Johannes de silentio and the art of subtraction

from voice to love in Kierkegaard's fear and trembling

pp. 37-66

in: Ben Ware, Modernism, ethics and the political imagination, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2017

Abstract

This chapter claims that only a dialectical approach allows us to grasp the true meaning of Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. First, one accepts the "obvious' intent of the text: to drive up the price of faith. Second, by way of "correction", one then interrogates the complex mode of authorship. Third, rather than simply expressing the authorial intent of Kierkegaard, the authorship leads us back to faith ("the reality of the appearance"), only now, not through extracting the price of faith but through the subtractive aspect of love. The chapter develops the argument through a critique of the voice qua love/law in Kant and Levinas. It proposes that Johannes de Silentio (the pseudonymous author) subtracts himself out of love for the reader who reciprocates in love by moving beyond the authorship; an act of repetition. In the final part of the chapter, the argument is developed from a materialist standpoint to highlight its political relevance.