Soren Kierkegaard

ethical side of the human race will be treated statistically, as a matter of
average numbers... .What do I need to know about the afferent and effer-
ent nerve impulses, about the circulation of blood, about the microscopic
condition of a human being in the uterus?The ethical has tasks enough for me.
Do I need to know about how the digestive processes work in order to be
able to eat? Or about the processes of the nervous system—in order to
believe in God and love humanity?”
Kierkegaard did not think that he needed to know about the “afferent
and efferent nerve impulses,” and in fact he did not know very much about
these phenomena .When he turned to such concepts it was,among other
things, to indicate the way in which the natural sciences could have an alie-
nating effect simply because of their very language .The irritation sum-
moned up by this language was channeled into scornful commentaries about
the hectic busyness typical of the modern researcher: “Absolutely no benefit
can be derived from involving oneself with the natural sciences .One stands
there defenseless, with no control over anything .The researcher immedi-
ately begins to distract one with his details: Now one is to go to Australia;
now to the moon; now into an underground cave; now, by Satan, up the
arse—to look for an intestinal worm; now the telescope must be used; now
the microscope: Who in the Devil can endure it!”
Kierkegaard could not endure it, thus the protest, and in a journal entry
from 1851, the crisis and the collision course was emphasized even more
pointedly: “My thought is that we must set our course in the direction of
the existential; that is where we are bound .Thus one cannot use science to
combat the preoccupation with science that (as they say about food) makes
a person bloated .Satire must be employed, God-fearing satire .” The possi-
bility of dialogue seems to have been unambiguously abandoned .One can-
not combat natural science on its own terms; the battle must be joined on
other territory, by means of God-fearing satire .Kierkegaard did not indicate
what this satire might consist in, but an earlier journal entry gives us a quite
concrete notion of what he had in mind .Here we have the draft of a “com-
edy” that includes the following: “It was market day for the Sophists; and
on this day each one came and set up his booth .A great many curious
people flocked to the place .We hear three trumpet blasts, then a herald
comes in advance of a sort of triumphal chariot in which the great scientist
is standing .The herald cries out, ‘Here we can demonstrate with necessity
how in 1,000 years there will be a Spanish astronomer, who will prophesy
as a necessary fact that a new star will appear in 1,000 years .The fact of its
existence can be speculatively demonstrated, but it is so far away that it will
take a long time yet .This remarkable exhibit, ladies and gentlemen, is also
remarkable because His Majesty the King of France has permitted himself