Admission requirements
Admission to this course is restricted to first-year BA students in Philosophy, who are enrolled in the BA Plus-traject.
Description
This course is focused on a single philosophical text which counts as a classical reading. We will zoom in on the book Fear and Trembling, written by the 19th century Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855). The ‘fear’ and the ‘trembling’ mentioned in the title of the book, refer to a well-known story from the Bible. In this story, Abraham (God’s supposed favorite) is asked to sacrifice his only son Isaac as a burnt offering on mount Moriah (even though Isaac had been promised to him earlier by that same God). Kierkegaard situates himself within this well-known story and stretches its internal (existential) tensions to their limit. This enables him to ask fundamental questions about the core of human existence, e.g., the legitimacy of secrecy, the nature of tragedy, and the limits of the ethical (in response to Kant and Hegel).
Ever since its publication in 1843, Fear and Trembling has puzzled many, and even today it continues to escape the grasp of interpreters. The book has inspired important philosophers such as Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida and Emmanuel Levinas and has been taken up by influential writers like Franz Kafka and Maurice Blanchot. In addition, to studying these sources, we will also compare Kierkegaard’s philosophical interpretation of the Biblical story (engaging with a Christian tradition) with authors who address it from the perspective of one of the two other religious traditions that relate to Abraham and Isaac (the Jewish and the Islamic tradition).
As happens at times with classical texts, Fear and Trembling is best known for an idea that it never mentions: ‘the leap of faith’. Even though this phrase is frequently attributed to Kierkegaard, it does not appear in any of his writings. Nevertheless, it continues to inspire many (often easy or wrongheaded) interpretations of the book. One of the things that we will ask ourselves in this course is: how do these misunderstandings emerge and how can it possibly be that they keep being repeated (sometimes even by seasoned scholars)? One of the possible answers to these questions can be found in the complicated and unusual composition of this book. Kierkegaard published Fear and Trembling under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio (John of the silence), which already suggests that we are dealing here with a book whose author constantly undermines his own authority through contradictions and paradoxes. How can someone who is referred to as “of the silence” still spend about 150 pages on a small passage from the book of Genesis? Or should this very extensive speaking still be understood as a form of silence, since the important things remain unsaid?
No matter how many times you read Fear and Trembling you can still find something new in it, which makes it one of those classical philosophical works that will provide food for thought again and again. Given the complexity of the structure and argument of Fear and Trembling, we will also look at various secondary sources, and discuss some of the conflicting interpretations of the book. While one interpreter takes the literary structure of Fear and Trembling radically seriously, another will focus much more on the book’s philosophical content. Yet another interpreter will mainly emphasize the theological consequences that can be drawn from the book. How should we deal with these radically different readings and how do you determine your own position within this field of often conflicting interpretations? By posing these kinds of questions, we will discuss the role of the reception history of classical texts, with specific focus on Fear and Trembling.
Course objectives
The main objective of the course is to learn the art of reading a challenging text from the history of modern philosophy. This includes the use of secondary sources, the evaluation of translations, and the comparison between different possible interpretations. The course also aims at introducing students to Kierkegaard’s philosophy by showing how he uses literary strategies to dramatize existential themes and address classical philosophical questions in a completely new way (e.g., whether a suspension of the ethical is justified in certain cases or not; whether it is justified to conceal essential matters from those that are close to you).
The student who has successfully completed the course has knowledge of:
the construction and structure of a classical philosophical text: Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling;
Kierkegaard’s (literary) style and method;
problems concerning the limits of the ethical;
some contemporary interpretations of Fear and Trembling.
The student who has successfully completed the course is able to:
explain and comment on passages from a classical text clearly and in your own words, and clarify difficult passages and concepts;
be critical of alternative translations of these passages;
write a small philosophical paper, based on a clearly articulated question, and developing a nuanced argument.
Timetable
The timetables are available through MyTimetable.
Mode of instruction
Lectures
Seminars
Class attendance is required.
Assessment method
Assessment
- Final paper (2.500 words)
Non-graded practical exercises:
Active participation in class.
Preparing a set of comments/questions for at least one of the seminars.
Handing in a proposal for the final essay and discuss it in smaller groups.
A peer review of at least two of the proposal of other students.
Weighing
- Final paper (100%)
Resit
The resit consists of one examination for all parts at once (100%), consisting of an essay of 3.500 words. Attendance and active participation in class is required for admission to the resit. Students who have obtained a satisfactory grade for the first examination cannot take the resit.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
- Johannes de silentio (pseudonym of Søren Kierkegaard). Fear and Trembling: Dialectical Lyric. Translated by Alastair Hannay. London: Penguin Books, 2014.
If you happen to know Danish, you can consult the Danish original Frygt og Bæven here: https://tekster.kb.dk/text/sks-fb-txt-root
As the course language is English, we will use the English translation for the discussions. As it will enhance the discussion to have various translation available, you are welcome to use one of the other available translations (English, Dutch, German, etc.).
Other sources:
Danta, Chris. Literature Suspends Death: Sacrifice and Storytelling in Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot. New York: Continuum, 2011.
Derrida, Jacques. The Gift of Death. Translated by David Wills. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996.
Fenves, Peter. ‘Chatter’, Language and History in Kierkegaard. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1993.
Gellman, Jerome I. The Fear, The Trembling, and the Fire: Kierkegaard and Hasidic Masters on the Binding of Isaac. Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 1993.
Hanson, Jeffrey. Kierkegaard and the Life of Faith: The Aesthetic, the Ethical, and the Religious in Fear and Trembling. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2017.
Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich. The Phenomenology of Spirit: Translated with introduction and commentary. Translated by Michael Inwood. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018.
Kangas, David. Kierkegaard’s Instant: On Beginnings. Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 2007.
Kant, Immanuel. The Conflict of the Faculties/Der Streit der Fakultaten. Translated by M.J. Gregor. New York: Abaris Books, 1979.
Lala, Ismail. “Perceptions of Abraham’s Attempted Sacrifice of Isaac in the Latin Philosophical Tradition, the Sunnī Exegetical Tradition, and by Ibn ʿArabī.” Journal of Islamic Philosophy 12 (2021): 5-44.
Levinas, Emmanuel. Proper Names. Translated by M.B. Smith. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1996.
Pons, Jolita. Stealing a Gift: Kierkegaard’s Pseudonyms and the Bible. New York: Fordham University Press, 2004.
Sperlinger, Tom. “‘Every Human Being is a Cause’: Three Re-Writings of Abraham, Isaac and Ishmael.” In Reading the Abrahamic Faiths: Rethinking Religion and Literature. London: Bloomsbury, 2014.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the information bar at the right hand side of the page.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc., contact the Education Administration Office Huizinga
Remarks
Not applicable.