The failure of abstraction. Unamuno, Life 6.4

Unamuno quotes Kierkegaard, whose Unscientific Postscript (published in 1846) is written against Hegel, especially the Science of Logic (Wissenschaft der Logik, published 1812-16). The unity of thought and being that Unamuno and Kierkegaard reject here is expressed in that book, making it easy to identify 'the sad figure of a professor' that Kierkegaard draws.

Oigamos al hermano Kierkegaard, que nos dice: «Donde precisamente se muestra el riesgo de la abstracción, es respecto al problema de la existencia cuya dificultad resuelve soslayándola, jactándose luego de haberlo explicado todo. Explica la inmortalidad en general, y lo hace egregiamente, identificándola con la eternidad; con la eternidad, que es esencialmente el medio del pensamiento. Pero que cada hombre singularmente existente sea inmortal, que es precisamente la dificultad, de esto no se preocupa la abstracción, no le interesa; pero la dificultad de la existencia es el interés del existente; al que existe le interesa infinitamente existir. El pensamiento abstracto no le sirve a mi inmortalidad sino para matarme en cuanto individuo singularmente existente, y así hacerme inmortal, poco más o menos a la manera de aquel Doctor de Holberg, que con su medicina quitaba la vida al paciente, pero le quitaba también la fiebre. Cuando se considera un pensador abstracto que no quiere poner en claro y confesar la relación que hay entre su pensamiento abstracto y el hecho de que él sea existente, nos produce, por excelente y distinguido que sea, una impresión cómica, porque corre el riesgo de dejar de ser hombre. Mientras un hombre efectivo, compuesto de infinitud y de finitud, tiene su efectividad precisamente en mantener juntas esas dos y se interesa infinitamente en existir, un semejante pensador abstracto es un ser doble, un ser fantástico que vive en el puro ser de la abstracción, y a las veces la triste figura de un profesor que deja a un lado aquella esencia abstracta como deja el bastón. Cuando se lee la vida de un pensador así —cuyos escritos pueden ser excelentes—, tiembla uno ante la idea de lo que es ser hombre. Y cuando se lee en sus escritos que el pensar y el ser son una misma cosa, se piensa, pensando en su vida, que ese ser que es idéntico al pensar, no es precisamente ser hombre.» (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift, cap. 3.)

¡Qué intensa pasión, es decir, qué verdad encierra esta amarga invectiva contra Hegel, prototipo del racionalista, que nos quita la fiebre quitándonos la vida, y nos promete, en vez de una inmortalidad concreta, una inmortalidad abstracta, como si fuese abstracta, y no concreta, el hambre de ella, que nos consume!

Let us listen to our brother Kierkegaard (†), who has a message for us: “The danger of abstraction appears clear and present in the moment when it attempts to solve the problem of existence by ignoring it, boasting thereafter that it has explained everything. Abstraction explains immortality in general terms, and does so very well, identifying it with eternity, which is essentially the medium of thought. But that each man existing individually should be immortal, which is precisely the problem—to this, abstraction pays no heed: it is not interesting. But the problem of existence is interesting to the person existing. He who exists would like to exist infinitely, without limits. The only service abstract thought offers to my immortality is to slay me as a singularly existent individual: thus does it render me immortal, more or less in the manner of that doctor from Holberg, whose medicine snuffed out the life of a sick patient, but also succeeded in putting an end to his fever. Whenever we contemplate an abstract thinker who does not want to confront and confess the relationship between his abstract thought and the fact that he exists inabstractly, the impression we come away with is inevitably comic, for no matter how serious he might be, his approach runs the risk of rendering him inhuman. An effective man, a real human, composed of infinity and finitude, retains his effectiveness only by maintaining both these qualities simultaneously, and he cares about extending this maintenance, his existence, infinitely. The abstract thinker, however, is a double-being: one part of his existence is an imaginary creature that lives in the pure realm of abstraction; the other appears betimes as a sad sack of a professor who drops abstraction the way he would a crutch. Whenever one reads the life of such a thinker, whose writings can be excellent, one trembles a little at the idea of what it is to be human. And when one reads in his writings that thinking and being are one and the same thing, one thinks, reflecting on his life, that this being who is identical with thinking is not really human” (A Final Unscientific Postscript, chapter 3).

What intense passion! What truth, I mean to say, this bitter invective against Hegel contains. Hegel, the prototype of the rationalist who cures our fever by cutting off our life, promising us abstract immortality instead of the kind that is concrete, as though abstraction could satisfy the actual hunger that consumes us! As though we longed for life in the abstract!

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(†) Kierkegaard did not write as himself. The ostensible author of the Postscript is Johannes Climacus, a fictional character whom Kierkegaard uses to illustrate the power of subjectivity (from a position that defends Christianity and undermines objective rationalism, though Climacus is not a believer). Climacus' name is taken from a real historical figure, an ancient Greek monk (c. 570-649 CE) from St. Catherine's abbey on Mount Sinai who composed a manual for Christian devotions: The Ladder of Paradise (Κλίμαξ τοῦ παραδείσου, or Scala paradisi in the Latin translation of Ambrosius Camaldunensis, which appeared first in 1531). For the Greek text of the real Climacus, see the Patrologia Graeca, vol. 88.