Fear and Trembling

Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843)

Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855)

Short, dark-bound, and a little out of breath.

Catch rate: 52 / 255
Base research: 270
Stat total: 326

Base stats

Every stat is a checkable fact about the actual book, not a designer's mood. Bars are drawn against the highest value any book reaches.

Stamina84

Contend90

Defend74

Popularity78

Total326

Why these numbers

The game's own explanation, as a reader sees it in the backpack.

Stamina 84

STAMINA — Moderate. It is short, and it is built around one story.

Contend 90

CONTEND — High. It does not argue for faith. It shows Abraham and leaves the reader standing where he stood.

Defend 74

DEFEND — Low. It is written in pseudonym and irony, so it is easy to quote and hard to pin down.

Popularity 78

POPULARITY — Moderate. It is quoted far more than it is read.

Cited for this book

Kierkegaard published Fear and Trembling in Copenhagen in 1843, under the name Johannes de Silentio. It retells Genesis 22, where God tells Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, and asks what it would take to believe that and to walk up the mountain. He does not explain Abraham. He says he can describe the movements of faith and cannot make them himself.

Development

A book develops as it is read — the fragment becomes the work, the work becomes the corpus.

Fear and Trembling→
Lv 66The Works of Kierkegaard

Moves learned

By levelling up. A book that develops keeps what it knew and learns the rest on its new schedule.

Lv	Move	Type	Cat.	Pwr	Acc	PP
1	Random Verse	Bible	Argument	10	100%	30
1	The Clearance-Sale	Experience	Argument	76	100%	15
16	He Rode Slowly On His Way	Faith	Argument	82	100%	15
26	By Virtue of the Absurd	Faith	Argument	92	100%	10
32	Chapter…	Bible	Scripture	—	—	12
40	The Swimming-Belt	Experience	Argument	84	100%	15

The quotes behind its moves

How to read these. In Scholar’s Dream, books argue with each other. Each thing a book can do in a debate is a move, and most moves carry a real quotation — the words the book puts on the table when it uses that move.

Strong against lists the opposing books and arguments a move was written to answer. Used against one of them, it hits much harder than usual: ×2 means twice the normal force, ×4 four times. It is the game’s way of saying: this is the sentence that answers that argument. Open an entry to read why.

“Not only in the world of commerce but also in the world of ideas our age has arranged a regular clearance-sale. Everything may be had at such absurdly low prices that very soon the question will arise whether any one cares to bid.”
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843), trans. L. M. Hollander, Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard (University of Texas Bulletin, 1923), public domain.public domain

The Clearance-Sale

ExperienceArgument · power 76 · 100% accurate

In the gameThe opening of Fear and Trembling. Everyone in his day was doubting everything and then going on to something further, and nobody said how the doubting was done. Kierkegaard says faith has been marked down so far that nobody is bidding.

“He arrived neither too early nor too late. He mounted his ass and rode slowly on his way. And all the while he had faith, believing that God would not demand Isaac of him, though ready all the while to sacrifice him, should it be demanded of him.”
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843), trans. L. M. Hollander, Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard (University of Texas Bulletin, 1923), public domain.public domain

He Rode Slowly On His Way

FaithArgument · power 82 · 100% accurate

In the gameKierkegaard retells Genesis 22. Abraham does not rush and does not dawdle. He saddles a donkey and rides up the mountain with a knife and his son, believing God will not take Isaac and ready to give him if God does.

“Hence the only thing which can save him is recourse to the absurd, and this recourse he has through his faith. That is, he clearly recognizes the impossibility, and in the same moment he believes the absurd; for if he imagined he had faith, without at the same time recognizing, with all the passion his soul is capable of, that his love is impossible, he would be merely deceiving himself”
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843), trans. L. M. Hollander, Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard (University of Texas Bulletin, 1923), public domain.public domain

By Virtue of the Absurd

FaithArgument · power 92 · 100% accurate

In the gameKierkegaard’s best-known phrase. The knight of faith sees the impossibility with open eyes and does not pretend it away. Then he believes anyway, because to God nothing is impossible.

Strong against

×2.5The Absurdan argument · why?

Camus says leaping into faith is philosophical suicide, killing reason to be rid of the problem. Kierkegaard was the man he had in mind. But the knight of faith in Fear and Trembling sees the impossibility with open eyes, with all the passion his soul is capable of, and then believes, because to God nothing is impossible.

“As far as I am concerned, I am able to describe most excellently the movements of faith; but I cannot make them myself. When a person wishes to learn how to swim he has himself suspended in a swimming-belt and then goes through the motions; but that does not mean that he can swim.”
Søren Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling (1843), trans. L. M. Hollander, Selections from the Writings of Kierkegaard (University of Texas Bulletin, 1923), public domain.public domain

The Swimming-Belt

ExperienceArgument · power 84 · 100% accurate

In the gameKierkegaard can describe the movements of faith perfectly and says he cannot make them. A man hung in a swimming-belt goes through the strokes and still cannot swim. Knowing about faith, however well, is a different thing from believing.