Kierkegaard, Eve and Metaphors of Birth

241 Pages·2015·1.06 MB·English

by  Alison Assiter

KIERKEGAARD, EVE AND
METAPHORS OF BIRTH

KIERKEGAARD, EVE AND
METAPHORS OF BIRTH
Alison Assiter
London • New York
PublishedbyRowman&LittlefieldInternational,Ltd.
UnitA,WhitacreMews,26-34StannaryStreet,LondonSE114AB
www.rowmaninternational.com
Rowman&LittlefieldInternational,Ltd.isanaffiliateofRowman&Littlefield
4501ForbesBoulevard,Suite200,Lanham,Maryland20706,USA
WithadditionalofficesinBoulder,NewYork,Toronto(Canada),andLondon
(UK)
www.rowman.com
Copyright©2015byAlisonAssiter
Allrightsreserved.Nopartofthisbookmaybereproducedinanyformorby
anyelectronicormechanicalmeans,includinginformationstorageandretrieval
systems,withoutwrittenpermissionfromthepublisher,exceptbyareviewer
whomayquotepassagesinareview.
BritishLibraryCataloguinginPublicationInformationAvailable
AcataloguerecordforthisbookisavailablefromtheBritishLibrary
ISBN:HB978-1-78348-324-2
ISBN:PB978-1-78348-325-9
ISBN:EB978-1-78348-326-6
LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Assiter,Alison.
Kierkegaard,Eve,andmetaphorsofbirth/AlisonAssiter.
pagescm
Includesbibliographicalreferencesandindex.
ISBN978-1-78348-324-2(cloth:alk.paper)--ISBN978-1-78348-325-9(pbk.:alk.paper)--ISBN
978-1-78348-326-6(electronic)
1.Kierkegaard,S?ren,1813-1855.2.Ontology.3.Kant,Immanuel,1724-1804.4.Schelling,Frie-
drichWilhelmJosephvon,1775-1854.I.Title.
B4378.O5A872015
198'.9--dc23
2014048169
TMThepaperusedinthispublicationmeetstheminimumrequirementsof
AmericanNationalStandardforInformationSciencesPermanenceofPaperfor
PrintedLibraryMaterials,ANSI/NISOZ39.48-1992.
PrintedintheUnitedStatesofAmerica
CONTENTS
Acknowledgements vii
Abbreviations xi
Introduction xiii
1 ContingentandChaoticReality 1
2 AChallengetoChaos 17
3 Kant,FreedomandEvil 29
4 KierkegaardandSchellingonProcess 55
5 TheConceptofAnxietyandKant 79
6 KierkegaardonWomen 99
7 MetaphorsofBirthinKierkegaard 115
8 MoreonBirthing 135
9 NatureasaBodyThatCanBirth 155
10 TheAgeofRevolutionandthePresentAge 175
Conclusion 189
Bibliography 193
Index 201
v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I
n the acknowledgements section of one of my previous books I men-
tioned that I’d never received a grant for this kind of work. This remains
trueandIhave only, in my entirecareer, hadonesabbatical.Butthere is
somethingIwouldliketomention.
I was trained as an analytical philosopher, many years ago, and I am
luckyenoughtohavestudiedatOxfordandgainedaBPhilinphilosophy.
This, I appreciate, gave me skills and openings I would never otherwise
have had. However, it also gave me a fear of making bold hypotheses,
since,Ifelt,anysuchhypothesiswasboundtobewrong.Indeed,Iwould
probably have gone so far as to claim that it would ultimately have been
meaningless.
Spending the last few years in the company of a group of wonderful
continentalphilosophersatUWEBristol,however,hasradicallychanged
both my outlook and my confidence in the possibility of exercising my
imagination and thinking in bigger and bolder ways. While some will
doubtmysanity,afewothersmightatleastunderstandwhatImean.SoI
owe a particularly strong debt to all my various colleagues as well as
thosewhohavepassedthrough—usuallyoccupyingtemporaryjobs—our
little philosophy group. I would like to mention you all—Mike Lewis,
DarianMeacham,SeanWatson,HaviCarel,TinaChanter,LeoneGazzie-
ro, Phil Meadows (who would probably not describe himself as a conti-
nental philosopher), John Sellars, Katrina Mitcheson and Dagmar Wil-
helm.ButmybiggestdebtistoIainHamiltonGrant,whosecharismaand
enthusiasmforphilosophyaresecondtonone.Itwashe,aboveallothers,
vii
viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
who both taught me the little I know of Schelling and enabled me to
recognize the importance of thinking in bold speculative terms. We also
had such fun teaching Schelling and Kierkegaard together. Of course I
cannotblamehimforalltheerrorsinmythinking.Ironically,noneofthe
abovehavereadthisbook,butyouhaveallshapedmythinkingindiffer-
entways.
I would also like to acknowledge generations of students who have
influenced my thinking. I owe a particular debt to each final-year group
whostudiedKierkegaardwithme.Iamalsoindebtedtothoseofyouwho
studied Kant with me, both the undergraduates in their second year of
study who studied the first and second Critiques with me and the MA
studentsonthemodulewherewereadKant’sthirdCritique.Manyofyou
inspiredmebutparticularmention(becauseoftheirloveofKierkegaard)
goestoRoseZiaiandBarneyRiggs(thelatterreadthisentiremanuscript
and removed some of the typos as well as giving me feedback on the
text).IhavealsoreceivedinspirationandfeedbackfromWillStrongeand
Andy Jones. I would like to mention Heather Nunney-Boodan and Rosie
Massey, who, after I made a brief mention in a seminar on Schelling of
the notion of birth in Schelling, took this a step further and began work-
ing on it. The latter has a piece that anyone can read, if interested, in
Agora,thephilosophymagazineproducedbyUWEstudents.Theformer
wroteherMAdissertationonthesubject.
I would like to acknowledge all the feminist philosophers I have ever
known, who, while you have not commented on this, have inspired my
thinking over many years. I’d particularly like to mention Christine Bat-
tersby,whoseworkledmetoKierkegaard.
Otherwise,I’dliketoacknowledgealltheKierkegaardiansIhavemet
and/orwhoseworkIhavereadandbeeninspiredby.Iwouldlikeparticu-
larlytothankMichaelBurnsforgivingmetheconfidencetothinkthatit
ispossibletoreadKierkegaarddifferently.
Finally, I would like to thank Hamid, Ben and also Liane, as well as
allmyclosefriendsforjustbeingaround.I’dalso(weirdlyagain)liketo
thank all the lifeguards at Hampstead Women’s Pond for enabling the
cold-waterwinterswimmingthatkeepsme(partially!)saneandalive!
Some of the arguments in chapters 1 and 2 are based on a piece I
wrote,‘SpeculativeandCriticalRealism’,JournalofCriticalRealism12,
no. 3 (2013), 283–300. Some brief sections of chapters 3, 4 and 5 are
developments from a piece I wrote, ‘Kant and Kierkegaard on Freedom