Soren Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript
Nathan Oaklander, Existentialist Philosophy, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1992, p. 44-45
For an objective reflection the truth becomes an object, something objective, and thought points away from the subject. For subjective reflection the truth becomes a matter of appropriation, of inwardness, of subjectivity, and thought must penetrate deeper and still deeper into the subject and his subjectivity. Just as in objective reflection, when objectivity had come into being, subjectivity disappeared, so here the subjectivity of the subject becomes the final stage, and objectivity disappears. It is not for an instant forgotten that the subject is an existing individual, and that existence is a process of thought, and being is a chimera of abstraction; this is not because the truth is not such an identity but because the believer is an existing individual for whom the truth cannot be such as identity as long as he exists as a temporal being.
If the existing individual really could transcend himself, the truth would be something complete for him, but where is this point outside himself? The I = I is a mathematical point which does not exist, and in so far as one would take this standpoint, he will not stand in another's way. It is only momentarily that the existential subject experiences the unity of the infinite and the finite, which transcends existence, and that moment is the moment of passion. While scribbling modern philosophy is contemptuous of passion, passion remains the highest point of existence for the individual who exists in time. In passion the existential subject is made infinite in imagination's eternity, and at the same time he is himself.
All essential knowledge concerns existence, or only that knowledge which relates to existence is essential, is essential knowledge. All knowledge, which is not existential, which does not involve inward reflection, is really accidental knowledge, its degree and compass are essentially a matter of no importance. This essential knowledge which relates itself existentially to the existing individual is not to be equated with the above mentioned abstract identity between thought and being. But it means that knowledge must relate itself to the knower, who is essentially an existing individual, and therefore all existing knowledge essentially relates itself to existence, to that which exists. But all ethical and all ethical-religious knowledge has this essential relationship to the existence of the knower.
In order to elucidate the difference between the objective way of reflection and the subjective way, I shall now show how subjective reflection makes its way back into inwardness. The highest point of inwardness in an existing person is passion, for passion corresponds to truth as a paradox, and the fact that the truth becomes a paradox is grounded in its relation to an existing individual. The one corresponds to the other. By forgetting that we are existing subjects, we lose passion and truth ceases to be a paradox, but the knowing subject begins to lose his humanity and becomes fantastic and the truth likewise becomes a fantastic object for this kind of knowledge.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra
Walter Kaufmann, The Portable Nietzsche, New York: Penguin, 1984, p. 214-217, 236-237
On the Famous Wise Men
You have served the people and the superstition of the people, all you famous wise men—and not truth. And that is precisely why you were accorded respect. And that is also why your lack of faith was tolerated; it was a joke and a circuitous route to the people. Thus the master lets his slaves have their way and is even amused by their pranks.
But the free spirit, the enemy of fetters, the non-adorer who dwells in the woods, is has hateful to the people as a wolf to the dogs. To hound him out of his lair—that is what the people have called "a sense of decency"; and against him the people still set their fiercest dogs.
"Truth is there; after all, the people are there!"—these words have echoed through the ages. You wanted to prove your people right in their reverence: that is what you called "will to truth," you famous wise men.
(…) Oh, to make me believe in your "truthfulness" you would first have to break your revering will.
Truthful I call him who goes into godless deserts, having broken his reverent heart. In the yellow sands, burned by the sun, he squints thirstily at the islands abounding in wells, where living things rest under dark trees. Yet his thirst does not persuade him to become like these, dwelling in comfort; for where there are oases there are also idols.
Hungry, violent, lonely, godless; thus the lion-will wants itself. Free from the happiness of slaves, redeemed from gods and adorations, fearless and fear-inspiring, great and lonely; such is the will of the truthful.
(…)
You are no eagles; hence you have never experienced the happiness that is in the terror of the spirit. And he who is not a bird should not build his nest over the abysses.
Your are lukewarm to me, but all profound knowledge flows cold. Ice cold are the inmost wells of the spirit; refreshing for hot hands and men of action. You stand there honorable and still and with straight backs, you famous wise men; no strong wind and will drives you.
Have you ever seen a sail go over the sea, rounded and taut and trembling with the violence of the wind? Like the sail, trembling with violence of the spirit, my wisdom goes over the sea—my wild wisdom.
But you servants of the people, you famous wise men—how could you go with me?
Thus spoke Zarathustra.
On Scholars
For this is the truth: I have moved from the house of the scholars and I even banged the door behind me. My soul sat hungry at their table for too long. I am not, like them, trained to pursue knowledge as it if were nut-cracking. I love freedom and the air over the fresh earth; rather would I sleep on ox hides than on their decorums and respectabilities.
I am too hot and burned by my own thoughts; often it nearly takes my breath away. Then I must go out into the open and away from all dusty rooms. But they sit cool in the cold shade; in everything they want to be mere spectators, and they beware of sitting where the sun burns on the steps. Like those who stand in the street and gape at the people who pass by, they too wait and gape at thoughts that others have thought.
Ortega y Gasset, The Origin of Philosophy
"Confusion" is an initial phase of all knowledge, without which one cannot progress to clarify. The important thing for the individual who truly desires to think is that he not be overly hurried but be faithful at each step of his mental itinerary to the aspect of reality currently under view, that he strive to avoid disdain for the preliminary distant and confused aspects due to some snob sense of urgency impelling him to arrive immediately at the more refined conclusions.
J. Krishnamurti, Think of These Things
New York: HarperPerennial, 1964, p. 10-13
Now, what does it mean to be free? Is freedom a matter of doing what happens to suit you, going where you like, thinking what you will? This you do anyhow. Merely to have independence, does that mean freedom? Many people in the world are independent, but very few are free. Freedom implies great intelligence, does it not? To be free is to be intelligent, but intelligence does not come into being by just wishing to be free; it comes into being only when you begin to understand your whole environment, the social, religious, parental and traditional influences that are continually closing in on you. But to understand the various influences—the influence of your parents, of your government, of society, of the culture to which you belong, of your beliefs, your gods and superstitions, of the tradition to which you conform unthinkingly—to understand all these and become free from them requires deep insights; but you generally give in to them because inwardly you are frightened. You are afraid of not having a good position in life; you are afraid of what your priest will say; you are afraid of not following tradition, or not doing the right thing. But freedom is really a state of mind in which there is no fear or compulsion, no urge to be secure.
(…)
The moment you come to a conclusion as to what intelligence is, you cease to be intelligent. That is what most older people have done: they have come to conclusions. Therefore they have ceased to be intelligent. So you have found out one thing right off: that an intelligent mind is one which is constantly learning, never concluding.
What is intelligence? Most people are satisfied with a definition of what intelligence is. Either they say: "That is a good explanation," or they prefer their own explanation; and a mind that is satisfied with an explanation is very superficial, therefore it is not intelligent.
You have begun to see that an intelligent mind is a mind which is not satisfied with explanations, with conclusions; nor is it a mind that believes, because belief is again another form of conclusion. An intelligent mind is an inquiring mind, a mind that is watching, learning, studying. Which means what? That there is intelligence only when there is not fear, when you are willing to rebel, to go against the whole social structure in order to find out what God is, or to discover the truth of everything.
Miguel de Unamuno, The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1972, p. 30-31
There is a world, the perceptible world, which is the offspring of hunger [the instinct of self-preservation], and another, the ideal world, which is the offspring of love. And just as there are senses employed in the service of knowing the perceptible world, so there are also senses—dormant for the most part today, since social consciousness has scarcely yet stirred—employed in the service of knowing the ideal world. For why should we deny the objective reality to the creations of love, of the instinct for perpetuation, inasmuch as we grant it to those of hunger and the instinct of self-preservation? For if it is said that the creations of love are no more than figments of our imagination, devoid of objective value, might it not equally be said of the creations of hunger that they are no more than the figments of our senses? Who can assert that there does not exist an invisible and intangible world, perceived only by the inner sense, which lives at the service of the instinct of perpetuation?
