PHL 366 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: French Revolution, Dialectic, The Confusion
17 Jul 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
The present age is paralyzed by its reflection. Kierkegaard"s book review of two ages criticizes bourgeois society by contrasting it with the age of the french revolution. Revolutionary age: emotional, passionate, freedom (for action, liberty leading the people . Present age: detached, reflection (less action that thinking about actions, portrait of a bourgeois swiss family . A revolutionary age is an age of passion and action: people are united in passion for a cause, they preserve their inwardness because of the intensity of their enthusiasm. A dialectic argument begins with an antithesis, or two contradictory positions, and it leads to a third position, in which the antithesis is resolved a) Revolutionary age is an age of passion, enthusiasm, decisive action. The bourgeois age is an age of dispassionate reflection and stasis. Kierkegaard is not simply making the contrast between ages. Revolutionary passion lacks the scope and universality of reflection; enthusiasm is momentary, passion directed towards finite and contingent things.
