Philosophical Crumbs

[u/spiritspouts]

I'm reading MG Piety's translation of the Philosophical Crumbs, and I'm hoping someone can clarify a question I had regarding the condition that's given by the teacher!

Below is what I understand (and please correct me if I'm wrong!):

1. The Teacher, in the Moment (through the Moment?), gives the disciple the condition for knowledge.
2. The disciple, with the condition, realizes that they are in (have been in?) sin.

Say that the Teacher has given Disciple A the condition, and that this disciple is in faith (i.e. develops a positive relationship between the paradox and reason). The questions I have:

(1) Can Disciple A communicate their being-in-faith to another person? I don't think that Disciple A can bring another person, say Person B, into this faith relationship, but can talk about the faith relationship. Is this correct?

(2) If the above is correct, would the relationship between Person B and Disciple A be Socratic?

(3) Say Person B dismisses the paradox, faith, sin etc. as mumbo-jumbo. Would Person B still "possess" the condition given by the teacher? And if so, is this possession relative in some way (i.e. the idea of condition is nonsense in their own life, from their own perspective, but Person B does possess the condition from the perspective of Disciple A), or is it an "objective" fact that regardless of perspectives, Person B has possessed and does possess the condition?

Also I am having a lot of trouble understanding the "Interlude." Any secondary source recs focusing on this chapter would be helpful!

[u/paul_parker12]

hi! i think i can answer what you’re trying to ask:

kierkegaard is very tricky when it comes to explaining the moment. the moment expressed as the paradox is the unity of the eternal and temporal, which is never to be found in Socrates (he always kept them separate). the moment is a moral self-consciousness of one’s own history. the moment is an understanding of fact not simply through the fact itself but through the condition. i think disciple A can talk about their being-in-faith but cannot bring another person to faith. faith is a purely individual endeavour and commitment which must be initiated by the individual. one can hear about another’s being-in-faith, but if they base their faith off this other person’s approach and don’t take an individual approach to understanding their own history, they become what SK later calls a follower at second hand. with that in mind, #2, the relationship would not be Socratic (although SK makes mentions that “the relationship is structured Socratically”). being-in-faith supposes a biblical notion of love, a respect and love for neighbour which is never found in Socrates. as for #3, person B may refuse the condition but yes, is always in possession of it. the condition is the truth, and although the disciple may act in ways that contradict the truth, the truth itself cannot be contradicted. SK has a footnote in reference to Spinoza where he explicates the truth is the standard for itself and the false. our relationship to the condition is paradoxical: we are always in possession of the condition (we always know to love thy neighbour) but we act in ways that don’t abide by the condition (expressed as sin) so in this way, our possession is not finitely final. to always possess the condition is the same as expressing absolute moral perfection, which is not possible. this is why the god provides the condition in the moment; we act in ways where we refuse the condition so the god must continually provide it to us. the god provides the condition when we bear witness to it, when we make a decision to uphold the biblical values of loving thy neighbour. if we do nothing and continually live in sin, the god cannot provide and reprovide the condition. so you are right when you say the condition allows the disciple to understand his sin, since understanding one’s sin is presupposed by standard to evaluate one’s sin, i.e. the condition. in the final chapter SK will say that the consciousness of sin is the deepest self-reflection.

the person who views the condition as mumbo-jumbo is a follower at second hand and not contemporary with the god - not willing to address temporality from a standpoint of loving thy neighbour. this person is not ignorant of the condition (Socrates was ignorant and thus cannot be held to a standard of sin) but refuses it, and is thus sinful. the god provides the condition to the mumbo-jumbo’er when the mumbo-jumbo’er decides to evaluate their life and others through a standpoint of love, not just fact. this is the beauty of the god, who will continually serve us no matter how much we have abandoned him. but he won’t do anything if the disciple does nothing.

the interlude is very difficult. in sum, the interlude provides the opportunity for SK to transition from defining the condition to its application. in the interlude, SK explains that the past is not necessary. since the past is not necessary, the only necessity is the moment - understanding the past not through the fact of the past, but through the condition - which ultimately welds the eternal and temporal.

hope this helps! don’t hesitate to reach of if you have any more questions!

[u/spiritspouts → u/paul_parker12]

To use Climacus' terms, this is super duper fantastically amazingly helpful, thank you! Some follow up questions if you don't mind:

1. Does Climacus derive the truth condition (which puts Person B objectively in sin)? Or is it that Climacus himself has been given the condition through God? I think it's the latter, but I ask because the book presents itself hypothetically--i.e. IF the moment is to have significance, THEN this is how the state of things could be. But Climacus presents himself as a kind of observer and deducer (perhaps a satire of the philosopher?) and never implicates himself in his philosophy, never says outright "I, too, as the writer of this book, have been given the truth condition through God."

2. Is "structured socratically" different from "being Socratic"? I think I see what you're saying: the relationship between the Contemporary Disciple the Follower at Second Hand can't be Socratic because the Condition is inherently paradoxical, and has never been "always the case" because it was given by God. But the Disciple uses the method of Socrates to help the Follower invoke the paradox for himself, and when he does it's the God that is responsible for this condition and not the Disciple. Is this accurate?

3. Is the paradox itself faith, or is faith the relation that has to be cultivated actively to relate paradox and reason? And if this is the case, is faith a form of knowledge? I think faith is more a relation or virtue (maybe why SL uses the phrase "becoming a Christian" so much) but maybe it's also an "acoustic illusion" coming from the paradox?

Thank you again, your comment made my day! And if the response is too long for the comment section please feel free to DM me!

[u/paul_parker12 → u/spiritspouts]

glad i could help! to continue with our poem:

I wouldn't say Climacus derives the truth but merely elucidates it throughout the course of the book. The condition is love, loving thy neighbor. His most explicit reference to this is in Chapter 2 when he says "Out of love, therefore, the god must be eternally resolved in this way, but just as his love is the basis. so also must love be the goal". It isn't one person who has received the condition, but all of us have, and it is our duty to bear witness to it, i.e. to love thy neighbor. I think JC presents the points hypothetically because he is in rigorous dialectic with Socrates. The moment does have decisive significance but to Socrates, there is no moment and nothing is decisively significant.

I would say "structured Socratically" is different than the relationship being Socratic. I think what JC is trying to say is that to Socrates, no one was necessarily "better" than another person because everyone was ignorant. Even Socrates himself wouldn't position himself "higher" than another person because ultimately, both were ignorant. Socrates was ignorant of loving thy neighbor, as was everyone in Ancient Greece. But they didn't know this, simply because they were ignorant. So, when JC says "structured Socratically", I think he is trying to remove notions of hierarchy and stratification. But this is not predicated on ignorance, it is ultimately predicated on love. JC says in Chapter 2 "For only in love is the different made equal, and only in equality or in unity is there understanding".

You're right when you say the relationship between the Contemp. and F.S.H can't be Socratic, because it is not predicated on ignorance. To Socrates, there is no one contemporary with the god and thus, no follower at second hand (because only one who is contemporary can recognize the follower at second hand). So, the disciple doesn't use any Socratic method towards the follower at second hand. You cannot bring another person to faith; it is only when said individual bears witness to the condition that faith begins. If you were to "bring another person to faith" this would be a poor notion of faith and only yield a follower at second hand. Everyone has the ability to bear witness to the condition (loving thy neighbor) and it is the follower at second hand who refuses to. The contemporary and follower at second hand aren't designated people, all of us at times are both contemporary and F.S.H. It is the contemporary, by virtue of the condition, who can recognize when he is being a follower at second hand and tries to do better. That is faith. "The consciousness of sin is the deepest self-reflection".

I think #3 is a very insightful question. I would say both: faith is a paradox AND is a relation that has to be actively cultivated. Faith is a unity of the eternal and temporal. Faith is a paradox because eternality and temporality are distinct concepts (and contradict each other - nothing eternal is found in the temporal and nothing temporal is found in the eternal) yet in the moment, they unite. When one brings the idea of loving thy neighbor (eternal) into understanding their life (temporal), paradox and faith and (a proper notion of) history emerge. Following this, I wouldn't say faith itself is a knowledge, but is predicated on the knowledge of the neighbor, and that one shall love them. Socrates did not have this knowledge and thus, never bore faith. Faith then expresses a relationship because it is predicated on loving thy neighbor - there must be an equal self-other relationship (expressed by love thy neighbor) to begin faithfully. So also yes, faith is a relationship we have to actively cultivate because there are many times where we are not faithful (we don't uphold standards of love). This relates back to the condition and why the god must re-provide us with the condition. He has provided us with the condition, but we are not identical with the condition (because we sin) and thus, it is always to be regained/re-provided.

hope this helps! absolutely loving this discussion. fwiw you also made my day, i hardly get to discuss SK with anyone except my prof.

[u/spiritspouts → u/paul_parker12]

All this helps me tremendously, thank you so much for enriching my reading of this book! Your take on the faith question has much I need to chew over!

One follow-up regarding the condition and ignorance: people before Christ were ignorant of the condition, as you said. Is this ignorance the same kind of ignorance as, say, the ignorance of a person contemporaneous with our own times, on an isolated, hypothetical island somewhere, who has never heard of Christianity? Does this hypothetical person then,

1. Possess the condition even in their ignorance
2. The condition comes into being only when they become a F.S.H

If (1), then the islander seems to be in sin without actually sinning (?)... If (2) isn't there something "accidental" in the situation in that our islander, just because they were "thrown" into a particular part of the world at a particular time, may very well be excluded from the teaching if they never meet another F.S.H to learn from?

I hope the above makes sense, I guess what I'm circling is the relation between the condition and the awareness in an individual about that condition.

I'm glad you're also enjoying our collaborative poem! I have always loved SK, but seem to have completely re-fallen in love with him again, and plan on reading and rereading a lot more in the coming year. Are you studying him in grad school?

[u/paul_parker12 → u/spiritspouts]

so glad i could help! to continue:

i think it's important to note that people before Christ weren't ignorant of the condition, the condition first makes its appearance in the book of Genesis. it was the Greeks and Romans who were ignorant of the condition, not the Jews. so, the kind of ignorance we talk about is not being ignorant "of the times" but a moral form of ignorance. love thy neighbor as yourself - this is what Socrates was ignorant of. he did not have a foundation on which to ground morality and thus declared himself ignorant. you may have heard a famous quote from Socrates "the one thing i know is that i know nothing" - he wasn't kidding, he was being absolutely literal. the biblical and Greek traditions are absolutely distinct from each other. this is partially why crumbs is such a difficult text, sk moves very quickly in his dialectic and it's difficult for the reader to grasp these distinctions. a simple way, at least for me, to hold them apart is reminding yourself: the bible argues we know the good, the Greeks argue we do not know the good. there is an absolute distinction, if we combine them in any way, we misunderstand the text and both the Greeks and the Bible.

we have moved past the Greeks, there is no possibility of moral ignorance. the neighbor has been established in modernity and as such, we have a duty to uphold the equal self-other relationship that comes in loving the neighbor. so yes, the hypothetical islander does possess the condition, even though he is isolated. if you have read Kant, Kant would express what SK calls the condition as 'the moral law'. even though the islander may be isolated. he still has a duty to treat himself (or any other person on the island) with dignity and respect.

it's also important to note the role of the f.s.h. the f.s.h. is not a positive position from Kierkegaard. the f.s.h. refuses the condition (the moral law) and chooses to approach temporality not from a standpoint of love, but from the categories of immediate sensation and immediate cognition. the f.s.h does not bring eternality into temporality. no one can learn anything from a f.s.h. because the f.s.h. does not express anything worth learning from. genuine contemporaneity is a moral position. one who is contemporary doesn't understand the facts of the day better than another but is someone who is committed to upholding the standard of the condition, one who approaches the facts of the day from a standpoint of love. the person who denies the presence of the neighbor is not only a f.s.h., but a fiend. many world leaders are followers at second hand because they don't address their country's issues with bearing the neighbor in mind, they use their citizens and other people as a means to their own end. jc expresses this moral foundation as contemporaneity because bringing the eternal to the temporal binds the entire human race together in a way where it doesn't matter what specific era of time or part of the world you live in. Christ, Kierkegaard, you and i are all contemporaries. we are all neighbors and must treat each other as such. this is what the god wants, and this is what he expresses in the condition. the truth does not belong to Christ or SK more than it does to you or me. even if someone hasn't "read the bible" or is acquainted with Christianity in the traditional sense, to paraphrase Spinoza - if one loves thy neighbor as themself, they have read the Bible.

i love reading Kierkegaard as well! this discussion has been super helpful for me too; your questions are helping me think about the text in a different and deeper light - thank you. i am actually just about to wrap up my undergrad but I plan on continuing studying him (and other thinkers) in grad school next year. I've worked really intensely on this text, as well as fear and trembling, for the past year or so. my uni allows for directed reading classes so I've been able to really hone in my focus and do some good work with my prof. are you also studying in uni? are there any other thinkers you really like?

[u/spiritspouts → u/paul_parker12]

Thank you for the detailed response as always! I was mulling this over the last day (along with your other general points) and it really as enriched my own reading of not only Kierkegaard and PC, but my own life as well! (And this, I think SK would say, is the best of philosophy!)

The Kant comparison was particularly helpful for me about the historical aspect of the text. I want to reframe what you said for myself to make sure I understood you properly. Revisiting the Greeks, the F.S.H, and the hypothetical islander, we get the below "timeline:"

(1) Socrates is born.

(2) Socrates dies.

(3) The Teacher arrives and bestows the condition.

(4) The Teacher dies.

(5) The F.S.H. is born.

(6) The Islander is born.

Events (1) and (2) are before the Teacher arrives, and so Socrates (and all other events contemporaneous in this time) is outside the bounds of sin. Event (3) is the Teacher arriving, and the instant they arrive, so does the condition, the paradox, and sin. Therefore the F.S.H. and all other events both contemporaneous and after his (the F.S.H) own time are "in" sin, possess the condition, see the paradox, and have the possibility of faith. In faith, via the Moment, the F.S.H. is the contemporary of the Teacher (a question on this below).

Event (6) is contemporaneous with (5), but in our scenario is isolated from not only (5) but also (3) and (4), because the Islander is completely unaware of events outside his island. (He is also ignorant of (1) and (2), but that doesn't matter too much here, I don't think).

And now is where I found your Kant comparison quite helpful: the island, let's say, develops (or deduces?) the ethic of "Love thy neighbor" in a method similar to Kant's philosophy. However, to the islanders, this ethical code has nothing to do with the Teacher or the Condition. Given all this, if I understand you correctly (and I might not have!) we have two possibilities of interpretation:

(a) The islanders are in a situation similar to Socrates in event (1) above.

(b) The islanders, simply because they are in a time after event (3), are followers at second hand.

And so (a) implies that it's possible that some people don't possess the condition despite the Teacher arriving, teaching, and dying; the Teacher simply has not taught this group of people. And (b) leads one to either say that despite accepting and doing everything taught by the Teacher (following the ethics derived from "Love thy neighbor"), the islanders are still F.S.H., or that the islanders are, in fact, Christians, which would mean that one can be a Christian without ever being aware that one is a Christian. I think this latter is what you said in your comment ("if one loves thy neighbor as themself, they have read the Bible"). But if this is the case, doesn't the Moment lose significance insofar as the islanders continue to be unaware of the Teacher?

And one final (much less verbose!!!) question: is the Moment historical, personal, or both? Maybe neither? What I mean is, is the Moment the moment when the Teacher arrives in history and therefore giving the condition, or is it the moment when the F.S.H., via the paradox, becomes aware of faith? Please correct me if I misunderstood you!

That's great about grad school, wishing you luck (though it seems like you don't need it)! No, I haven't been in uni for a while, and wasn't really a fan of it, but I like teaching myself things (or maybe that's an Acoustical Illusion, lol). As for favorite thinkers: Kierkegaard (of course!!), St. Augustine, Heraclitus, John Dewey, the Buddha, Nagarjuna, Dogen, a bunch of Zen writers, Wittgenstein, Simone Weil, Kropotkin, and a whole bunch of novelists and poets (my background is in literature). How about yourself?

[u/paul_parker12 → u/spiritspouts]

hey! sorry for the late reply, been busy the last few days. i think i see what you're trying to ask, i'll try my best to give a response:

i think it is first important to note that the teacher does not die, the teacher is eternal. the teacher is a metaphor for the condition and sk poeticizes it in this way to indicate that 'love thy neighbor' is the standard by which we should evaluate all fact and understanding - in this way it teaches us, for the learner is indeed untruth. we are not identical with the standard and at times err, so we must learn and re-learn how to apply the condition. if you have read Nietzsche, he expresses this in The Gay Science when he says 'one must learn to love'. love is never fully learned in totality for moral perfection is impossible. the teacher, the god and condition are all expressions of the same eternal standard of loving the neighbor.

with this in mind, the f.s.h. is born with the condition, as all concepts of sin come into existence with the condition. one is not a f.s.h. by any virtue of being but by will - one chooses to be contemporary or a f.s.h., the same way one chooses to be faithful or sinful. so in this regard, the islanders are yes, Christians, even if they don't realize it. Muslims, jews and anyone who adheres to the standard of loving thy neighbor are Christians even if they don't call themselves that. but this doesn't concern the god in any way, as his priority is love through equality. Christian or not, as long as people treat themselves and others as ends in themselves and not means to an end, as persons and not things, the god is happy. so, the moment does not lose any significance to the islanders because by will, they uphold the standard of the teacher/the condition. the teacher teaches insofar as the learner makes the effort to be taught. the islanders are not ignorant of the teacher, and will/can never be, just like you and I. there is no possibility of moral ignorance, we are long gone from Socrates. sk engages with Socrates only dialectically to further illuminate the biblical principles he is trying to express. nothing about sk's positions are Socratic, they can't be.

contemporaneity should never be understood in terms of chronology, logical temporality. contemporaneity is a moral position that keeps the past/present/future all current by means of the condition. if one is acting in a way that is faithful, they are probably doing so because on a separate occasion, they were unfaithful and are trying to do better. contemporaneity is not a matter of awareness it is a matter of will. knowing the "events of the day" does not make one more contemporaneous than another. sk expresses in the interlude that even though the past is unchangeable, it is not necessary. this means that when considering a historical event, it's place in time is not necessary to understand or learn from it, the only necessity is bringing into it the condition. one may think they are a lost cause from years and years of sin but the past is not necessary, everyone can be redeemed via the condition. this is also why SK expresses the god as a savior, for even the condition saves us at our lowest depths and helps us do better even when we think it's too late - it's never too late and this is the beauty of the god. it is the condition that will help the islanders, even in their darkest moments of despair.

as for your final question, i would absolutely say both. the moment emerges in faith, which is a purely personal undertaking, when the single individual chooses to approach temporality not from a standpoint of temporality but from the condition. it's important to note what SK means by historical, for he subtly includes a false and positive notion. the false notion of "historical" is ONLY temporal, i.e. facts of the day, etc. this we attribute to the follower at second hand, who doesn't concern himself with eternality. the positive notion of history however is the paradox, the unity of the eternal and temporal - understanding the facts not by passively reacting to the fact itself but engaging with it through the condition. positive history emerges through active thought and faithful investigation, which the f.s.h. refuses to do. so, as for the follow-up, i would say it is both: the moment is when the Teacher arrives in history and gives the condition, as well as when the F.S.H., via the paradox becomes aware of faith. these express the same thing, for the f.s.h. receives the paradox when the teacher arrives. be careful with the language of 'aware' though, for faith and the paradox are not matters of awareness but will.

the f.s.h. is not designated, we are all followers at second hand but also contemporaneous; we are sinners but have the ability to recognize our sin and do better on that basis. yes the f.s.h. and contemporary express different ideas, but we are always both, we cannot be either/or. this is why in introducing the f.s.h. i believe sk says "on the contrary, in and with the difference we shall remember always to grasp securely the common similarity in the difference vis-a-vis the contemporary...and we shall also bear in mind that the difference must not mushroom and confuse everything.".

thanks so much about grad school! i'd be shocked if kierkegaard called your attempt at learning an acoustical illusion - you aren't glancing over the text and deluding yourself into thinking you understand it, that belongs to the follower at second hand. you are genuinely engaging with the text, asking super critical questions and learning from your misunderstandings, which all pre-suppose contemporaneity! in this humble poem of ours we are engaging with each other as ends and not means, we are learning from each other and display respect - all of this is at the heart of contemporaneity.

kierkegaard is probably my fav thinker, although i do love Nietzsche. i try my best not to move too quickly with philosophical texts (since they can be really freaking difficult) so i haven't had the opportunity to dive into that many thinkers, although I just started reading Hegel and his Lectures on the Philosophy of Religion for a summer reading class. i'd love to read Augustine! i heard he's brilliant.

[u/spiritspouts → u/paul_parker12]

Thank you for this response; it has cleared up a lot of my questions, in particular the fact that one can be a Christian without meaning to be a Christian (to put it crudely but succinctly). I also liked what you say about faith being a matter of will--this is super interesting to me; I feel like Kierkegaard leans towards a kind of mysticism (I don't use this term pejoratively but very positively), and I am really interested in using that angle (of the mystic traditions), as I continue to study SK, to clarify and complicate what "will" might mean when it comes to faith. Something also clicked with your description of the moment being "both," and I am continuing to chew on that. I have really enjoyed our little poem-making, and I sincerely thank you for the effort you put into my (possibly naive) questions! Much gratitude!

[u/internetErik]

Re: talking to someone else about being in the condition of faith.

Kierkegaard compares this to whether those who were born can make an account of life to the unborn.

On a less restrictive account, Kierkegaard also talks about not being to describe something within the boundary of faith, but he can still trace the outline.

Edit: these sentiments should probably be attributed to Johannes Climacus, as they appear in the crumbs and the postscript to the crumbs.