Endnotes to Problemata: Problema II

1. This statement would be common ground for various post-Kantian philosophers, though they might have very different ways among them of understanding “the universal” and “the divine.” It may be that, properly construed, it could be developed in ways that would also satisfy Neoplatonists, Aristotelians, Stoics, Thomists, Kantians, etc.; and Silentio probably intends it to be taken this way. 

2. There is no known source in which Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) makes this remark about the Kaffirs. However, in Emile: or On Education, trans. Allan Bloom (New York: Basic Books, 1979), Rousseau says, “Distrust those cosmopolitans who go to great length in their books to discover duties they do not deign to fulfill around them. A philosopher loves the Tartars so as to be spared having to love his neighbors” (p. 39). Since both are names of peoples distant from Denmark (Kierkegaard) or France and Switzerland (Rousseau)—the Kaffirs were a Bantu people in southern Africa, whereas the Tartars were a group of medieval Turkic tribes in central Asia—it is possible Silentio or Kierkegaard has confused one for the other. 

3. See Hegel, Science of Logic, trans. A. V. Miller (Atlantic Highlands, NJ: George Allen & Unwin Ltd., 1969), 523–28, on the relation of “inner” or essence to “outer” or manifestation; especially the conclusion: “[Something’s] externality is, therefore, the expression or utterance [Äußerung] of what it is in itself” (p. 528). Or for a more accessible example, see the shorter Logic contained in Hegel’s Encyclopedia, published in English as Hegel’s Logic, trans. William Wallace (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1975), 197–200. The example of the child is introduced on p. 198: Any object indeed is faulty and imperfect when it is only inward, and thus at the same time only outward, or (which is the same thing) when it is only an outward thus only an inward. For instance, a child, taken in the gross as a human being, is no doubt a rational creature; but the reason of the child as child is at first a mere inward, in the shape of his natural ability or vocation, etc. This mere inward, at the same time, has for the child the form of a mere outward, in the shape of the will of his parents, the attainments of his teachers, and the whole world of reason that environs him. The education and instruction of a child aim at making him actually and for himself what he is at first potentially and therefore for others, viz. for his grown-up friends. The reason, which at first exists in the child only as an inner possibility, is actualized through education; and conversely, the child by these means becomes conscious that the goodness, religion, and science which he had at first looked upon as an outward authority, are his own and inward nature. 

4. The idea that faith is not a “natural” immediacy but a “second immediacy” or “immediacy after reflection” is important for Kierkegaard. See Stages on Life’s Way, ed. and trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1988), 372; Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 301fn; Works of Love, ed. and trans. by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995), 342–43. 

5. G. W. F. Hegel (1770–1831) classifies faith under “immediate or intuitive knowledge” in his Encyclopedia Logic. See especially, §63, 99: 02-DSHPC167-Kierkegaard-Body.indd 79 02/21/24 3:46 PM 80 Endnotes to Problemata: Problema II With what is here called faith or immediate knowledge must also be identified inspiration, the heart’s revelations, the truths implanted in man by nature, and also in particular, healthy reason or Common Sense, as it is called. All these forms agree in adopting as their leading principle the immediacy, or self-evident way in which a fact or body of truths is presented in consciousness. 

6. Socrates (470–399 BC) was famous for his claim to be ignorant. When the Oracle at Delphi— normally famous for answering questions with difficult and ambiguous responses—was asked, “Is anyone wiser than Socrates?” the Oracle simply answered, “No.” Socrates resolved this apparent contradiction between his claimed ignorance and the Delphic proclamation of his wisdom with the idea that his superior wisdom consisted in knowing that he was ignorant, whereas others were equally ignorant but believed themselves to know what they did not know. See Apology 20d—22e, available in many English translations, e.g., in Plato, Complete Works, ed. John M. Cooper, trans. G. M. A. Grube (Indianapolis, IN: Hackett Publishing, 1997), 21–22. 

7. This is the disciple’s response to Jesus’s teaching about the “Bread of Life” in John 6:60ff. When many of his disciples heard it, they said, “This is a hard saying; who can listen to it?” But Jesus, knowing in himself that his disciples were grumbling about this, said to them, “Do you take offense at this? Then what if you were to see the Son of Man ascending to where he was before? It is the Spirit who gives life; the flesh is no help at all. The words that I have spoken to you are spirit and life. But there are some of you who do not believe.” . . . And he said, “This is why I told you that no one can come to me unless it is granted him by the Father.” 

8. Silentio has in mind exegetical aids like C. G. Bretschneider, Lexicon Manuale Graeco-Latinum in Libros Novi Testamenti, 2 vols. (Leipzig: 1829), 2:87.

 9. It was (and is) customary for the congregation to stand for the gospel reading in many churches. 

10. In the Bible, Cain is the first child of Adam and Eve (Genesis 4:1). He is also the first murderer, murdering his brother Abel out of jealousy that the Lord favored Abel over him (Genesis 4:4–5, 4:8). 

11. The alert reader may wonder what Silentio means here by “the church.” Historically, there was a distinction between the “visible” and the “invisible” church. The “invisible church” denotes all genuine followers of Christ. The “visible” church denotes an organized human institution—possibly one such organization or several different and competing institutions. If we ask which of these is meant, it is clearly the visible church whose idea is “not qualitatively different from that of the state”—i.e., an organized set of human institutions, with various rules, conditions of membership, etc. This statement seems even stronger if we imagine the church to be an institution officially established by the state—which was the case in Denmark, where there was a national Lutheran church, akin to the Anglican church in England—but the most important likeness is that both function as ethically structured communities to which an individual may belong, and in virtue of which an individual may come to have duties either toward other individuals, or toward the community itself.

 12. Isaac was born when Abraham was one hundred (Genesis 21:5) and Silentio here estimates that Abraham was thirty when he married, the same age as Kierkegaard when he wrote Fear and Trembling. 

 13. During the long years of waiting in the wilderness for God to fulfill the promise, Sarah at one point prevails upon Abraham to have a child by means of her handmaid, Hagar (Genesis 16:1–4): Now Sarai, Abram’s wife, had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, “Behold now, the Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.” And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai. So, after Abram had lived ten years in the land of Canaan, Sarai, Abram’s wife, took Hagar the Egyptian, her servant, and gave her to Abram her husband as a wife. And he went in to Hagar, and she conceived. This failure of faith leads to conflict first between Sarah and Hagar and later between Ishmael, the son of Abraham through Hagar, and Isaac, the son of Abraham through Sarah. This conflict culminates in Sarah petitioning Abraham to send Hagar and Ishmael away. Abraham does not wish to do this, but God commands him to do so and promises Abraham that he will bless Ishmael as well (Genesis 21:10–13): So she said to Abraham, “Cast out this slave woman with her son, for the son of this slave woman shall not be heir with my son Isaac.” And the thing was very displeasing to Abraham on account of his son. But God said to Abraham, “Be not displeased because of the boy and because of your slave woman. Whatever Sarah says to you, do as she tells you, for through Isaac shall your offspring be named. And I will make a nation of the son of the slave woman also, because he is your offspring.” 

14. The analogy is based on how Hebrew consonants can also indicate certain vowel sounds. Kierkegaard’s sources seem to be Jacob Christian Lindberg, Hovedreglerne af den hebraiske Grammatik (2 ed., Copenhagen: 1835), 8, 17–18, and Ludvig Beatus Meyer, Fremmed Ordbog (Copenhagen: 1837). According to Lindberg and Meyer, such a consonant may be sounded as a consonant or it may “rest” in the vowel, its normal consonant sound going unsounded. Johannes de Silentio, however, seems to have inverted the relationship. The meaning of the analogy, however, is that in ethical existence an individual annuls particularity to “rest” in what is ethically universal. 

15. The Roman general Fabius Maximus (c. 280 BC—203 BC) was appointed “dictator” by the Roman Senate in 217 BC after repeated military disasters in the Second Punic War created panic in Rome that Hannibal would soon strike the city. To prevent Hannibal’s army from reaching Rome, Maximus decided to avoid the kind of direct confrontation with Hannibal that had proved ineffective before and earned the nickname “Cunctator” or “Delayer” (originally an insult; later an honorific) through the successful use of delaying tactics—what now may be termed guerrilla warfare—continually attacking Hannibal’s supply lines and fighting only limited engagements on favorable grounds.

 16. “You” in the Danish text is the informal “Du” used for one’s close friends and family. 

17. Master Jackel is a stock comic character in Danish puppet shows. Such puppet shows were ultimately based in Italian commedia dell’arte and each stock character embodied a particular archetypal figure. Master Jackel is the Danish equivalent of the Italian Punchinello and the English Punch. 

18. The Golden Snuffbox [Gulddaasen] is a comedy first performed at the Danish Royal Theater in 1793, its author anonymous. It was highly successful—it has been performed at the Royal Theater thirty-one times since its premiere, though the last performance was in 1959—and generated significant public interest in identifying its author. The most popular identification, now strongly supported by historians, is the Danish writer and agronomist Christian Olufsen (1763– 1827), who, at the time, was transitioning from literary pursuits to a career in agricultural science. Faldsmaal, the villain of the comedy, attempts to frame his rival for the theft of a golden snuffbox; through a variety of dishonest means, he secures “unimpeachable witnesses” (uforkastelige Vidner) to the supposed crime (Christian Olufsen, Gulddaasen [Copenhagen: 1793] act 3, scene 6, p. 71).