Consciousness as an Act of Grounding the Self

Climacus seems to subscribe to the program of reconstructing the universal consciousness found in transcendental philosophy when he claims to clarify “consciousness as it is in itself, as that which explains every other individual consciousness, without, however, being one individual” (B 1, p. 145). And this affinity apparently pertains to or includes the “genetic”

version of the reconstruction of consciousness insofar as the “essence” of consciousness is illuminated on the basis of its “coming into existence” (cf. ibid. 14:9). But how far does this relationship between consciousness in itself and the individual consciousness go? It might be simple enough to ascertain that the two are not identical. But it is nevertheless difficult to explore and give expression to the negative and positive aspects of this general agreement, in terms of method, of the two. It is also difficult to identify the more specific views in SK’s existential analysis which can be connected with this agreement of “structure” and

“existence”.

I have mentioned SK’s lack of interest in the traditional philosophical topic par excellence, namely, the theory of knowledge, which, in more anthropological terms, can be referred to as the theoretical or predicative consciousness. This lack of interest is evident from SK’s treatment and evaluation, in The Concept of Irony, of Fichte’s Wissenschaftslehre, which, in accord with Hegel’s reading, is interpreted as the spiritual presupposition of the negative-ironic attitude of life in romanticism. “But since Fichte in his I-I insisted on abstract identity in this way and in his ideal kingdom would have nothing to do with actuality, he achieved the absolute beginning, and proceeding from that, as has so frequently been discussed, he wanted to construct the world. The I became the constituting entity. But since the I was merely formally understood and consequently negatively, Fichte actually went no further than the infinite elastic molimina [efforts] towards a beginning [...]. The problem of philosophy’s point of beginning is hereby brought to consciousness. That with which one has to begin is presuppositionless. But the enormous energy of this beginning does not go farther” (1:286).

First of all, it is obvious that SK conceives Fichte’s analysis of consciousness as an effort to find a solution to the problem of defining a starting point for philosophical reflection. In other words, Fichte advances a theory of “the absolute beginning” (1:186). With this concept of an absolute beginning SK is also alluding in a particular way to Hegel’s problem concerning the method of constructing a rational and totalizing system of reality. To a certain extent SK agrees with Hegel: Like Hegel he claims that the basic problem of ontology, namely, that of demonstrating the unity of consciousness and reality, cannot be solved on the basis of an abstract-formal principle like that of the transcendental ego. In other words, it cannot be solved by way of an abstraction from the historical-contingent content or experience of consciousness (cf. 1:285). Furthermore, it is within this Hegelian framework that Fichte’s concept of the ego appears as pure metaphysics whose arbitrary inner logic is what SK calls “a-cosmism” (1:286).

The fact that this interpretation of Fichte’s theory of consciousness is highly disputable is another question. The point here is to draw attention to the fact that SK is not as such arguing against the possibility of revealing consciousness as an a priori ontological structure. What he opposes is, rather, the specific idealist method of ascribing to consciousness a primary status within the metaphysical reconstruction of reality in its totality, as is the case in the philosophy of Hegel. He sees Hegel doing this when Hegel converts Fichte’s deductive description into his phenomenology of the progressive manifestations of consciousness.

SK’s principal objection is in line with the view expressed by Climacus in the Postscript when he polemicizes against the idea of “an existential system”. Climacus here maintains that the absolute abstraction itself is an abstraction, that is, a position of decisionism incapable of mediating reality. According to Climacus the basic ontological character of reality is actually ignored, namely, the fact that “existence is what divides (Spatierende)” (9:101). Hence it can be said that speculative abstraction is determined by only one of the two components within the divided entity. Any reflection which aims at grasping the unity of consciousness and reality takes place on the basis of the conditions set forth by consciousness and is thus a logical circle (cf III A 48): “Thus there exists no presuppositionless beginning; for if something else is not presupposed, the act whereby I abstract from everything is presupposed.

But this I cannot ever (i intet Øieblik) do. I cannot get around to making a beginning since I am using all my powers in order to abstract from everything” (V A 70).

This line of argument is surely not sufficient to overthrow Hegel’s idea of a philosophical system, as Hegel himself hardly has pretends to make a presuppositionless beginning. The decisive line of demarcation comes to view between the two philosophers, Fichte and Hegel, by interpreting the point of view just quoted from the Papers regarding the question of knowledge or philosophical method ontologically, that is, in connection with the concept of being. In any case, the present discussion does say something about the status and importance of the analysis of consciousness within the framework of existential analysis.

SK’s rather general polemics against Hegel’s “presuppositionless beginning” undoubtedly reflects the Danish controversy over the philosophy of Hegel at the time. At the same time it expresses a decisive premise for SK’s attempt to define the concept of reality in a way different from the Danish discussion exemplified, for instance, by Sibbern, who considered this matter rather extensively in his 1838 treatise on Hegel. This might give rise to some uncertainty concerning SK’s own position. The crucial point in Sibbern’s considerations is the fact that he does not accept the notion that logic is an explication of the essence of the absolute itself. Logic only reveals the structure of experience, described in the Phenomenology of Spirit, as a way leading toward the absolute, as “fathoming search for the original and really underlying ground from which one does not go out as from a starting point”. This is, however, the method of Sibbern. He intends to take as his starting point what Hegel, again according to Sibbern, is approaching only by way of self-reflection ("the inverse movement") and, in this way, better than Hegel reconstruct the deeper connections of existence so as “to see everything constituted within totality”.³⁰² Hence SK’s rejection of the idea of a total system applies as well to Sibbern’s philosophy. The criticism of the concept of an absolute beginning introduces a new concept of the subject and thus radicalizes the aspect of finitude.

In The Concept of Irony SK states that the Fichte’s analysis of consciousness is inadequate to the problem of reality because it neglects the historical content and experience of consciousness. However, this line of argument itself has a structural or a priori character insofar as the historical character of consciousness is not an historical fact but stems from the

essence of consciousness. This is the same argument that is brought forward in De omnibus dubitandum est as an answer to the question of the conditions making possible “doubt” or radical philosophical skepticism, that is, as the foundation of that reconstruction of reality which takes place within the exposition of the a priori constitution of consciousness. It is along this line that Climacus deals with this philosophical project on its own level. His intention “to find out the ideal possibility of doubt within consciousness” (IV B 1, p. 145) is a function of his goal of showing that this epistemological field, even though it might be the necessary starting point of philosophical reflection, does not have the ability to make reality conceptually transparent.

I shall in the following focus on the premises of this conclusion, which in fact constitute a structural definition of consciousness. This constitution of a structural definition is, in turn, the decisive basis of the dialectic of existence.

According to Climacus the basic consideration concerning the ontological impotence of

“doubt”, and something which also disqualifies it as a general method for ontological reconstruction can be expressed in the following way: “Doubt” presupposes consciousness, and as one of its functions, cannot hence transcend consciousness. Philosophical reflection, starting at this basic point of self-criticism, has in the strict sense to be immanent or shut up within the confines of consciousness.

This is so, in the last resort, as a consequence of the very essence of consciousness. The competence of reflection rests necessarily in what is self-referential or immanent. In the preliminary works this truth is stated in the simple definition saying that “consciousness presupposes itself” (IV B 10:14). Stating this thesis does not amount to saying that consciousness is absolute reality. However, this is what consciousness becomes for philosophical reflection if it is given, by way of postulate, the status of a “fundamental ontological” principle. In the opinion of Climacus, granting such a status amounts to the act of transforming a logical truth into ontological truth, namely, that the act of predication through language becomes self-grounding.

This structure of consciousness is, as argued in the previous chapter, the general meaning of the category of the leap. Forms of consciousness cannot be “explained” by, i.e., be conceived as necessary results of, the “material” antecedence taken as a specific content of consciousness. That such an antecedent exists is of course not denied. Such an antecedent might exist, for instance, as a sensual correlate. What is claimed, however, is that what thereby becomes an object of consciousness does not establish consciousness but is itself established by consciousness. Consciousness is not without presupposition, but has as its own presupposition, from a structural point of view, that which it by itself converts into a presupposition. Climacus expresses this elementary truth as follows: “But how is immediacy negated? By a mediation, which negates immediacy by presupposing it” (IV B 1, p. 146).

This main point within transcendental logic has SK inherited from the tradition of idealism. He furthermore uses it as an essential element in his own attack on this very same tradition. He does this insofar as the idealist logic of consciousness has been transformed into

an ontology or philosophy of identity. From a formal point of view, the argument of Climacus is on a level with, for instance, Fichte’s concept of the absolute spontaneity or “pure action [Tathandlung]” of consciousness: “But this character of the ego, which cannot at all be ascribed to the non-ego, is the absolute act of positing and being posited, and has no other foundation”.³⁰³ In view of this, Anti-Climacus’ adoption of Fichte’s idea of the transcendental imagination (cf 15:88) is of course not accidental. Rather, it expresses conformity to Fichte’s philosophical approach, even though one may find it difficult to determine the range of this affinity due to the difference of scope between the two positions. Imagination according to Climacus is not a function of the knowledge of nature, but is rather the producer of different forms of life - or self-understanding.

The active character here ascribed to a logical relation expresses the fact that consciousness determines human existence. The Climacus-fragment indicates this aspect by emphasizing the self-activity of consciousness (with an ill-placed sting against Hegel) (cf. IV B 1, p. 147). This activity on the level of ontology stems both immediately and mediately from the fact that consciousness is related to the existential self-interest (cura), which emerges from man’s fundamental inter-esse, namely, his existence between “the ideal” and

“actuality” (cf. IV B 13:18-20). The definitions found here are scanty and general, and thus cannot form any basis for an acceptably clarified systematic theory of the relationship between “theoretical” and “practical” consciousness.

The point of view of Fahrenbach that “one must attribute a precedence to the ethical consciousness in the interpretation of existence”³⁰⁴ is evidently correct. However, it says nothing about what this priority means in relation to the constitution of “theoretical”

consciousness. The essential point of the fragment of Climacus is not the distinctions between these forms of consciousness “as modes of conduct” with “originally distinct intentions”³⁰⁵ but, rather, the opposite. The “ethical-practical” is the original level, which can only by abstraction assume the form of a pure “cognitive activity” (IV B 13:18). This stands, moreover, in agreement with the basic motive within idealist philosophy, especially that of Fichte.

Blass, on his part, blurs the dialectical picture by wiping out the distinction between consciousness and the ethical self-relation when he maintains: “the ecstasy of the consciousness is however at the same time something relevant to itself; the consciousness is essentially related to its own self”³⁰⁶ Blass seems to identify consciousness with the “self” of The Sickness unto Death. To this one could object that there is an essential existential distance between the rudimentary self-activity within the form of consciousness, described by Climacus, and that consciousness which manifests itself in different forms of self-understanding, even if the structure in all cases must be “triadic” (trichotomisk) (cf. IV B 1, p.

148). Within an anthropological-genetic interpretation of consciousness one should emphasize not only the primacy of self-activity but also the passive and receptive form characteristic of the primitive level of consciousness. In this perspective, the “theoretical-predicative” consciousness, as linguistic-rational competence, is the basis of the practical

attitude of self-determination understood in an ethical sense. The schema of idealism moving from “theoretical” to “practical” consciousness is, accordingly, compatible with SK’s anthropological approach. This is so even though idealism to a greater extent bears the stamp of Kant’s philosophy and comes to be seen as a kind of anthropological modification of his theory of knowledge. This latter is Kant’s definition of “theoretical” competence within the scope of natural science.

The fact that Blass seems to overlook the importance of the concept of the implicit or transcendental self-activity (which moreover is essential to the idea of the self presented in The Sickness unto Death, to which concerning the structure of SK’s thought, Blass attaches such importance) is a consequence of his attempt to disengage SK from the tissue of idealism.

He thus maintains that SK separates himself from idealism by rejecting the idea of “a universal consciousness”, due to the alleged incompatibility between understanding this in general and an understanding of this as “self-consciousness”.³⁰⁷ However, first of all, there is thereby ascribed to SK an inconsistency of thought insofar as “self-consciousness” must imply a “general consciousness”, i.e., a general structure organizing consciousness in its particularity. Secondly, SK’s own methodical approach is neglected as, for instance, in Climacus’ considerations of “possibility” as “total, essential to human consciousness” (IV B 1, p. 145), and Anti-Climacus’ exposition of a typology of the self by means of “formulas”

and combinations of “abstract constituents” (cf 15:73, 87).

The relation between the “theoretical” dimension (consciousness) and the “practical”

dimension (self-consciousness) can be defined in the following way: The ontological fact that consciousness is constituted by an immanent act and thus is self-grounding is the general condition for human existence, as a succession of forms of consciousness, developing as a movement of self-constitution. Existential reality is certainly determined by the chain of necessity. The life of the individual is shaped by the contingent character pertaining to content of consciousness. But, as mediated by consciousness this determination is in the last resort a product of that self-constituting activity which is the essence of consciousness.

The general difference between this concept of self-constitution and the speculative synthesis of idealism has already been explained to some degree above. In the following we will attempt to show in what way this difference or transformation finds expression within the explicit analysis of consciousness itself.