The focus of K's preface on fear and trembling centres around the possibility of doubt and faith. In particular aspects of faith and doubt that are not immediately apparent from our Greco-Roman perspective.
K begins by casting doubt on the possibility that doubt and faith can be adequately circumvented to achieve any kind of certainty. K makes the twofold criticism that to proceed beyond one would need to (a) first have faith, and (b) know where one was to proceed to. The criticism at this point being that those who profess to have done so have, like poor mathematician's, failed to demonstrate their working out.
Instead what is available are proposed methods or definitions of the problem. K suggests there are aspects of both faith and doubt which cannot be understood in terms of abstract concepts; as such concepts do not account for why I might doubt or believe a thing.
K also employs a metaphor akin to the "market place of ideas" noting that there are significant "bargains" to be had therein. Here K is suggesting that the wealth of ideas available to the individual are cheap. As a reader I find myself asking the question "if it costs me nothing is it actually worth anything?" This is a fascinating idea that some aspects of being can, and perhaps should, cost the individual something. If we pause for a moment here to consider K's point we might well agree that the aspects of being most prised by humans are the most costly [love, justice, mercy, peace, forgiveness, faith and doubt to name a few].
K's criticism of the market place is not the wealth of available ideas but how little they cost the individual both in terms of time and commitment. Time as a cost implication is mentioned on two occasions. Firstly in relation to the Greeks and "doubt", and the second in relation to veterans and "faith". On both occasions K indicates that proficiency was historically considered to be the work of a lifetime. Yet we now find ourself in a time in which most individuals believe they can simply pickup where others left off.
Using Descartes and his method as an example K proceeds to point out the significance of both choice and commitment. Descartes acknowledged that is method held significance for him as an individual, and the route that he employed to arrive at his conclusions. For K it is the commitment to the method and not the method itself that is significant. The market place then has nothing of value to offer then because it cannot offer a commitment within which the individual is invested. The individual has not grappled, wrestled, struggled or striven to achieve they simply follow a method to an outcome that is (apparently) valuable. For K both doubt and faith require commitment over time and an investment from the individual. For K what actually seems to make something valuable is the individuals decision to invest himself in it.
Kierkegaard perceives faith and doubt as costly aspects of being that cannot be adequately explained away by formulae or pithy-zen statements. Why an individual might choose commit himself to one or the other over the course of his life cannot be adequately explained. Instead the individual is confronted with the choice to have faith or doubt indicating that what matters here is not the format that this takes -there are many readily available- but that one either commits himself or does not.
K begins by casting doubt on the possibility that doubt and faith can be adequately circumvented to achieve any kind of certainty. K makes the twofold criticism that to proceed beyond one would need to (a) first have faith, and (b) know where one was to proceed to. The criticism at this point being that those who profess to have done so have, like poor mathematician's, failed to demonstrate their working out.
Instead what is available are proposed methods or definitions of the problem. K suggests there are aspects of both faith and doubt which cannot be understood in terms of abstract concepts; as such concepts do not account for why I might doubt or believe a thing.
K also employs a metaphor akin to the "market place of ideas" noting that there are significant "bargains" to be had therein. Here K is suggesting that the wealth of ideas available to the individual are cheap. As a reader I find myself asking the question "if it costs me nothing is it actually worth anything?" This is a fascinating idea that some aspects of being can, and perhaps should, cost the individual something. If we pause for a moment here to consider K's point we might well agree that the aspects of being most prised by humans are the most costly [love, justice, mercy, peace, forgiveness, faith and doubt to name a few].
K's criticism of the market place is not the wealth of available ideas but how little they cost the individual both in terms of time and commitment. Time as a cost implication is mentioned on two occasions. Firstly in relation to the Greeks and "doubt", and the second in relation to veterans and "faith". On both occasions K indicates that proficiency was historically considered to be the work of a lifetime. Yet we now find ourself in a time in which most individuals believe they can simply pickup where others left off.
Using Descartes and his method as an example K proceeds to point out the significance of both choice and commitment. Descartes acknowledged that is method held significance for him as an individual, and the route that he employed to arrive at his conclusions. For K it is the commitment to the method and not the method itself that is significant. The market place then has nothing of value to offer then because it cannot offer a commitment within which the individual is invested. The individual has not grappled, wrestled, struggled or striven to achieve they simply follow a method to an outcome that is (apparently) valuable. For K both doubt and faith require commitment over time and an investment from the individual. For K what actually seems to make something valuable is the individuals decision to invest himself in it.
Kierkegaard perceives faith and doubt as costly aspects of being that cannot be adequately explained away by formulae or pithy-zen statements. Why an individual might choose commit himself to one or the other over the course of his life cannot be adequately explained. Instead the individual is confronted with the choice to have faith or doubt indicating that what matters here is not the format that this takes -there are many readily available- but that one either commits himself or does not.
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