Cæcilie Varslev-Pedersen

It is not too much of a stretch to say that, in Richard J. Bernstein's work has almost always been undergirded by socially and politically motivated questions. However, in 2013, he wrote a book that, at least at first glance, thematically stands out from his other published works. It is a book on irony entitled Ironic Life. This book contains a chapter on Søren Kierkegaard, and while it may seem strange that Bernstein would be interested in the topic of irony, it may seem equally strange that someone so interested in political and social questions would turn to a figure known as the great thinker of religious inwardness and individuality. In what follows I will, however, suggest a reading of ‘Bernstein’s Kierkegaard’ in which the chapter in the book on irony turns out to be more in line with the general thrust of his authorship than one would initially assume.

This chapter examines Hegel’s idea that war functions as a resuscitation of the spirit of a community and, more specifically, the thought that the experience of fearing death and risking one’s life brings about a transformation of the individual citizen and the community. I show that if we pay attention to this idea, we see that Hegel is not as much interested in war in itself, but rather in what war reveals. In contrast to the descriptive readings of Hegel's account of war, I argue that while Hegel believes that war may be necessary in the sense that it will occasionally erupt, it is not necessary in the sense that it is the only way to resuscitate a spiritually dead community. Surprisingly, I suggest, Hegel understands war in the same way as he understands the practices of absolute spirit—i.e., art, religion, and philosophy—namely, as a practical meta-reflection on the highest values of a community (most significantly, the value of freedom). This suggestion implies that war is only one activity, among several, which allows individuals to acknowledge their being members of a free community.

This article examines Friedrich Schiller’s view of freedom associated with artistic creation and practice. First, I show that when Schiller attempts to understand the violent outcome of the French Revolution, he finds that modern reason has performed a ‘sacrifice of the natural,’ i.e., it has sacrificed sensuous materiality, need, desire, feeling, and imagination for the sake of progress of civilization. I argue that Schiller’s conception of freedom in artistic creation ought to be understood as a realm beyond the violent ‘sacrifice of the natural,’ since art is able to vindicate sensuous and material nature by making it appear dignified, and that paying attention to the language of sacrifice allows us to see how his conception of freedom is significantly different from that of Kant. Finally, I discuss how art can institute real political freedom if artistic creation produces nothing but semblance.

The article examines sacrifice in Søren Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling. I argue that in order to understand the meaning of sacrifice in this work, we have to account for the four poetic images of a weaning mother – often overlooked by commentators – that we find in the section entitled “Attunement”. I show that we can make sense of the images once we situate them within the context of Kierkegaard’s (or his pseudonyms’) broader critique of modernity, autonomous subjectivity, and the loss of premodern forms of authority. On my interpretation, for Kierkegaard, sacrifice entails a rupture of a communal bond; yet his pseudonyms explore both secular and religious ways of responding to such a rupture. Finally I argue that while Fear and Trembling ultimately offers no clear solutions, the story Kierkegaard conveys to us – a story about sacrifice, mourning, and mothering – can inspire us to reflect on the modern condition.