Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy revolves around the idea of existentialism or, as others would say, existential philosophy where individuals find meaning in their life through a leap of faith.
Søren Kierkegaard’s philosophy or brand of existentialism is first and foremost a reaction to Hegel’s speculative philosophy. As is well known, in Hegel’s system, what matters is the realization of the Absolute upon which the individual is merely subsumed in the entire process of the development of Reason. In other words, as we can see in Hegel’s seminal work The Phenomenology of Spirit, in the development of Reason, everything that happens (for example, world wars) is just a necessary part of history and individuals do not play an active role in it. In Kierkegaard’s interpretation, the individual’s existence is being left out and reduced to passivity in this process. With this, as Kierkegaard sees it, the individual is unfree. Her life becomes meaningless.
As opposed to Hegel, what matters to Kierkegaard is concrete existence. It is important to note that the term existence for Kierkegaard is proper only to human beings. In fact, in existentialism, other entities, such as plants and animals, do not exist; they only “live”. This explains why for Kierkegaard, to exist means to strive, to consider alternatives, to choose, to decide, and most of all, to commit. As we can see, virtually all of this, as Kierkegaard may have argued, is not captured in Hegel’s system. This is precisely the reason why Kierkegaard rejected the system-building approach of Hegel and argued instead that the quest for truth involves personal choice, grounded in religious faith.
Kierkegaard also shared the conviction of the major philosophers reacting against Kant, Hegel, and the rest of the German Idealist (so famous during this time) that the 19th century European culture was terribly dysfunctional.
Furthermore, Kierkegaard also shared the argument that the individual will come to a proper understanding of human existence and society only when she radically breaks from the prevailing cultural attitudes.
But how can the individual truly exist? Or in what way can she attain authentic or meaningful existence?
According to Kierkegaard, authentic existence is attained when the individual realizes herself through the choice between alternatives and the subsequent self-commitment.
But how is self-realization possible?
According to Kierkegaard, self-realization can be attained through the three stages of life, namely, aesthetic stage, ethical stage, and religious stage. These three stages of life, which Kierkegaard calls “stages on life’s way”, involve a process whereby the true self or authentic existence is actualized in the form of individuality.
The Three Stages of Life according to Kierkegaard
Aesthetic Stage
According to Kierkegaard, the aesthetic stage is ruled by passion; it is indeed the realm of sensory experience and pleasure. As we can see, the aesthetic life for Kierkegaard is characterized by pleasure, and if one wants to live the aesthetic life to the fullest, she must maximize this pleasure.
The main goal of the aesthetic stage, therefore, is to satisfy one’s desires. Hedonism is a perfect example of this stage. And because the person in this stage is driven by desires only, according to Kierkegaard’s philosophy, she is not truly free. Even if she gets what she wants, such as food, drink, sex, and the like, still her life remains empty as her desires can never be fully satisfied. She needs more: more food, more drinks, more sex.
Kierkegaard acknowledges the importance of the aesthetic life. As a human flesh, we need to satisfy our physiological needs. However, because this stage lacks commitment to ideals, the aesthetic life will necessarily result in boredom, boredom not only with the activity but with self.
Boredom, according to Kierkegaard, is like a poison that flows through the veins of each individual, whether poor or rich no one escapes this “psychic-emotional state”. Boredom, therefore, plays an important role in Kierkegaard’s philosophy. This is because through boredom, the individual realizes that her desires can never be fully satisfied and, thus, she must change.
Now, according to Kierkegaard, when the individual experiences this situation, she is faced with a choice, that is, either she remains in the pursuit of sensual pleasures or to seek higher forms of pleasuresꟷ thus Kierkegaard’s work famous work Either/Or.
Ethical Stage
The ethical stage is the result of the individual’s decision to commit herself to the moral ideals of the society. Here, unlike the aesthetic stage, the individual considers the effects her actions will have on others and gives more emphasis on promoting social justice and equality.
For Kierkegaard, the primary goal of this stage is to live according to ethical standards, that is, to become an ethical person. Thus, the individual who lives in this stage takes responsibility for herself (including her choices and actions) and seeks to become what she ought to be. For this reason, the individual seeks to fulfill her duties and responsibilities related to her work, to her fellowmen, and the society as a whole. Thus, in the ethical stage, the self is no longer the center of everything as it was in the aesthetic stage. It is also in the ethical stage that the idea of “sacrifice” is introduced.
But there is a problem here.
Kierkegaard thought that the ethical individual will eventually reflect and realize that she does not always do what she ought to do―in fact, no one does. According to Kierkegaard, this eventually leads to the experience of guilt and despair.
In Kierkegaard’s philosophy, the experience of guilt and despair shows that the individual needs further change, and this is necessary if one wants to attain true fulfillment or a meaningful existence. As we can see, the individual cannot find real satisfaction in the ethics stage. In other words, one cannot find a meaningful existence in the ethical stage.
In response to this, according to Kierkegaard, the individual can either 1) simply try harder to do the right thing, that is, to be an ethical person, or 2) move to the third and final stage, through a leap of faith.
Religious Stage
According to Kierkegaard, as already mentioned above, we cannot find true fulfillment in the ethical stage. No matter how hard we try to be righteous, we always end up doing the wrong thing. Thus, again, we inevitably experience guilt and despair.
We know that the individual eventually becomes aware that she indeed cannot always do the right thing, but what is important in the ethical stage is that she accepts the fact that not doing the right thing is part of the nature of man―that we always commit mistakes, that we always commit sin.
Now, for Kierkegaard, it is only religion that can offer the possibility of a true fulfillment, of a meaningful or authentic existence. This is because, for Kierkegaard, it is only God’s forgiveness that can eradicate guilt and despair.
It must be noted, however, that the religious stage is not simply an alternative of the ethical. In fact, the ethical and religious stages may even be incompatible, for example, as to the demands of morality. The famous God’s command to Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac is a typical example.
Issued without apparent justification or reason, this command goes against both the natural emotional ties of parental love and the basic moral principle of any conceivable human society. In its absoluteness and unconditionality, God’s commands mark the strict separation of the religious and the ethical spheres. As we can see, Abraham has faith and acts to obey God’s will, but in the end he is not required to sacrifice his son. For Kierkegaard then, we must believe even though faith violates human rationality, nature, and morality. This is because for Kierkegaard, a faith which conforms to moral intuition does not have any significance. Thus, it is the absurdity of religion that proves its unique value.
But why should humans believe in what they must find as irrational, unnatural and immoral?
This is exactly what Kierkegaard calls a “leap of faith”, which happens only when a choice in favor of faith has been made. Kierkegaard, however, emphasized that this choice or act of choosing must be based on SELF-CONSCIOUS and AUTHENTIC DECISION, rather than the effect of conformism.
This is what Kierkegaard calls inwardness or truth as subjectivity: when one becomes more of an individual through conscious choices and a full self-awareness before God.
Finally, the religious stage is where the individual finds true fulfillment and attains an authentic or meaningful existence, and, in Kierkegaard’s philosophy, this is made possible through a leap of faith.