Kierkegaard in a Nutshell

[@SuperGreatSphinx]

"If I were to wish for anything, I should not wish for wealth and power, but for the passionate sense of the potential, for the eye which, ever young and ardent, sees the possible. Pleasure disappoints, possibility never. And what wine is so sparkling, what so fragrant, what so intoxicating, as possibility!" ― Søren Kierkegaard, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

[@adocentyn9028]

It is amazing how relevant and meaningful many of Kierkegaard's observations are.

[@aarondavid5866]

philosophy isn't observations. like oh look a cat is sitting there lol

[@SomeoneElse-]

The "Leap of Faith" resonates with me on a deep level. I've felt like I should rely on my passion to be the very means which allows it to come to fruition. Or as you put it to "trust in my love". The very emergence of such a strong and persistent desire, so much so that it feels like a necessity, would surely imply that its fulfillment is possible or at the very least worth striving for. And trying and failing surely wouldn't be anywhere near close as bad as remaining idle, making the desire stagnant rather than impending, with your conscience in the background just gnawing away at your core. Great video btw

[@samuelhajduk5746]

Absolutely incredible.

[@TheGerogero]

"Trust in the power of your love" nearly had me in tears.

[@aarondavid5866]

doesnt take much. just the crappy youtubers words

[@cat2873]

Really nice introduction considering Kierkegaard's complexity and wide range of things he discussed. Thanks for this.

[@amaram4217]

Haha, this definitely resonates with me as an INFP. Just last night I was having the kind of crisis of despair in relation to potential careers I might want to pursue. "I could go down this path, but is that the best path? What if this other path the is the actual one I want to take? I don't want to settle, but I won't know until I try! But I can't try everything, bc of limited time..."

[@gomasso]

And what did you do? :D

[@Roogy88]

This reminds me of that Skittles commercial where a bunch of kids were sitting on a rainbow. As soon as one of them started doubting the rainbow's existence, he fell.

[@annamhoiya4771]

This was actually SUPER HELPFUL

[@genesischaparro8954]

I just watched this video after rewatching the Revisiting the Types video on the INFP. Soren was such an INFP and his philosophy shows it.

[@ikehelly]

Thanks. Got it. I have declared this decade of my life to be unreasonable. I am 61. Jumping into my next project. Well explained. You are a contribution.

[@annaojek4013]

I had this existential crisis as if the whole persona of mine was erroneously created by myself to fit into borders I appointed myself and which does not have any positive impact of my self-being but actually making me even more chained to the ground. It was related to the fact of my low self-esteem and a few life important decisions to make. Thanks to Kierkegaard I got deeply inspired due to find the right point of my existence and to deeply develop my inner passion, even if it's not God or so. I might not get everything properly tho, since English is not my first language but that doesn't change a fact how positive this video turned out to be for my crisis. Thanks a lot to both - Kierkegaard and the man who created this video.

[@jordanapodaca364]

I'm an ENTJ, and this video captures what the fire is deep down in the ENTJ (I don't know if people realize how much Fi drives what we do.) I feel like that approach to life is ultimately what fuels my ambitions. It's the commitment to simply live life, risking all, that makes life worth living.

[@loganhurley5590]

Beautiful philosophy taught well, as always. Thanks ñ

[@gomasso]

This is great man

[@dochmbi]

I try my best to live this philosophy every single day.

[@gavintoohey6604]

Thank you

[@ScorchArtist]

though I agree one must strive with all their might to acheive the life that makes them happy even if their is a strong likelihood of failure. "if you believe in something enough, you do it, even if the odds aren't in your favor." -Elon Musk

[@serano5023]

Very useful

[@acatssoftnose3940]

I feel bad for Kierkegaard. I can't help but feel that he gave up his reason for a God that may not be there. However, I do agree with him that a leap of faith in a world that will never be completely understood is not without point.

[@Roogy88]

Phileos Sophia "God" isn't meant to be taken literally in this case, it's just a metaphor for perfection.

[@ButOneThingIsNeedful]

Yes.

[@deannadavis2403]

I'm a delta, and I approve of your placement of Kierkegaard in my quadra. I would build a castle not to just for the purpose of living there but for the act of castle building itself.

[@deannadavis2403]

(Although there would be moments of crisis. Especially when the betas inhabit the castle one day!)

[@HodsBroo]

Amazing!!!

[@ScorchArtist]

so good! though i'm curious how much personal fault of judgement plays into this. for example, because of a limited point of view, someone puts their whole self into a perceived passion even though they would much prefer another form of life but just aren't aware of it yet. similar to an ENTP's fear of closing down possibilties to focus on one particular discovery. where is the balance struck?

[@MichaelPiercePhilosophy]

Glad you liked it! And to that, I believe Kierkegaard would answer that for one to believe that they cannot change themselves to better suit what they discover to be better suited to their passions is itself a form of despair, because one is once again letting finitude control them, and not the other way around. In all honesty, I think that Kierkegaard's philosophy is brightly illuminated by typological concepts: Kierkegaard is almost an archetypal INFP, in that his philosophy could be boiled down to the phrase "*feel* for your self". It's much like the INTP, who will not believe a proposed fact or theory until they have personally worked it out for themselves and reconciled it with their personal, intricate worldview -- so the INFP is actually the exact same way but with values: they will not believe a proposed evaluation until they have personally reconciled it and understood it in terms of their own personal feeling, value system. So Kierkegaard is essentially advocating his own natural way of thinking in direct opposition to his biased perception of Fe: he says, don't just go along with and superficially act out the evaluations of the mob -- decide for yourself whether you like something or not, and champion that evaluation entirely for your own self, and not for anyone or anything else. So Kierkegaard's "leap of faith" is, I believe, essentially to Fi through life, regardless of where it leads one, to do everything because you yourself want to, regardless of whether that might lead you into trouble or into getting emotionally hurt or disappointed. I hope that makes sense. I still struggle a bit with Kierkegaard, but what I put in the video, regardless of what I just typed above, is my understanding of him, thought out and crafted.

[@ScorchArtist]

great summary Michael. I too share this philosophy.

[@vikingjanch]

Very good, I thought

[@steve5123456789]

So what happens if you lose it hypothetically on this diagram then, what happens?

[@AirSandFire]

I doubt Kierkegaard would be happy about being put 'in a nutshell' format

[@deb1847]

Which books should I start with to understand kierkagard?

[@ButOneThingIsNeedful]

Personally I like and feel sympathetically toward Kierkegaard, and think that he is often misunderstood and erroneously characterized (e.g. what he meant in saying that faith was "absurd"). Having said this, however, I must say that a lot of what is in this video seems pretty 'basic' (this is NOT a putdown; I agree with much of what SK is saying), but is dressed up with philosophical nomenclature that gives it (for some) an aura of arcane insight-- since many equate such 'specialist jargon' with the brilliance of the concepts themselves, etc. I know many would object to this, but I feel (as I believe Kierkegaard felt) that the heart of his philosophy was concordant with the essence of Christianity. Anyway, one point I would question. I understand K's thought about humanity's "precipice of existential responsibility". What I struggle with, however (if, as this vid claims, SK truly taught it) is the accompanying notion that in 'going for it' we somehow KNOW that we will be successful in reaching our "desired self" (i.e. actualization). "Subjective passion", yes! But is not "believe" a better word than "know"? My guess - and I am speculating - is that K would say that the existential leap is a leap - ultimately - into the loving arms of God, who is faithful to always continue perfecting the work that He has begun in an individual (Phil. 1:6). And there is one's assurance. But of course I am open to be better instructed.

[@aarondavid5866]

so what did he mean? by faith is absurd if in face he said that . he meant it has to be directed and isnt enough. you have alot of statements for one who needs teaching. You must know to have faith thats why you are jumping off a cliff. If no faith and no assuredness you are just commiting suicide. Soren was the deepest . You dont know his work. only this stupid video. you embarass

[@MrChaoticBob8]

Really like this new production standard, but get a good mic pls

[@jamansh214j7]

Why would you put Kierkegaard in a nutshell?

[@yeghor]

So passion = magical thinking ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magical_thinking

[@mb7626]

No. Another word that Kierkegaard uses for it is 'faith', but his view of faith is not the one we're most familiar with. What we normally view as faith is essentially "believing really hard", and Kierkegaard would call that immediacy or aestheticism, which is essentially the lowest rung of human development (mere wants, desires, etc). For Kierkegaard there are three such 'spheres', the sphere after aestheticism is ethics or rationality, and then faith follows from that. So basically it goes: Aesthetics > Ethics > Faith You can think of children being primarily 'aesthetic', they're driven by their wants and needs, and then they become conscious of themselves (or perhaps they enter adolescence) and now they have to mediate or delay their wants and needs in order to function in society. This is the stage of ethics, where we can use principles or ethics to supersede or delay or reason with our wants, and it's a necessary lesson that we all have to learn. It's also something we can share with other people, it's how we can say whether someone "did the right thing" or not. Usually these two are set up in opposition, and that's not really wrong, but what's interesting about Kierkegaard's work is that he uses what you might call a Hegelian dialectic to reconcile the two. The idea is that aestheticism or immediacy is *changed or transformed* through reason, to become a new kind of immediacy. This new kind of immediacy we could consider "doing the right thing", but it is *not* something where we can share our reasoning with others. It is something realized entirely by the individual. This second kind of immediacy is faith. For the sake of simplicity, you could say that it's like the first kind of immediacy (aestheticism), but it has been entirely transformed through ethics/rationality to become something entirely different. Basically aesthetics that has been changed by ethics is no longer aesthetics nor ethics, but something transcendent (with some features from both). So it's not magical thinking, it's not about what we 'want', we can only arrive at faith through reason (or full recognition of our situation). But reason on its own is insufficient and stilted. It's a lot like Nietzsche's overman, the alchemical union of instinct and reason allows one to reach heretofore unseen ethical heights. You become fully "your own person".

[@yeghor]

+umop 3pisdn kierk's aesthetics sounds like "id" and his ethics "superego". afai understand reconciliation of the two leads to faith/passion (in one's self) and leads to self actualization (being complete). I have to read his books. His style is confusing to me.

[@MichaelPiercePhilosophy]

+umop 3pisdn I greatly appreciate your clarification here. I know exactly what you're talking about from Kierkegaard's works, which is why I am very interested in knowing whether you feel my video is misleading or oversimplifying things?

[@mb7626]

+Yeghor, Kierkegaard's work can be kind of hard to get into without some sort of guide. He regularly writes using pseudonymous characters, in order to present problems without a clear answer. Essentially, the character doesn't have the answer, but by writing this way Kierkegaard can present all of the sides of the problem (as he sees it), from a particular vantage point, say of the person struggling with it, and thus leave the problem open for the individual reading it. But if you don't know that that's what he's doing, and you're expecting him to make some really decisive arguments, what he's getting at can be a bit confusing. Also, at the time that he was writing, Hegel was a giant in philosophy, and you essentially couldn't write anything without commenting on Hegel in some way, but now that we're not so versed in Hegel, we're less likely to get those references. For example, Hegel's ethical theory is exemplary of what Kierkegaard calls 'ethics' on many occasions, so you can read his work and see him talking about the ethics or the universal and not understand that he's actually talking about something pretty specific. +Michael Pierce I think you did a good job with this video. I find Kierkegaard's work staggering, and considering that your aim is brevity, I think that approaching him as the father of existentialism is the smart way to go. Personally I find that there are a lot of fascinating nuances with his Christianity, that are hard for me to understand as a non-Christian, but those present a whole other challenge. I think they're good for getting a sense of the full breadth or complexity of his philosophy, but I find it really rarefied and honestly pretty hard to wrap my head around, though I feel like I maybe understand just enough to appreciate it.

[@iceydaywalker9198]

how exactly was this video made possible through the contributions of your patrons? that was a silly addition imho, but lets see how the rest of the vid turns out.

[@Thejampacker]

Ryan Bergen because they provide the capital for the video artist to have time to write, narrate and design the video. Right?

[@patrickwickett1787]

That was a good synopsis of the "leap of faith". Kierkegaard was not a philosopher.

[@Vitor-zs5yv]

kierkegaard was a philosopher, I don't understand how you came to that conclusion that he wasn't

[@iwantyou8990]

Yo Pierce--ever see the work of Jordan B Peterson? He's another INFJ and a psychologist if that compels your interest. Now famous for being a free speech advocate.