegaard ConcludingThoughts 163 Postscript:‘TakingNotice’/OnTarkovsky’sSacrifice 165 Notes 171 Bibliography 189 Index 195 Series Editor’s Preface The series Renewing Philosophy was established with a two-fold aim: to promoteinvestigationofthenatureofmodernityandtodemonstratea relationshipofphilosophytocontemporaneity.Thebookthatfollowsis unusualinaddressingbothoftheseaims,aimsthatordinarilydiverge. Aninvestigationofmodernitycouldtakemanyforms,butprimeamong recentcontendershavebeenfocusesonaestheticsandtheshapeofpolit- icalthought.However,asisbecomingincreasinglyobvious,thenature oftheplaceofreligionintheshapingofmodernityalsorequiresinvest- igation as it impacts in many respects on the type and nature of the human relations that are possible. Not only does religion seem central toaperceptionoftheunderstandingoftheconditionofhumanreflec- tion, but it seems particularly important in the context of modernity. One of the founding events of modernity is surely the Reformation andwithitasharpbreakwiththetraditionofEuropeanChristendom. The nature of this break is one, as many contemporary thinkers have recently been emphasizing, that has wide implications for European self-understanding, not only in the realm of theology, but also in the interpretationofethics. Whilst reflection on the place of religion in the formation of modernity has recently begun again, there is considerable confusion aboutthedistinctionbetweentheReformationandtheEnlightenment, adistinctionofseriousimport.IftheReformationmarksapointofspir- itual crisis, it is none the less centred on the struggle for the means to renew spiritual life. Arguably, by contrast, the Enlightenment marks a point at which the nature of human self-understanding is reshaped in the image not of an engagement with spiritual forces but instead with anengagementwiththeresourcesofreasonitself,mostnotablyinthe system of Immanuel Kant. What this suggests is a comprehension of the shape of modernity that takes seriously the place of religion in its formation is one that points us to two focal points that indicate to us two seriously distinct futures and whilst the emphasis on Enlighten- mentreasonhasreceivedmuchattentioninrecentyears,thealternative path of Reformation recovery of the spiritual has been comparatively neglected. The key philosophical figure who engaged in the attempt to retrieve the Reformed element of modernity is the seriously Protestant Søren ix