OPPOSITES, CONTRADICTORIES, AND MEDIATION IN KIERKEGAARD’S CRITIQUE

OF HEGELIANISM

Shannon Nason ([email protected])

Rough Draft as of August 3, 2009

1. INTRODUCTION

In this paper I argue that Kierkegaard endorses Hegel’s doctrine of mediation (Vermittlung). The

theory of mediation involves the view that relative opposites are conceptually and dialectically

unified. However, while Kierkegaard argues in favor of this doctrine, he emphatically thinks a

central thesis surrounding Hegel’s theory of mediation is false. This is the thesis that there are all

and only relative opposites. Kierkegaard’s views about oppositions are rooted in what I call the

“classical logic perspective.” 1 Thus, he has a far more expansive account of the kinds of

opposition than Hegel. While Hegel seems to argue that all opposites are relative, Kierkegaard

favors the “classical logical perspective” by arguing that some opposites are contradictories.

Kierkegaard, being mindful of this difference between relative opposites and

contradictories, is not content to settle with Hegel’s thesis that there are all and only relative

opposites. Kierkegaard is keen, then, to focus on exceptions to Hegel’s thesis. Where we find

those exceptions is in those places where Kierkegaard highlights essential differences between

forms of existence. Where he finds essential differences between forms of existence he does not

find relative opposites but contradictories. I look at two places where he finds essential

differences between forms of existence. In both places Kierkegaard argues in favor of there

being absolute differences or contradictories.

1
By the “classical logical perspective,” I am referring to the logical tradition going back to Aristotle.

1
 The first comes in Either/Or II, where the dutiful Judge William tells his aesthetic friend,

the author of the fragmentary papers of Either/Or I, that he essentially views his existence

through a kind of Hegelian lens. Absolute differences, for example, the one between an aesthetic

form of life and an ethical form of life, are not meaningful to him. Practically and existentially

speaking, if they are not meaningful to him, then he can find no compelling reason to choose the

one over the other. This, according to Judge William, is the aesthete’s despair: the inability to

make life-impacting, future-aiming, ethical choices and commitments. The aesthete’s reasons to

forego making such choices are rooted in the way he views the relation between his aesthetic

view of life and an ethical one. They are, for him, only relatively different. For Judge William, a

theoretical stance such as this has existential fallout: a life of despair. Judge William, then, offers

a practical argument against Hegel’s thesis that there are all and only relative opposites.

A second place we see Kierkegaard argue against Hegel’s thesis is in Concluding

Unscientific Postscript. In this work, his pseudonym Johannes Climacus issues what I call an

“argument from insufficient difference.” In this argument Climacus shows that, pace Hegel, the

speculative philosophical project and Christianity are insufficiently different to be conceptually

unified. Climacus, like Judge William who argues for the absolute difference between aesthetic

and ethical forms of existence, argues that speculative philosophy and Christianity are absolutely

contradictory. For Climacus, doing speculative metaphysics and concretely realizing one’s

religious beliefs are absolutely different sorts of things; these practices do not stand in relation to

each other as relative opposites do. If they are not related as relative opposites, then they cannot

be conceptually unified. Kierkegaard, then, argues that Hegel’s thesis is false by highlighting the

important place of contradictories in a logical system in addition to a philosophy of existence.

For Kierkegaard, if there are no contradictories, but only relative oppositions, then there is no

2
basis for the ethical and religious changes the self can initiate or undergo—e.g., no movement

from a life of speculative reflection to a concrete and attentive religious existence.

In what follows, I begin with an account of the relationship between opposites and

contradictories and tie this up with Hegel’s argument for his thesis that there are all and only

relative opposites in his Encyclopaedia Logic. Second, I look to the immediate historical context

in Denmark that framed Kierkegaard’s interest in the problems associated with Hegel’s view of

mediation and opposition. I develop Kierkegaard’s argument for the importance of absolute

contradictories in Either/Or. It is clear that the debates in Denmark about Hegel’s theory of

mediation are very much in the background of the argument in Either/Or. Lastly, I look at

Climacus’s “argument for insufficient difference.” I claim that Climacus’s argument is

successful in proving Hegel’s thesis that there are all and only relative opposites false.

2. HEGEL’S THESIS

In the Encyclopaedia Logic, Hegel argues for the thesis that no two things are absolutely

different or opposed to each other; rather, opposites are relatively related to each other. He

writes, “‘[e]verything stands in opposition.’ There is in fact nothing in heaven or on earth, either

in the spiritual or the natural world, that exhibits the abstract ‘either-or.’” 2 The thesis that there

are all and only relative opposites propounds a number of complicated ideas. At this very early

stage, allow me to unpack the general meaning associated with the notions of “opposite,”

“contrary,” and “contradictory,” and show how they are usually used to talk about the two

logical laws: the law of the excluded middle and the principle of non-contradiction. This will

help us get clear about Hegel’s thesis.

2
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel et al., The Encyclopaedia Logic, with the Zusätze : Part I of the Encyclopaedia of
Philosophical Sciences with the Zusätze (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1991).

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 Hegel argues that all logical and ontological properties only have relative opposites. 3

This is controversial, but it seems to be Hegel’s position.4 A relative opposite is classically

understood to involve the notion that some property and its opposite are necessary for each other

to obtain. 5 There is some determining relationship that obtains between each property and its

correlating opposite. In other words, for one to obtain, the other must obtain also. Hegel defines a

relative opposite as a “necessary other” of its correlating opposite. 6 The property of being hot is

the relative opposite of the property of being cold, or the property of being something in

particular is the relative opposite of the property of being nothing at all. These properties are

relative opposites, as opposed to being absolutely different, because for one to obtain the other

must obtain also. So, for Hegel, any philosophical account of some property, say hotness, also

requires looking to what it is not. That is, for a complete account of the property of “hot,” we

need to also see that “hot” is what it is in virtue of its being necessarily related to “cold.” Without

the property of “cold” there would not be the property of “hot,” and vice versa. Jon Stewart, in

his discussion of Hegel’s account of mediation, offers this passage from Hegel:

In the positive and the negative we think we have an absolute distinction. Both terms,
however, are implicitly the same, and therefore we could call the positive “the negative”

3
We will look at the context and argument for this in the next section on Hegel’s thesis.
4
From a classical logical point of view, this is controversial because, on the one hand, there are some properties that
have no correlating opposite, like being mid-sized or grey. On the hand, opposites are generally divided in to at least
three kinds: relative opposites, contraries, and contradictories. Hegel tends to see all properties as relative opposites,
and does not normally speak of them in terms of contraries. So, from the classical logical point of view, while hot
and cold are contraries, because they are opposite properties, and something cannot be both at the same time, Hegel
will allow something to be both at the same time. He will also allow there to be middle term between being and
nothing. This violates the law of the excluded middle and the principle of non-contradiction. Kierkegaard was found
these logical laws inviolable.
5
For example, as Peter of Spain argues: “The Topic from relative opposites is the relationship of one correlate to the
other; and it is both constructive and destructive. For example, ‘A father is; therefore, a child is,’ and vice versa; ‘A
father is not; therefore, a child is not,’ and vice versa…The maxim: When one of a pair of correlates is posited, the
other is also posited; and when one is destroyed, the other is also destroyed.” The Cambridge Translations of
Medieval Texts: Logic and the Philosophy of Language, edited by Norman Kretzman and Eleanor Stump
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988) 239-240
6
Within Hegel’s philosophy, this is notion is prevalent in his description of the relationship between God and the
finite world. Each is a determining and necessary opposite. Without the one there isn’t the other. So, in order for
God (or Spirit) to become itself, God must posit the finite world.

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 if we liked, and conversely we could call the negative “the positive” as well.
Consequently, assets and debts are not two particular, independently subsisting species of
assets. What is negative for the debtor is something positive for the creditor. The same
applies to a road to the east: it is equally a road to the west. Thus, what is positive and
what is negative are essentially conditioned by one another, and are what they are only in
their relation to one another. There cannot be the north pole of a magnet without the
south pole nor the south pole without the north pole. 7

Like the properties “hot” and “cold,” our very notions of positive and negative, the properties of

east and west, and the properties of south and north are relative opposites insofar as they are

mutually determining of each other.

In addition, this passage from Hegel discusses another aspect of his view of relative

opposites. This is that properties and their opposites are such that something can be the bearer of

both at the same time. In other words, something can be both F and the opposite of F at the same

time. This speaks to his view of conceptual mediation or unification of opposites that goes

against the classical law of the excluded middle. At a conceptual level, properties are the same in

virtue of some common thing they share. For example, hot and cold are the same in virtue of

being temperatures; they share a common genus. Things too can be both hot and cold, but only

as long as we understand these properties as situated along a scale or gradient that includes

intermediate cases. On a scale or gradient of temperature, a single thing can be both hot and cold.

For example, the surface of the asphalt directly in the sun is hot, but it is also cold, cold in

relation to the surface temperature of the sun.

Hegel’s thesis that there are all and only relative opposites also places the principle of

non-contradiction in to question. This is because if there are only relative opposites, then no

properties and their opposites are incompatible with each other. That is, there are no opposites

that are contradictories. However, if we consider the example of hot and cold in more detail, we

7
G. W. F Hegel, Encyclopaedia Logic, § 119. Quoted in Jon Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel
Reconsidered (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003) 196-197. Henceforth Stewart.

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see that even on a temperature gradient, hot and cold can quite easily be seen to be incompatible

with each other. The asphalt’s being hot is incompatible with the idea of its being cold. If the

asphalt is 100° then it cannot at the same time be colder than this. It cannot also be 50°. While

we are still speaking of hot and cold on a gradient, there is sense in which the incompatibility of

something being both hot and cold at the same time and in the same respect is an example of the

principle of non-contradiction. Asphalt cannot be both 100° and not 100°.

To be fair to Hegel at this stage, though, it would be negligent to not point out that all

properties and their opposites are not necessarily incompatible. If Hegel is right that there are all

and only relative opposite properties, then he’d also be right to point out that there are no

contradictories either. This he does, in the passage above, by claiming that “positive” and

“negative” and all other properties and their opposites are not absolute distinctions. In other

words, relative opposites are not contradictories. This is for two reasons. First, from the

“classical logical perspective,” contradictory opposites are so because, necessarily, everything

must have one or the other of them. That is, everything is either green or not green, a square or

not a square, a father or not a father. This is not the case with relative opposites (and even

contraries—a third kind of opposite). Relative opposites are not such that everything must

always have one or the other of them. Not everything must be either healthy or sick, either hot or

cold, either dead or alive, or either a mother or a child. We can see this if we consider some sort

of thing that, given the kind of thing it is, (1) must have one or another contradictory concept or

property and (2) cannot have any one of these sets of opposites. Take ideas, for example.

According to the “classical logical perspective,” it is a necessary truth that ideas are either green

or not green, either square or not square, etc. However, it is not a necessary truth that ideas are

either healthy or sick, either hot or cold, or either dead or alive. cannot have any set of because

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they are not physical sorts of things, have neither of these sets of opposites. Ideas, again

depending on the ontology, are in an entirely different genus of existing things, if they exist at

all, than physical sorts of things. This is one reason not all properties and their opposites are

contradictories. That is, everything is either green or not green, a square or not a square, a father

or not a father.

The second reason relative opposites are not contradictories is that contradictories are

those that, necessarily, cannot be said of the same thing at the same time. Something cannot be

both Contradictories share this principle with contraries. However, unlike contraries,

contradictories are such that, necessarily, nothing cannot have one or the other. That is,

everything must have one or the other. For example, the contradictory of hot is not-hot.

Something is either hot or not hot, but, please note, something’s being not hot does not entail that

it is cold. Ideas are not hot, but neither are they cold. Describing the temperature of ideas is not

what reasonable people do, because ideas aren’t the sorts of things that temperature can be said

of. So, oftentimes, if something has some property and another thing has its contradictory, then,

these two things are absolutely different from each other. They are, as it is often said, essentially

different. They are not of the same genus of things.

3. THE DANISH DEBATE ABOUT HEGELIAN MEDIATION

The view that Kierkegaard develops through Judge William in Either/Or II is that there must be

contradictories in order for there to be real and genuine free choices. In other words, Hegel’s

thesis that there are all and only relative oppositions must be false if there are to be any genuine

ethical, future-aiming human projects that have personal significance. A, the often disagreeable

aesthete of Either/Or I, by dismissing absolute contradictories is likened to the speculative

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philosopher who seeks to mediate oppositions. As Judge William claims, “If one admits

mediation, then there is no absolute choice, and if there is no such thing, then there is no absolute

Either/Or.” 8 Judge William is here echoing a common mode of criticism popular among Danish

anti-Hegelians. It turns out, Judge William had read Frederik Sibbern, one of Kierkegaard’s

dissertation committee members! Sibbern writes,

Like the law of contradiction it [sc. principium exlusi medii inter duo contradictoria]
stands against flux since it basically aims at explaining that everything is determinable,
that everything must be something definitely determinate and that therefore an aut/aut is
generally valid. Certainly one might frequently observe, that a middle link can force its
way in between the aut/aut, which seems to posit only two contradictoria, that is two
things, of which the one is thought to be necessarily opposed to the other…I call the
proposition “the law of determination,” and it states that every position ultimately
reduces to a yes or a no or to something decided. 9

Sibbern is here claiming that the law of the excluded middle between two contradictories, here

expressed in the Latin formulation of “either/or” as “aut/aut,” requires that everything be self-

determinable, and not determinable in relation to an opposite, a position Hegel holds and

espouses in both The Encylopaedia Logic and his Science of Logic. Moreover, Sibbern’s “law of

determination seems to ground our decisions—a “yes” or a “no” to contradictory possibilities.

Put otherwise, if at least two genuine contradictories do not obtain, there are no grounds for our

decisions. I take what Sibbern is here claiming to be the heart of Judge Williams’ statement

about mediation. The doctrine of mediation, which argues for a third and unifying term between

opposites, puts out of play the fundamentals needed for choice, since mediation requires that the

terms being mediated be relative opposites and not contradictories.

Among the philosophical positions Kierkegaard criticizes in his authorship the Hegelian notion

of mediation stands out as ubiquitous. Often, Kierkegaard offers his theory of motion (kinēsis)

8
E/O II, 173.
9
Frederik Sibbern, “Om dem Maade, hvorpaa Contradictionsprincipet behandles I den hegelske Skole, med mere,
som henhører til de logiske Grundbetragtninger”, Maanedsskrift for Litterature, no. 19, 1838, Article II, 432. This
passage is quoted in Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel Reconsidered, 189. Emphasis mine.

8
as corrective to existential and philosophical problems associated with the theory of mediation.

Kierkegaard derives his theory motion from Aristotle. 10 In the Physics, Aristotle argues that

kinēsis is a transition from potentiality to actuality, from a state of non-being to being.11

Kierkegaard pitted this Aristotelian concept against Hegel’s account of mediation. Indeed, he

puts the matter quite frankly in his journal: “Hegel has never done justice to the category of

transition. It would be significant to compare it with the Aristotelian teaching about kinēsis.” 12

While Kierkegaard nowhere provides a direct comparison of Aristotelian kinēsis with the

Hegelian account of mediation, Aristotle is, nonetheless, very much in the foreground of

Kierkegaard’s critique of mediation. His critique of mediation, then, rests on certain logical

principles that Hegel denies and both an existential and philosophical account of a broadly

Aristotelian understanding of motion.

Kierkegaard was not the only Dane to oppose Hegelian mediation. As Jon Stewart has

shown, before Kierkegaard began his authorship proper, a debate brewed in Denmark about the

notion of mediation and the thesis that there are only relative opposites. There were a host of

Danish anti-Hegelians who battled against those sympathetic to Hegelian philosophy; their

objections to Hegelian mediation were based on Aristotelian logical principles. They found that

10
In this way, I am in agreement with Clare Carlisle who, in her recent work Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of
Becoming, argues that Kierkegaard’s account of motion is grounded on Aristotelian logical principles. A recent
article by Kirsten Klercke denies this position, however, when she says that “Neither does human existence,
subjectivity…fit well with Aristotelian logic. The self is not interpreted merely as a substance. It does not have a
stable identity, an essence, as a stable bond between an ego and its properties. The self can be different from itself,
can be a not-self or another self—both itself and not itself—as a self.” Kirsten Klercke, “Either/Or?: Contradiction
and Subjectivity in the Postscript,” Kierkegaard Studies (2005), 214. Klercke appears to be reading Kierkegaard as
a kind of Hegelian, and in some respects this is correct. However, Kierkegaard’s account of the self is much more
complex than Klercke thinks. It seems that the aesthete does not have a stable identity, but he certainly does have an
essence which he must actualize by means of existential movement. In order for this movement to take place,
genuine “either/or’s,” that is, absolute contradictories, must be available to the aesthete.
11
Whether Kierkegaard spent much time studying Aristotle’s Physics remains to be determined. For now, it is will
suffice to say that much of his knowledge of Aristotle on kinēsis is taken, primarily, from W. G. Tennemann’s
Geschichte der Philosophie (See JP, 258 and 2348). There is evidence, however, that Kierkegaard studies other
Aristotelian works with much care, especially his early logical works (including Categories, Posterior Analytics,
and De Interpretatione), Nichomachean Ethics, and Metaphysics.
12
JP, 260.

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the doctrine of mediation violated the law of the excluded middle and the principle of non-

contradiction. The Danish Hegelians of his day sought a speculative mediation of Christianity,

such that the content of faith dialectically develops into the philosophical notion of it, thereby

granting truth to it in the mediation. In order for the mediation of Christianity to work,

Christianity and speculative philosophy must be relative contraries (or oppositions). As such,

Hegelian mediation is grounded in a dialectical logic which denies the notion of an “either/or”,

resulting in a denial of the principle of non-contradiction, the law of the excluded middle, and the

classical law of identity, three logical principles that Kierkegaard’s philosophy of motion

requires. 13

One of Kierkegaard’s main objects of critique was the manner in which Hegelian

philosophy engaged religion, especially Christianity. Stemming from Hegel’s attempt to mediate

the revealed religion of Christianity into Absolute Spirit in his Phenomenology of Spirit, 14 as

well as drawing from the life-blood of Hegelian logic, the Danish Hegelian theologians and

philosophers of Kierkegaard’s Copenhagen sought to find a dialectical ground for the truth of

Christianity, most notably specific Christian doctrines, such as the Incarnation and the Trinity. 15

Christianity’s truth, it was argued, is made complete in being taken up and preserved in the

speculative idea. While the Danish Hegelians championed the mediation of Christianity, there

were a number of anti-Hegelians who called into question the legitimacy of the logical function

of mediation itself, recalling Aristotelian logical principles. Kierkegaard indirectly joined the

13
Kierkegaard’s more systematic arguments against the mediation of Christianity are mainly found in Part I,
Chapter II as well as in Division I of his discussion of the issue in Philosophical Fragments in Concluding
Unscientific Postscript.
14
See Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Arnold V. Miller, and J. N. Findlay, Phenomenology of Spirit (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1977)., 453-494.
15
A major player in this debate who championed the mediation of Christian dogmatics with speculative idealism
was Hans Martensen, one of Kierkegaard’s theology professors at the University of Copenhagen.

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debate on the side of the anti-Hegelians, and persistently holds throughout his authorship that

speculation and Christianity are absolute contradictories. 16

As a student at the University of Copenhagen, Kierkegaard studied philosophy and

theology. It is there, as well as in his own independent research, that he received an education in

the theological import of Hegelianism. He sat in on a class, titled “Introduction to Speculative

Dogmatics,” with the Hegelian theologian and future Bishop of Zealand, Hans Martensen, and

was active with students involved in the Hegelian enterprise. 17 But as a student Kierkegaard was

also in tune with the broader influence of Hegelianism on Danish culture, art, and literature.

Johan Heiberg was the main proprietor of Danish Hegelianism within the areas of art, literature

and poetry, distributing Hegelian philosophical doctrines through the many journals he edited

and published, and Kierkegaard as a young thinker was enamored by Heiberg’s breadth of

learning, dialectical skill and aesthetic sense. Kierkegaard early in his academic career sought to

join Heiberg and his circle of artists, poets, and philosophers when he was very much intrigued

by the prospects of Hegelian thought. 18

However, Kierkegaard’s early sympathy for Hegelianism appears to subside by 1843

with the publication of his famous Either/Or (a more thorough discussion of Either/Or’s

16
While there are, for Kierkegaard, a number of predicates that define the nature of Christianity, one in particular
directly expresses Christianity’s opposition to speculative philosophy—the paradox. Whereas speculative
philosophy, in employing the tool of mediation, sets out to unify contradictories, Christianity is essentially
paradoxical. Ultimately drawing upon Leibniz’s distinction between what is against reason and what is above
reason, Kierkegaard writes, “What I usually express by saying that Christianity consists of paradox, philosophy in
mediation, Leibniz expresses by distinguishing between what is above reason and what is against reason. Faith is
above reason. By reason he understands, as he says many places, a linking together of truths (enchainement), a
conclusion from causes. Faith therefore cannot be proved, demonstrated, comprehended, for the link which makes a
linking together possible is missing, and what else does this say than that it is a paradox” (JP, 3073).
17
For a helpful discussion of Kierkegaard’s relation to Martensen, see Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel
Reconsidered, 58-67. Much of the following account relies on Stewart’s discussion of Kierkegaard and the Danish
Hegelians in chapter four, “Hegel’s Aufhebung and Kierkegaard’s Either/Or” (182-237).
18
Jon Stewart that one of Kierkegaard’s first published pieces, From the Papers of One Still Living (1838) in EPW,
a book-review of Hans Christian Anderson’s Only a Fiddler, was written with the sole purpose “to endear
Kierkegaard to Heiberg.” Heiberg and Anderson were not on good terms at the time of Kierkegaard’s writing of the
review, and Kierkegaard had intended to publish his work in one of Heiberg’s Hegelian journals, Perseus. See
Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel Reconsidered, 115.

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importance for Kierkegaard’s critique of mediation can be found in the next section). 19 The title

reflects not only an awareness of the debates in Denmark about the legitimacy of Hegelian

dialectic, especially the role of mediation in logic, but also an indication that Kierkegaard had

taken a side on the debate. The Danish debate centered Hegelianism’s eradicating the principle

of non-contradiction and the law of the excluded middle. Those who found Hegelian logic to be

fundamentally flawed championed the necessity of these Aristotelian principles, especially as an

application to questions about the distinction between rationality and faith. This debate is central

to understanding Kierkegaard’s ultimate dismay for Hegelian speculative logic, as well as his

polemical response to those Danish Hegelians who were keen to see a mediation of Christianity

and speculative thought

With Either/Or, Kierkegaard entered the debate between those who supported the

incorruptibility of Aristotelian logical principles and the proponents of mediation which began in

the late 1830’s. One of the important moments of the debate, which Kierkegaard followed with

much interest, began with an article written by Kierkegaard’s childhood pastor, Jakob Mynster,

in response to a student of Hegelianism who issued a review of Hans Martensen’s published

dissertation, On the Autonomy of Human Self-Consciousness in Modern Dogmatic Theology. As

Jon Stewart explains, the review, written by Johan Bornemann, to which Mynster responds

“praises the achievements of speculative philosophy which demonstrated the conceptual unity of

opposites.” 20 The opposites the review aimed to show had been conceptually unified are

19
Even though it appears Kierkegaard had broken with Hegelianism with the publishing of Either/Or, like so many
of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous writings, it, nonetheless, exhibits a complex relation to Hegelianism, making
interpretation of the work difficult. For example, the author of the first volume, A, uses a number of Hegelianisms
to express his aesthetic existence. Even Judge William, the author of the letters that compose the second volume
engages Hegelian thought on a number of levels. Most notably, in his letter to A, titled “The Aesthetic Validity of
Marriage,” the Judge indicates the importance to preserve immediate forms of erotic love that are endemic to
aesthetic existence in the ethical institution of marriage. This naturally indicates that the Judge believes that some
form of mediation is advisable, and perhaps needed, between the aesthetic and the ethical.
20
Stewart, “Mynster’s ‘Rationalism, Supernaturalism,’” Kierkegaard Studies (2004), 566.

12
rationalism and supernaturalism. Bornemann argues, in deference to Martensen, that “In

theology both rationalism and supernaturalism are antiquated standpoints which belong to a time

which has disappeared,” 21 indicating that these two apparent oppositions have, through time,

been mediated into a higher unity, a unity Hegel established in his speculative logic.

The occasion for this particular debate had to do with a theological problem regarding the

relation of reason to faith, and was not directly animated by issues pertaining to logic. However,

central matters concerning logic arise in Mynster’s response to Bornemann, especially toward

the conclusion of his article. 22 After having argued that rationalism and supernaturalism are in

fact flourishing and are viable options for Christian believers, Mynster asks his interlocutor

whether both rationalism and supernaturalism can both be antiquated at the same time. Alluding

to the law of the excluded middle, Mynster claims that they cannot. He writes,

If it is characteristic for consistent rationalism—and in this, as was shown above,

naturalism makes common cause with it—“to reject the necessity and the actuality of a
revelation as communication from God to man carried out in a supernatural manner,” and
if, by contrast, supernaturalism grounds itself in precisely such a revelation, then it seems
that religion must always be regarded under one of these views, and that if one of them
really were antiquated, then the other would have to be that much more dominant, unless
the principium exlcusi medii inter duo contradictoria is also supposed to be antiquated. 23

Mynster here argues that religion will not accept that rationalism and supernaturalism are

antiquated oppositions, because religion is either rational or it is supernatural; as such, they

cannot be mediated. If they cannot be mediated, then it appears that they are not oppositions

after all, but absolute contradictories, as is evident from his allusion to the law of the excluded

middle. He continues,

When we say “the revelation which Christianity rests upon is either supernatural or not
supernatural,” it presumably is immediately clear that all mediation is impossible here

21
Ibid.
22
Mynster spends most his energy defining rationalism and supernaturalism and determining if there are in fact any
thinkers who exclusively hold one or the other.
23
Stewart, “Mynster’s ‘Rationalism, Supernaturalism,’” 581.

13
 and that all such attempts towards it can only lead to a halfway point, to a teetering and
oscillation back and forth between rationalist supernaturalism and supernatural
rationalism… 24

It is incoherent, for Mynster, to allow for such oscillation between the two terms, an oscillation

both Hegel and the Danish Hegelians argue obtains for any opposition. By “oscillation,”

Mynster is referring to the Hegelian understanding of the movement of oppositions from and to

each other. This movement, we will see, is precisely the movement against which Kierkegaard

pits his own conception of motion. Hegelian philosophy argues that to hold that there are such

absolute contradictories and, in turn, to hold that there exists no mediation between opposed

terms, exhibits a lack of logical integrity. This is precisely the criticism Hans Martensen gives in

his response to Mynster in his article “Rationalism, Supernaturalism and the principium exclusi

medii.”

Martensen correctly takes Mynster to be holding that “Every religious theory must decide

either for supernaturalism or for rationalism, and that there is no third.” 25 In denying the

mediation of the two, Mynster argues that absolute contradictories cannot be mediated into a

third, and that the law of the excluded middle must be upheld. In issues pertaining to theology,

however, Martensen attempts to show that the law of the excluded middle must be denied; but

this entails that rationalism and supernaturalism are relative oppositions, and not duo

contradictoria.

Martensen proceeds by comparing Judaism and Christianity with regard to this issue.

Against the Jewish understanding of the divine, Martensen takes Christianity to require the

mediation of opposites. Whereas Jewish theology sees God as absolutely transcendent,

Christianity holds that God is both immanent and transcendent. Martensen writes, “The central

24
Ibid., 581-82.
25
Jon Stewart, Martensen’s “Rationalism, Supernaturalism and the principium exlusi medii,” Kierkegaard Studies
(2004), 587.

14
point of Christianity—the doctrine of Incarnation, the doctrine of the God-man—shows precisely

that Christian metaphysics cannot remain in an “either/or,” but that it must find its truth in the

third which this law excludes.” 26 However, for Judaism, it is argued, the absolute contradictories

remain continually opposed to each other, where God and man cannot “be mediated in the self-

same subject.” 27 In essence, Martensen thinks the problem with Judaism is that it remains too

Aristotelian in its conceptualization of the relationship between God and humanity, eternity and

time.

The debate between the Danish Hegelians and the anti-Hegelians, while fundamentally

concerned with theological issues, generated discussion about the basic laws of logic,

nevertheless. It is not quite clear, however, just what reasons Martensen has to assume that

fundamental Christian doctrines presume and require the logic of mediation. It is one thing to

believe in the Incarnation, but it is another to reason that the Incarnation is a mediation of

opposites. To get clear about what Martensen seems to be arguing, it will be helpful to consider

just what is being meant by opposite, and why Hegelianism denies that there are absolute

contradictories. We will see that Kierkegaard enters the debate about mediation at this point, and

keys in on just what mediation in general lacks. For Kierkegaard, the doctrine of mediation

abrogates the possibility of genuine choice and decision between two contradictory possibilities.

That is, with mediation, there are no choices, because there is no “either/or,”, which entails that

for Hegelianism there are no absolute contradictories. Kierkegaard’s Either/Or will be read as

an indirect argument against Hegelianism’s undermining absolute contradictories.

26
Stewart, “Martensen’s ‘Rationalism, Supernaturalism and the principium exclusi medii,’” 588.
27
Ibid.

15
 4. EITHER/OR, AESTHETIC EXISTENCE, AND MEDIATION

Either/Or, I believe, is an indirect argument against Hegelian philosophy, both in the papers

written by A, which compose the first volume, and the letters by Judge William in the second

volume. 28 A embodies a kind of Hegelian standpoint in his papers, but one that is not merely

philosophical, but existential. A and Hegelianism are parallel standpoints which arrive at the

same kind of conclusion regarding the legitimacy of “either/or”, a conclusion that is broadly

aesthetic; it isn’t clear, however, in what sense their conclusion is aesthetic until we understand

what is meant by “aesthetic.” Judge William’s letters to A, on the other hand, attempt, from an

ethical standpoint, to demonstrate the paucity of A’s existence, and ultimately its despair. He

desires for A to see this and change his life based on this realization.

Either/Or, rather than presenting a series of deductions, presents an absolute choice:

either the aesthetic or the ethical, but not both. The exclusive disjunction between the aesthetic

and the ethical precludes the possibility of there arising a state of affairs where both are true and

precludes the possibility of a state of affairs whereby one can choose both at the same time.

A’s undermining of freedom is due to his indifference about a genuine “either/or.” He

treats the notion of an “either/or” existentially in the way that the Hegelian undermines them

speculatively. The aesthetic and speculative indifference toward the idea of an “either/or” is

grounded in the denial that there are absolute contradictories and the acceptance that there are

only relative oppositions.

Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, the ethicist Judge William, hones in on this difference when,

in one of his letters to A, he argues that aesthetic existence is indifferent to absolute differences

28
I agree here with Clare Carlisle who, on p. 54 of her Kierkegaard’s Philosophy of Becoming, writes, “The
aesthetes’ writings function as an indirect critique of Hegelian philosophy, by means of the resemblance between
them.”

16
and that the aesthetic life-view continually thinks relative differences. 29 Whereas the ethicist has

chosen the good, whereby the absolute difference between good and evil emerges, the aesthete

chooses nothing significant, since his existence mirrors a merely thinking-existence, where no

absolute differences are meaningful to him. It is important to highlight that these absolute

differences are there and available for the aesthete to choose, but not meaningful. In this way,

the choices the aesthete makes are not meaningful either. Thus A can say that with what ever

“either/or” obtains for him, he is indifferent about the choice of the one against the other.

Marry and you will regret it. Do not marry, and you will also regret it. Marry or do not
marry, you will regret it either way. Whether you marry or you do not marry, you will
regret it either way…Hang yourself, you will regret it. Do not hang yourself, and you
will also regret it. Hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way.
Whether you hang yourself or do not hang yourself, you will regret it either way...This,
gentleman, is the quintessence of all the wisdom of life. 30

One is struck by A’s confidence that his indifference to the idea of an “either/or” is the height of

all wisdom, and it is difficult to detect his meaning here. Surely, what A expresses is a

pernicious form of nihilism and, for all that, what he says is downright depressing. How could

anyone continue living with such an outlook?

A is an agent who has reached a point of despair about not only the logical principles but

also the moral principles that require genuine free agency. Not only does he find the “either/or”

meaningless, he also has given up on his will to choose between these contradictories. He

doesn’t begin or choose a project for the reason that he doesn’t think his choices are freely

actualized choices, nor does he think that if he were to choose one project against another that

the actualized state of affairs would endure. He avoids the risks of future projects and his world

is deterministic: “Before me is continually an empty space, and I am propelled by a consequence

29
E/O II, 223.
30
E/O I, 38-39.

17
that lies behind me. This life is turned around and dreadful, not to be endured.” 31 This may

sound strange to the philosophical ear. Surely, how can a consequence be the cause of an

antecedent action? I think a hint to this can be found in Judge William’s admonishment to A that

even though he views life fatalistically, he is nonetheless directed toward the future. 32 But

precisely because he is not confident in and has no presentiment about what the future will

bring 33 , he avoids the risk of choice altogether, a danger that Judge William claims must be

earnestly embraced by the ethical. 34 In avoiding the risk of what the future will bring, he

chooses nothing. Thus the consequent (the indeterminacy of the endurance of future projects) is

the cause of his choosing nothing. A views his existence under the category of necessity, and

therefore would rather not do anything at all; he admits of an incompatibilist determinism, but he

cannot endure what this incompatibilism entails, namely, the loss of free choice and a will.

Better do nothing altogether.

A would rather not choose, and he takes the wisdom of his maxim here to be directly

related to the kind of dialectic he employs. A writes that his dialectic of “either/or” does not

operate after the choice, but before it. This can be misleading. He doesn’t understand his

dialectic to be employed “before” in the temporal sense. His dialectic is an eternal dialectic, and

not subject to the temporal sequence of before and after. He writes,

It is not merely in isolated moments that I, as Spinoza says, view everything aeterno
modo [in the mode of eternity], but I am continually aeterno modo. Many believe they,
too, are this when after doing one thing or another they unite or mediate these opposites.
But his is a misunderstanding, for the true eternity does not lie behind either/or but before
it. Their eternity will therefore also be a painful temporal sequence, since they will have
a double regret on which to live. 35

31
E/O I, 24.
32
E/O II, 170.
33
E/O I, 24.
34
E/O II, 164.
35
E/O I, 39.

18
A chides those who see their choices from the hither side, who take the pains to choose one

project against another, and then in looking back regret their choice. They wish that perhaps

they hadn’t married or hadn’t trusted the girl they put all their inner passion into receiving with

open arms. These persons may wish, after the fact, that they had chosen both; chosen both,

because at one moment they perhaps enjoy their marriage, at another moment not. Thus the

temporal dialectic of “either/or” results, for A, in dual regret. Their sorrow over their decision

waxes and wanes, and subsequently they wish that they had both married and not married.

But, for A, “one must differentiate between the subsequent dialectic in “either/or” and the

eternal one suggested here.” 36 The temporal dialectic of “either/or” ends in double regret, but

A’s eternal dialectic attempts to avoid regret altogether. Those who follow the former perhaps

have, from the beginning, too much faith that their choices would result in an enduring state of

affairs, that the joy they felt in making the choice to marry would continue for them, and that this

endurance is due to some belief about their autonomy or that their choices would result in states

of affairs that are more or less still up to them.

However, A’s “either/or” never gets off the ground, and this is because he views “his”

actions to be necessitated and fated. Unlike the proponents of the temporal dialectic who choose

one thing against another, and afterward desire to unite these in their regret, A, from the

beginning, views the notion of an “either/or” as meaningless, since he believes that his agency is

empty; that it, in the end, assumes no causal role. Without free agency, A is necessitated and

determined. He writes, “I am predestined; fate laughs at me when it suddenly shows me how

everything I do to resist becomes a factor in such an existence [Tilværelse].” 37 Elsewhere, he

says, “Time stands still, and so do I. All the plans I project fly straight back at me; when I spit, I

36
E/O I, 39.
37
E/O I, 36.

19
spite in my own face.” 38 He also observes, “I feel as a chessman must feel when the opponent

says of it: That piece cannot be moved.” 39 A’s aesthetic self-conception is that of a chess figure

that cannot move itself. While a helpful analogy, A’s situation is much more dire than a pawn in

chess, since A is an agent who despairs over his own agency, something a pawn could not do. In

despairing over his agency, he effectively undermines it. He has willed not to begin at all, and

this is his maxim.

As Michelle Kosch has recently argued, A views his actions as necessarily determined,

and has chosen himself according to this necessity; but if his actions are necessarily determined,

he is not responsible for what ever act he engages. Kosch remarks, “The situation is that of an

individual stymied by his own refusal to believe that anything is up to him.” 40 With the belief

that nothing is up to him, A sees “himself as a spectator in life rather than a participant in it,” 41

for if he were an active participant in his own life, he would no doubt believe that his

participation meant something, that it was not for nothing.

That A is “outside” himself, taking on the position of an observer of life, gives us a clue

to his eternal dialectic. A’s eternal dialectic does not admit of movement (as he says, “I do not

move” 42 and, as Judge William remarks, A is like the speculative philosopher insofar as the

movement of life has come to a stop for him. 43 Contrary to the temporal dialectic, the eternal

dialectic A employs is one which no existing human being can properly engage. He takes

himself to exist sub specie aeterni; but it is precisely the eternal that does not move.

38
E/O I, 26.
39
E/O I, 22.
40
Michelle Kosch, "'Despair' in Kierkegaard's Either/Or," Journal of the History of Philosophy 44, no. 1 (2006).
41
Ibid.
42
E/O I, 39.
43
E/O II, 172, 225.

20
 As Judge William understands it, the eternal dialectic, while lacking the resources for

motion, also views existence under the category of necessity. Like the speculative philosopher

that observes the past as necessitated according to the organizing function of world-spirit, A

observes the future to be necessitated from the beginning. According to Judge William, for both

free agency is out of the question, and this because both A and the speculative philosopher are

indifferent to absolute contradictories. The speculative philosopher

Sees history under the category of necessity, not under the category of freedom, for even
though the world-historical process is said to be free, this is in the same sense as one
speaks of the organizing process in nature. For the historical process there is not question
of an Either/Or…This in turn accounts for its incapacity for having a person act, its
inclination to let everything come to a standstill, for what it actually demands is that one
must act necessarily, which is a contradiction. 44

A’s dialectic is not the same as a Hegelian one, even though Judge William argues both A and

Hegelianism arrives at the same conclusion, namely an indifference to an “either/or” and thus the

undermining of choice, all according to “modern philosophy’s pet theory that the principle of

contradiction is canceled.” 45

On this point, Judge William admonishes A’s indifference to movement, which the

speculative philosopher exhibits in the sphere of thought. A’s papers, which Johannes Climacus,

in “A Glance at Danish Literature” in the Postscript, defines as expositing “an existence-

possibility that cannot attain existence,” 46 clarify aesthetic forms of life which, while they are

situated in the sphere of action, do not make the movements necessary and sufficient for arriving

at existence. Climacus further claims that aesthetic existence

Is not existence, but existence-possibility oriented toward existence, and brought so close
that one almost feels how every moment is wasted in which a decision has not yet been
reached. But the existence-possibility in the existing A does not want to be conscious of

44
E/O II, 175.
45
E/O II, 170.
46
CUP I, 253.

21
 this and holds existence at bay by the most subtle of all deceptions, by thinking. He has
thought everything possible, and yet has not existed at all. 47

But as Judge William argues, A’s lack of movement is a symptom of the aesthete’s indifference

to the meaningfulness of these possibilities. Even though A is not a speculative philosopher, his

inaction leads him to the same place as the speculative philosopher, because his treatment of

“either/or” leads to the same kind of conclusion about its legitimacy. However, the conclusions

both A and the speculative philosopher draw about the existence of a genuine “either/or” are

self-referentially inconsistent. Both A and the speculative philosopher are committed to some

form of causal determinism. A doesn’t think his actions and beliefs are freely chosen and the

speculative philosopher believes that conceptual and logical necessity governs world history. 48

Within the sphere of action and practice, A treats the notion of “either/or” with indifference;

within the sphere of contemplation, the speculative philosopher undermines the possibility of an

“either/or” by mediating it into a “both/and,” thus relativizing what Judge William holds are

absolute differences. The Judge writes, “You are situated in the sphere of action, philosophy in

the area of contemplation. As soon as it is to be moved into the area of practice, it must arrive at

the same conclusion as you do, even though it does not express it in the same way.” 49 The

conclusions both A and the speculative philosopher draw are the same, but they are expressed

differently according to their respective relations to time. As the Judge relates, A’s life is

47
Ibid.
48
Here I am in agreement with Michelle Kosch in her “‘Despair’ in Kierkegaard’s Either/Or.” Both she and I are in
disagreement with Mark Taylor’s developmental psychological reading of Kierkegaard’s spheres of existence. He
understands the spheres of existence to be developmental in the sense that one existence sphere is only inadequate
from the perspective of a higher sphere. Aesthetic existence is not a fully fledge existence for the reason that it isn’t
fully developed. The ethical self is a more fully developed self, and the difference between the two selves is made
explicit by the ethical. This view amounts to saying that the aesthetic self is not intrinsically problematic, but only
relatively, in comparison to the ethical. But if this is the case, then the aesthete has no reasons to change his
standpoint on existence, other than those provided by the ethicist. However, if the reasons for only change come
from the ethical sphere, there seems to be no grounds that the aesthete would accept to change his perspective.
Kosch, instead, argues that the aesthete is “intrinsically unstable” (93), and that this instability amounts to the
aesthete holding a set of contradictory beliefs and stances toward his existence. Pronging the aesthete to realize this,
it is argued, would result in modifying those beliefs and stances toward a more coherent view point, the ethical.
49
E/O II, 170. Emphasis mine.

22
positioned toward the future, the speculative philosopher the past.50 This is because A resides in

the sphere of action, the speculative philosopher in the sphere of contemplation, which “turns

toward the past, toward the totality of experienced world history; it shows how the discursive

elements come together in a higher unity; it mediates and mediates.” 51 To say that the aesthete

does not make significant choices may sound, at first, like a provocative and perhaps very

confusing claim, but if we are mindful of Judge William’s understanding of choice, it may, in the

end, become clear. Judge William tells A that his choices are “figurative,” since choice is an

ethical category and it is in the ethical sphere where the question of the “either/or” arises. The

aesthete’s life, the Judge remarks, “comes to a halt,” just as the speculative philosopher seeks the

eternal vantage point from which to observe and mediate world history. 52

If there are no absolute differences, but only relative differences, there can be no

significant choices, since there obtains no alternative possibilities to choose from. Judge

William writes, “That the person who chooses good and evil chooses the good is indeed true, but

only later does this become manifest, for the esthetic is not evil but the indifferent. And that is

why I said that the ethical constitutes the choice.” 53 In choosing the good, the ethicist has the

grounds for choosing between good and evil, which emerge as contradictory possibilities for the

ethicist. But even more fundamental is the ethicist’s “either/or” between the ethical and the

aesthetic. The “either/or,” for Judge William, consists of the choice by which he “chooses good

and evil or rules them out.” 54 Thus, there are two “either/or’s” operative in Judge William’s

letter to the aesthete—either good or evil, but not both, and either the ethical or the aesthetic, but

not both. The Judge claims that the latter is his primary “either/or.” However, aesthetic

50
E/O II, 170.
51
Ibid..
52
E/O II, 171.
53
E/O II, 156.
54
E/O II, 156.

23
existence, whose main principle is mediation, does not choose anything, since choice requires the

emergence of absolute contradictories.

5. JOHANNESS CLIMACUS’S ARGUMENT AGAINST THE HEGELIAN THESIS

To anticipate Kierkegaard’s rejection of Hegel’s arguments, I want to claim that, while Hegel’s

problems with the abstract negation of DCC are provocative, he has not sufficiently shown that

there aren’t in fact absolute yet determinate contradictories. He has merely proved that DCC

takes itself to be holding to determinate contradictories, but ends up with an abstract negation of

a determinate something. His argument, then, is only applicable to holders of DCC, and not to

all holders of absolute contradictories. Kierkegaard and the other anti-Hegelians in Denmark

seem to escape Hegel’s critique of DCC, since they hold that absolute contradictories are

determinate contradictories (as Sibbern argues) and not the mere abstract negation of one

determinate thing. This is seen in Kierkegaard’s call (through Judge William) for his readers to

decide between the aesthetic and the ethical, where the aesthetic is the determinate and absolute

contradictory of the ethical. Certainly, the abstract negation of the aesthetic sphere would result

in the negation of itself (the negation of A is ~A), but Kierkegaard would find this, like Hegel,

uninteresting (regardless of it being logically correct).

Furthermore, Hegel’s attack on those who commit contradiction by unwittingly trying to

avoid it seems misplaced. It is misplaced because Hegel’s argument employs a notion of

contradiction that DCC does not employ. The issue with DCC is with determinate contradictions

which are absolute, whereas the contradictories Hegel uses are not absolute contradictions but

relative oppositions. He is not claiming that + and – are the same in virtue of A or in virtue of

some other thing, but that +A and –A are the same in virtue of A. There is no reason to believe

24
that those who hold onto the existence of absolute contradictories (i) deny that there are relative

oppositions and (ii) that these relative opposition cannot be mediated into something else or are

the same in virtue of something else.

Indeed, Kierkegaard, his family pastor Mynster, as well as many of his pseudonyms are

proponents of the theory that relative oppositions can be mediated, but they, nonetheless, argue

that there are absolute contradictories. 55 Mynster claims that “One can mediate between

opposites but not between contradictions.” 56 Along the same lines, Kierkegaard states,

All relative contrasts can be mediated; we do not really need Hegel for this, inasmuch as
the ancients point out that they can be distinguished. Personality will for all eternity
protest against the idea that absolute contrasts can be mediated (and this protest is
incommensurable with the assertion of mediation); for all eternity it will repeat its
immortal dilemma: to be or not to be—that is the question. 57

Both Mynster and Kierkegaard agree that relative oppositions can be mediated, but they disagree

with Hegelianism that absolute contradictories don’t exist. About mediation, then, Kierkegaard

denies the following:

(1) There are no absolute contradictories

(2) There are all and only relative oppositions

He, however, agrees with Hegelianism that

(3) All relative oppositions are mediated

Kierkegaard accepts (3) because he accepts something like:

(2’) There are relative oppositions 58

55
Both Judge William and Climacus argue that there are relative oppositions and that such oppositions can be
mediated. They deny, along with Kierkegaard and Mynster, that there are all and only relative oppositions. I will
treat Climacus’ argument for this in this section. Judge William argues that for thought there is mediation, but for
freedom there is not. He attempts to keep these two spheres separate, such that freedom would be a breaking off
point from thought in the moment of decision. See E/O II, 170-173.
56
Stewart, Mynster’s “Rationalism, Supernaturalism,” 582.
57
JP, 1578.
58
Cf. JP, 1578; E/O II, 173-175; CUP, 376. To affirm that there are absolute contradictories does not preclude one
from conceding to something like (2’). Relative oppositions are, quite rightly, oppositions which obtain within a

25
If one holds to (1), then one effectively undermines the principle of non-contradiction.

Accepting (2) and (3) together entails the denial of the law of the excluded middle as well as the

classical law of identity.

Before turning to Climacus’ arguments for his rejection of (1) and (2), I’d like to just

briefly say something about his acceptance of (3) and (2’), so that I can get to his more

important arguments (at least given the purposes of this paper) against (1) and (2). His argument

rests on clarifying just what can be considered relative opposites and what escapes this relativity,

altogether. He proceeds as follows:

Within speculation it is possible for whatever makes a claim of being speculation

to be assigned its relative place and the opposites to be mediated—namely, the
opposites that have this in common, that each is a speculative endeavor…for
example, when speculative thought mediates between the doctrine of the Eleatics
and that of Heraclitus, this can be altogether proper, because the doctrine of the
Eleatics is not related as an opposite of speculation but is itself speculative, and
likewise the doctrine of Heraclitus.59

I think we can understand Kierkegaard’s account of the mediation of relative opposites if we take

him to be making a distinction between two members of a common genus. Speculation is a

genus of thought under which may be found relatively opposed, but not contradictory, ideas.

Since the doctrines of Parmenides and Zeno and those of Heraclitus fall under a common genus

of thought, they can be mediated according to the method of speculation. Whatever the

tenability of Kierkegaard’s claiming (1) that both the Eleatics and Heraclitus share in common

the speculative enterprise and (2) that they are relatively opposed and not absolutely opposed, the

point is that in those cases where relative oppositions obtain, they can be mediated. In this case,

species or genus. A horse and a human being are relatively contrasted and they can be mediated, since they share a
common species, animal. Absolute contradictories, on the other hand, cannot obtain within a single species or
genus, but refer to the negation of a species or genus. It may seem like this kind of contradiction is not of the
classical Aristotelian kind, since it seems to not refer, at bottom, to propositions. We will see that Kierkegaard was
very much concerned about the role contradiction plays in propositions as well.
59
CUP, 376; SKS, VII, 325-26.

26
some species that fall under a genus are relatively opposed, but not contradictories, because they

share an essence in common.

Climacus shows, then, that mediation obtains between relative opposites, and that this is

largely a speculative/Hegelian endeavor. Species of speculation (like that of the doctrines of the

Eleatics and Heraclitus) can be mediated in thought. But as we know all too well from

Kierkegaard’s writings, the objectivity of speculative philosophy, that feature that turns

Christianity into a doctrine—into an image of its own likeness—is significantly different from

the subjectivity of Christian existence. As Climacus writes, “Surely a philosophical theory that is

to be comprehended and speculatively understood is one thing, and a doctrine that is to be

actualized in existence is something else.” 60 A speculative philosophy which dabbles in

theology does not have much, if anything, in common with a doctrine which, rather than being

speculatively understood, is subjectively actualized or appropriated. Climacus’ point is that even

though mediation obtains between relative opposites, speculative philosophy and Christianity are

not relative opposites, nor does Christianity fall under the lattice of speculation. 61 There is thus,

an exception to the exhaustive doctrine of mediation, which holds that there are all and only

relative opposites.

Climacus intimates that the mediation of Christianity into its philosophical form is

achieved from the vantage point of philosophy itself. Speculative philosophy here is both rule

and judge in the task of mediation since Christianity is accorded its dialectical place and

development by speculation. 62 Thus, Christianity is something like a species of speculative

60
CUP, 379fn. Emphasis mine.
61
Climacus issues a similar critique of Hegelianism in the “Interlude” to Philosophical Fragments. There he argues
that in the sphere of necessity, there is no actualization, no movement, because what is necessary “is always related
to itself and is related to itself in the same way.” This sameness admits no difference, as such, there is no change.
Cf. Philosophical Fragments, trans. Howard and Edna Hong (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1985), 74.
62
Søren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. Howard and Edna Hong (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 1992), 375-376. Henceforth abbreviated as CUP.

27
thought, much like the philosophical doctrines of Parmenides and Heraclitus are speculative.

This is why, when Climacus imagines how a speculative philosopher would respond when asked

what Christianity is, the speculator would say, “The speculative conception of Christianity.” 63

Recalling the debates in Denmark about mediation, Climacus treats speculation and

Christianity as apparent oppositions, oppositions the Danish Hegelians argue have been

mediated (the Hegelians Bornemann and Martensen come to mind here). As has been discussed

in section two, at issue here is how speculative thought argues that Christianity has dialectically

developed into the philosophical notion of it, thereby granting truth to the content of Christianity

in the mediation. As Westphal says, “Here mediation is the name for the transformation of

Christianity from its immediate, religious form to its mediated, philosophical form.” 64 As such,

the mediation of Christianity into its philosophical form is achieved from the vantage point of

philosophy itself.

However, if Christianity just is the concept speculation has of it, then it is difficult to see

how they can be mediated. I will treat two arguments Climacus gives for why they cannot be

mediated. Climacus issues a reductio for why they cannot be mediated. I’ll call it the “argument

from insufficient difference.”

Climacus’s “argument from insufficient difference” goes as follows:

But even if speculative thought assumes a distinction between Christianity and

speculative thought, if for no other reason than merely the satisfaction of mediating, if it
still does not definitely and decisively state the distinction, then one must ask: Is not
mediation speculative thought’s idea? Consequently, when the opposites are mediated,
the opposites (speculative thought—Christianity) are not equal before the arbiter, but
Christianity is an element within speculation, and speculation acquires dominance
because it had dominance, and because there was no moment of balance when the
opposites were weighed against each other. 65

63
CUP, 375.
64
Merold Westphal, Becoming a Self : A Reading of Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Purdue
University Press Series in the History of Philosophy (West Lafayette, Ind.: Purdue University Press, 1996).
65
CUP, 375-376.

28
Climacus highlights speculative thought’s penchant to conceive of speculation and Christianity

as relative and mediated opposites. But he asks whether their status as relative opposites is such

that they are sufficiently distinguished to be mediated—that is, whether speculative philosophy’s

conception of the difference between itself and Christianity is such that they can be mediated.

Opposition, recall, is a relationship that obtains, by means of determinate negation, between

something and its necessary other. Are Christianity and speculation related and opposed in this

way? Climacus argues that they cannot be, because Christianity and speculation are not

oppositions “of equal standing”—they are not balanced opposites, but the former stands an

inferior relation to the former. 66 As such, they cannot be mediated.

Climacus is here arguing that Christianity is not a genuine opposite of speculation,

because speculation defines the rules by which Christianity is defined and treated. As an element

within speculation, Christianity is merely a species of it. If Christianity is merely a species of

speculation, then it is not a genuine opposite of speculation, since genuine opposites are defined,

having equal standing, in relation to each other. Here, however, Christianity is treated as a lesser

in relation that which is dominant.

The gist of Climacus’ “argument from insufficient difference” is that speculation and

Christianity are not sufficiently different enough for the mediation of them to obtain. Recall that

Hegel argues that opposites are produced from each other, by means of determinate negation.

However, opposites are, nonetheless, self-identical and, as Climacus argues, “of equal standing.”

But a relationship between a lesser and dominant cannot yield to mediation, since the superiority

of the one over the other abjures any balanced opposition.

66
CUP, 376..

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 Climacus’ arguments suggest that Christianity is not the necessary other of speculation.

If Christianity is not the necessary other of speculation, then Christianity cannot be mediated.

But if Christianity cannot be mediated with speculation, then the law of excluded middle remains

inviolated with respect to these two spheres. Like Judge William, who argues for an “either/or”

between the aesthetic and the ethical, Climacus argues: either speculation, or Christianity, but

not both. In this way, he denies (1), that there are no absolute contradictories. In denying (1),

furthermore, he also rejects (2), that there are all and only relative oppositions.

If Christianity and speculation are not related as a species to a genus, or even related as

two species under a common genus are related, how then are they related? Climacus suggests

that they are absolutely different—Christianity is the opposite of speculation “on the whole.” 67

Here, it appears, the language of genus and species can no longer explain Climacus’ meaning,

since Climacus claims that Christianity is not related to speculation as a species of a genus. One

might think, instead, that Christianity and speculation are opposed as two different genera are

opposed, whereby Christianity is essentially different from speculation, much like “animal” and

“table” are differences in kind. However, Christianity and speculation aren't merely different

genera. The trouble with this way of thinking is that if Christianity and speculation are just

merely different like the kinds “animal” and “table” are, then the relationship between them is

more like the relationship between determinate terms that are, in essence, unrelated to each other.

Hegel terms this sort of relationship diversity, whereby “The distinguished terms subsist as

indifferently different toward one another because each is self-identical.” 68 But the diversity of

these terms does not entail the strict or absolute opposition of these terms. “Animal” and “table”

are not directly opposed to each other, like X and not-X or “lower” and “higher” are.

67
CUP, 376
68
Science of Logic, 418.

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 It is important to determine just what Climacus means when he says that Christianity is,

“on the whole,” opposed to speculation and, because of this, that they cannot be mediated. First,

it seems clear that Christianity is not generated out of speculation and vice versa. If they were,

then the one would include the other in itself, which is something Climacus wants to deny.

Remember that, for Climacus, given what Christianity is, speculation does not hold rights over it,

since Christianity occupies a qualitatively different sphere than speculation—Christianity the

sphere of existence, subjectivity, and movement and speculation the sphere of contemplation,

objectivity, and rest. In this way, Christianity is not a species of the genus of speculation, but

rather an altogether different genus from speculation.

For Climacus, there is no philosophical or existential justification for the mediation of

speculation and Christianity. Rather, the relation between Christianity and speculation is better

seen as one where the speculative philosopher, in order to really engage Christianity, must break

off from speculation and move—leap—to Christianity. Here, Climacus alludes to the Aristotelian

notion of a metabasis eis allo genos—a shift or transition from one genus to another genus. 69

69
CUP, 98. See also JP, 260. There Kierkegaard argues that Hegel has never done justice to the category of
transition.

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