KIERKEGAARD, EVE AND METAPHORS OF BIRTH KIERKEGAARD, EVE AND METAPHORS OF BIRTH Alison Assiter London • New York PublishedbyRowman&LittlefieldInternational,Ltd. UnitA,WhitacreMews,26-34StannaryStreet,LondonSE114AB www.rowmaninternational.com Rowman&LittlefieldInternational,Ltd.isanaffiliateofRowman&Littlefield 4501ForbesBoulevard,Suite200,Lanham,Maryland20706,USA WithadditionalofficesinBoulder,NewYork,Toronto(Canada),andLondon (UK) www.rowman.com Copyright©2015byAlisonAssiter Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorby anyelectronicormechanicalmeans,includinginformationstorageandretrieval systems,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher,exceptbyareviewer whomayquotepassagesinareview. BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationInformationAvailable AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary ISBN:HB978-1-78348-324-2 ISBN:PB978-1-78348-325-9 ISBN:EB978-1-78348-326-6 LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData Assiter,Alison. Kierkegaard,Eve,andmetaphorsofbirth/AlisonAssiter. pagescm Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex. ISBN978-1-78348-324-2(cloth:alk.paper)--ISBN978-1-78348-325-9(pbk.:alk.paper)--ISBN 978-1-78348-326-6(electronic) 1.Kierkegaard,S?ren,1813-1855.2.Ontology.3.Kant,Immanuel,1724-1804.4.Schelling,Frie- drichWilhelmJosephvon,1775-1854.I.Title. B4378.O5A872015 198'.9--dc23 2014048169 TMThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsof AmericanNationalStandardforInformationSciencesPermanenceofPaperfor PrintedLibraryMaterials,ANSI/NISOZ39.48-1992. PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica CONTENTS Acknowledgements vii Abbreviations xi Introduction xiii 1 ContingentandChaoticReality 1 2 AChallengetoChaos 17 3 Kant,FreedomandEvil 29 4 KierkegaardandSchellingonProcess 55 5 TheConceptofAnxietyandKant 79 6 KierkegaardonWomen 99 7 MetaphorsofBirthinKierkegaard 115 8 MoreonBirthing 135 9 NatureasaBodyThatCanBirth 155 10 TheAgeofRevolutionandthePresentAge 175 Conclusion 189 Bibliography 193 Index 201 v ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I n the acknowledgements section of one of my previous books I men- tioned that I’d never received a grant for this kind of work. This remains trueandIhave only, in my entirecareer, hadonesabbatical.Butthere is somethingIwouldliketomention. I was trained as an analytical philosopher, many years ago, and I am luckyenoughtohavestudiedatOxfordandgainedaBPhilinphilosophy. This, I appreciate, gave me skills and openings I would never otherwise have had. However, it also gave me a fear of making bold hypotheses, since,Ifelt,anysuchhypothesiswasboundtobewrong.Indeed,Iwould probably have gone so far as to claim that it would ultimately have been meaningless. Spending the last few years in the company of a group of wonderful continentalphilosophersatUWEBristol,however,hasradicallychanged both my outlook and my confidence in the possibility of exercising my imagination and thinking in bigger and bolder ways. While some will doubtmysanity,afewothersmightatleastunderstandwhatImean.SoI owe a particularly strong debt to all my various colleagues as well as thosewhohavepassedthrough—usuallyoccupyingtemporaryjobs—our little philosophy group. I would like to mention you all—Mike Lewis, DarianMeacham,SeanWatson,HaviCarel,TinaChanter,LeoneGazzie- ro, Phil Meadows (who would probably not describe himself as a conti- nental philosopher), John Sellars, Katrina Mitcheson and Dagmar Wil- helm.ButmybiggestdebtistoIainHamiltonGrant,whosecharismaand enthusiasmforphilosophyaresecondtonone.Itwashe,aboveallothers, vii viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS who both taught me the little I know of Schelling and enabled me to recognize the importance of thinking in bold speculative terms. We also had such fun teaching Schelling and Kierkegaard together. Of course I cannotblamehimforalltheerrorsinmythinking.Ironically,noneofthe abovehavereadthisbook,butyouhaveallshapedmythinkingindiffer- entways. I would also like to acknowledge generations of students who have influenced my thinking. I owe a particular debt to each final-year group whostudiedKierkegaardwithme.Iamalsoindebtedtothoseofyouwho studied Kant with me, both the undergraduates in their second year of study who studied the first and second Critiques with me and the MA studentsonthemodulewherewereadKant’sthirdCritique.Manyofyou inspiredmebutparticularmention(becauseoftheirloveofKierkegaard) goestoRoseZiaiandBarneyRiggs(thelatterreadthisentiremanuscript and removed some of the typos as well as giving me feedback on the text).IhavealsoreceivedinspirationandfeedbackfromWillStrongeand Andy Jones. I would like to mention Heather Nunney-Boodan and Rosie Massey, who, after I made a brief mention in a seminar on Schelling of the notion of birth in Schelling, took this a step further and began work- ing on it. The latter has a piece that anyone can read, if interested, in Agora,thephilosophymagazineproducedbyUWEstudents.Theformer wroteherMAdissertationonthesubject. I would like to acknowledge all the feminist philosophers I have ever known, who, while you have not commented on this, have inspired my thinking over many years. I’d particularly like to mention Christine Bat- tersby,whoseworkledmetoKierkegaard. Otherwise,I’dliketoacknowledgealltheKierkegaardiansIhavemet and/orwhoseworkIhavereadandbeeninspiredby.Iwouldlikeparticu- larlytothankMichaelBurnsforgivingmetheconfidencetothinkthatit ispossibletoreadKierkegaarddifferently. Finally, I would like to thank Hamid, Ben and also Liane, as well as allmyclosefriendsforjustbeingaround.I’dalso(weirdlyagain)liketo thank all the lifeguards at Hampstead Women’s Pond for enabling the cold-waterwinterswimmingthatkeepsme(partially!)saneandalive! Some of the arguments in chapters 1 and 2 are based on a piece I wrote,‘SpeculativeandCriticalRealism’,JournalofCriticalRealism12, no. 3 (2013), 283–300. Some brief sections of chapters 3, 4 and 5 are developments from a piece I wrote, ‘Kant and Kierkegaard on Freedom