The Crisis Of Spirit And Its Way Back

Western society started secularization since the Renaissance.Friedrich Heinrich Jacobi in 1799 criticized German idealism and the trend of secularization,calling it“Nihilism”.Kierkegaard carried on this criticism.In his view,the current age,which was over sensible and void of the passion inspired by belief,had replaced God,the pure“spirit”,with reason,and this kind of “de-spiritualization” and “false-spiritualization”invoked the “spiritual” crisis for western civilization: the general pursuit of material and physical pleasures instead of the development of inner life and spiritualization.Thus,the meaning of individual life got lost with the prevalence of sensual love and sensible love,which were actually self-love.Kierkegaard believed the only treatment to the syndromes of Nihilism was back to Christian belief.Today,“Nihilism” is a not a problem peculiar to western society,but a general predicament for human beings in the world’s process of secularization or post-secularization.The prelude of this dissertation tries to catch the features of Kierkegaardianism and explain the significance of the study by juxtaposing Kierkegaardianism with other thinking systems.The main body of this dissertation studies the core concepts and issues of Kierkegaardianism,and activates the inner logical structure of Kierkegaardianism by connecting it with reality.“ Irony ” is the start point of Kierkegaardianism;therefore,chapter 1 discusses the connotation of “irony” in Kierkegaardian context from three aspects: individuals and city-state,worldliness and ideas,inwardness and outwardness,and analyzes the reasons why Kierkegaard criticized the “irony” advocated by German Romanticism.The theme of Chapter 2 is boredom,or ennui,which is the intrinsic nature of de-spiritualization and false-spiritualization,and the powerlessness of existences in the face of nothingness and meaninglessness.Both secular existence and aesthetical existence are doomed to be boring.Chapter 3 discusses how to get rid of the boredom and self-deceit in existence.The answer proposed by Kierkegaard is to return to “inwardness” and admit one’s spiritual thirst.Inwardness is not the end,but the means to reach Christian God and the love for neighbors.Chapter 4 points out that love for neighbors is the pure love which negates self-love,sensual love and sensible love.It is sure to encounter suffering and death in the pursuit of the pure love.But neither suffering nor death should stop the pursuit of pure love.Instead,they should function as the source of inspiration for pure love.This dissertation concludes that the genuine poetic existence is based on the choice and actions of pure love,and it is not the aesthetic existence;it is the holy and spiritualized existence,and not the secular existence.The conclusion emphasizes the tensions between Kierkegaardianism and secular Humanism,and the thought experiment adopted by Kierkegaard to overcome Nihilism is reflected in such tensions.To sum up,this study is of intense sense of actuality.It deepens our cognition and reflections upon Nihilism by animating Kierkegaardianism in the context of secular humanism.This study recognizes some factors proposed by Kierkegaard,meanwhile,it also acknowledges that Kierkegaard’s thinking system is nevertheless confined within the tradition of metaphysics,Christian theology and German idealism as well.His thinking system would be vain beyond the tradition.In fact,Kierkegaard never sought for universal value.What he tried was to make certain individual existence full and substantial.There would be those who’d like to have talks with Kierkegaard and hence receive the spiritual power of existence.