Soren Kierkegaard

when one wished to remain “at a distance of 100,000 miles—or, better, at
the distance of the idea—from the moment.” The volume of Kierkegaard’s
displeasure intensified when he learned that Eiriksson supported his critique
of Martensen by citing a conversation with several university students who
interpreted thePostscriptas an indirect polemic against the speculative Mar-
tensen. “It is abominable to print this sort of gossip,” Kierkegaard raged,
“abominable to give the impression that myConcluding Postscripthas de-
prived him [Martensen] of any adherents, for no university student can have
found one word about Prof. Martensen anywhere in my entire book.”
We are tempted to ask whether it was the students or Kierkegaard who
had understood thePostscriptbetter. Indeed, the undeniable fact was that
the entirePostscriptcontained a critique of Hegelian speculation, and even
though it was true that Martensen was nowhere mentioned by name, one
would have to be an extraordinarily poor reader not to discern the tendency
of the critique. And the loophole through which Kierkegaard attempted to
escape the embarrassing situation was thus characterized by such hairsplit-
ting subtlety that no one could take it seriously: “Insofar as my writings at
times contain polemics against Hegel, insofar as they continually target the
excessive amount of pompous lecturing, the entire project has been carried
out in such a manner—with diligence and I dare say with artistic propriety
as well—that it could just as well have been written in Germany as in Co-
penhagen. Indeed, the typical figure of which I have repeatedly made use—
if not nearly with the same success as Holberg’s use of the Magister, then
at any rate in a similar fashion—is thePrivatdocent, which actually does not
exist here in Denmark at all.” The students of whom Eiriksson wrote had
thus forced Kierkegaard to speak directly concerning the polemic against
Martensen that Kierkegaard, alias Climacus, had been able to carry on indi-
rectly in thePostscript. Kierkegaard’s refusal to acknowledge his polemic
publicly was probably due less to his respect for Martensen than to his lack
of respect for Eiriksson, whose clumsy conduct was certainly not going to
be permitted to serve as the occasion for a more official confrontation.
It does look rather deliberate that, shortly after writing this white lie in
which he dissociated himself from Climacus’s polemic, Kierkegaard
changed both his subject matter and his writing style, suddenly proposing
this maxim about serving the truth: “If it were the case that the proof that
a person has served the truth is the advantages the person gained by doing
so, the amount of money he made, the number of honors and distinctions
a person has collected from those above or below him—oh, then I have
never served the truth!” It was as though Kierkegaard’s involvement with
Martensen, who had been appointed court chaplain on May 16, 1845, had
forced him to reflect upon his own position (or lack thereof): painful, mar-