Fyrirlestur í heimspeki: Paul Muench

Fyrirlestur í heimspeki: Paul Muench, Kierkegaard's Use of Pseudonymous Authors: Employing Fiction in Philosophy

Vorið 2023 stendur Heimspekistofnun fyrir röð rannsóknarfyrirlestra í heimspeki. Þriðji í röð fyrirlesara er Paul Muench, professor í heimspeki við University of Montana í Bandaríkjunum. Muench sérhæfir sig í heimspekisögu, einkum fornaldarheimspeki, nýaldarheimspeki og heimspeki Kierkegaards. Fyrirlestur Muenchs er á ensku. Öll velkomin.

Staður og stund: 27. apríl kl. 15-16:30 í Aðalbyggingu HÍ, stofu A220.

Útdráttur á ensku: The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard published some of his best-known books under various pseudonyms (such as Victor Eremita, Constantin Constantius, Johannes Climacus, Vigilius Haufniensis, Nicolaus Notabene). He denied, however, that these were mere pen names he used to publish his own thoughts and words. Instead, he held that the pseudonyms are better thought of as a special kind of fictional or literary character whose chief attribute is that of being an author. That is, according to Kierkegaard, he is not the author of these books, the pseudonyms are. He creates the pseudonyms, and they, in turn, create their various books. The words that appear in these books and the ideas that are expressed in them all belong to the pseudonyms, not to Kierkegaard. He goes so far as to say that “in the pseudonymous books there is not a single word by me” and requests of readers that “if it should occur to anyone to want to quote a particular passage from the [pseudonymous] books, it is my wish, my prayer, that he will do me the kindness of citing the respective pseudonymous author’s name, not mine.” In this talk I will discuss why Kierkegaard spoke in this peculiar way about books that, in some sense, he obviously wrote. We will consider what a pseudonym is and the philosophical significance that Kierkegaard attached to their use. Our overall aim will be to shed light on why Kierkegaard thought that we would not be able to understand these books unless we treated them as books that he did not write, as books that were written by fictional authors who themselves do not exist.