The Sickness Unto Death :: Preface

There were two brothers each dreamed of becoming a Doctor. The first studied all that he would need to know from academic journals, books and sources; the second by doing the work of a physician, learning on the job from his mistakes. Which of these brothers became a Doctor? 

Kierkegaard begins TSUD by challenging the readers assumptions that we know what it is to be something; specifically to be human. We may well have scientific or historic knowledge about humans but this is detached; taken from context. If an non-human acquired this same scientific and historic knowledge would it also know what it is to be human? It may learn that Socrates died in 399BC, and how the thyroid is involved in body temperature regulation, but is this sufficient for it to know what it's like to die or to have a fever? Furthermore in describing what it means to be human many would talk about beauty, love, happiness and other unique aspects of their life. Yet the most amusing, precious or even difficult times are typically difficult to convey to others in words. We tend to give up and resort to statements like "I guess you had to be there" or "walk a mile in my shoes" to indicate their unintelligiblity.

This is the point that Kierkegaard is making in the preface. Scientific and historic knowledge are detached from the contexts they describe and therefore cannot holistically account for them. So to understand what it is to be human we must be somehow involved in being human; a participant not just an observer. For Kierkegaard it is a romantic pretence that by accumulating and cataloguing "pure concepts" one might arrive at a full understanding of what it is to be human. So if we  concede that Kieregaard is right and our non-human will never know; what about the human me? can I know? 

The fact that I am asking this question, that I entertain the possibility that I do not know, is a starting place. I suspect this is the very place Kierkegaard wishes the reader to begin. To dismantle the confidence we have in our scientific and historical world view. I begin with a suspicion that I may very well not know, and a desire to discover if I do. Kierkegaard then suggests that to know what it is to be human; if I am truely committed to finding out I must choose be what I am, and to be accountable for that great undertaking before God. Ultimately this opening preface is  a terrifying invitation to become a committed participant in ones own life to discover what it means to be human.