Stirner And Consciousness

 

On Pages 56 and 57 Paul Strathern in his book, Kierkegaard In 90 Minutes digs into what Kierkegaard construes as human consciousness and its possibilities for freedom: “As Kierkegaard noted, the word double and doubt stem from the same root. (They originate from ‘duo,’ with doubt meaning two possibilities,) Consciousness itself is a form of doubt. This undercuts even Descartes, the philosopher that doubted everything—but found in the end that he could not doubt he was doubting, that he was thinking in the first place. Yet Kierkegaard showed that consciousness (or conscious thought), far from being certain, is a form of doubt itself. How? Because in consciousness we doubt existence itself?”

 

My response. Kierkegaard is brilliant here, pointing out the dual, conflicting drives in humans of our actuality or what we are versus what is not, our possibilities. I see a similar contradiction at the heart of the human condition—that we are half-beast and half-angel.

 

Stirner mentions none of this in his work, but there is a vague convergence here in that Stirner is so anti-realistic that his scorn for abstractions reduces the Unique to being creative with his phenomenological nothingness. Kierkegaard seems to project from the evasive, mixed nature of humans, defying essentialist description, that the self could be seen as so doubtful as to be nothing and brings Kierkegaard close to Stirner’s nihilism.

 

My reaction to the contradiction that is the human essence or condition is that we embrace it and seek to take this anguished, flawed, blighted self and self-realize the daylights out of it, as a living prayer and sacrifice to God. The now self-actualized (never completed or utterly perfected) or self-actualized agent is now a living angel and his personhood is not everything, but it is something noble and impressive, no longer a blighted, defeated, demoralized, nonindividuating nothing burger.

 

Strathern continues: “But is this merely the case of the snake swallowing its tail? Here we are indeed in elusive territory, with few the concepts we have becoming even more slippery. For instance, it is all very well saying that even consciousness is open to doubt, but can something that doesn’t exist do anything at all, let alone doubt itself? Kierkegaard’s defenders argue that he doesn’t say consciousness doesn’t exist, he merely doubts its existence. This is a vital point. What Kierkegaard is saying is that it is possible to ‘doubt consciousness to bits.’ Once again reverting to the skepticism of Hume, Kierkegaard saw that it is possible to question the continuity of consciousness. We don’t experience this consciousness from one moment to the next. All we experience is the moment: the present.”

 

My response: Note that Kierkegaard is almost as wary of abstractions as is Stirner, but his nominalism is not that strong or radical. He is now doubting the few concepts that he retained. Both thinkers seem to imply that consciousness may not exist. It affronts my common sense: can something that does not exist, doubt its own existence? I think not, but the ontological moderate in me admits that all humans wonder if they exist, if they are real, is life worth it, if anything makes sense at all. There are no final answers here but if we doubt things, I suggest, we are a consciousness doubting, and to think or be conscious is to exist and have identity and a human nature.

 

Strathern continues: “Consciousness is thus utterly precarious. Once we become aware of this, existence becomes even more of a risk. And this is further emphasized when we bear in mind that we might die at any moment (a fact that we learn from experience as well as from our awareness of the absence of continuity in consciousness). Simultaneously we should remain aware of the complete freedom that we have at every moment. We can choose anything—we can completely transform our lives. At every moment we are confronted with utter freedom. This is the true situation that faces us. As a result of this, when we are fully aware of the reality of our situation, we experience ‘dread.’”

 

My response: I don’t believe that consciousness is utterly precarious, but it is precarious. I also do not accept that there is an absence of continuity of consciousness. Both Hume and Kierkegaard overstate the evanescence of the self-concept of the self. Stirnes is no solipsist, and he seems to accept that others exist, even though most of them are unwilling egoists. Sitner does not seem to delve into the passions and feelings of the isolated existent, but he would agree with Kierkegaard about the utter freedom that the willing egoist can enjoy if he is making himself not enslaved to any abstraction, group, or cause.

 

We do not enjoy utter freedom, but we enjoy enough freedom so that we can feel dread and horror at being alone from the group to have to think for oneself and find meaning on one’s own. These responsibilities can terrify people so they will escape from freedom back into the clique and the cause.