The three stages of a human life

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-55) was a Danish philosopher or poet-

philosopher who spent most of his life in Copenhagen, only
leaving to attend a series of lectures in Berlin by the German
philosopher Schelling. It was there that he began to write his
book Either/Or (1843).

An either/or statement suggests that either A is true and its

opposite (not-A) is false or A is false and its opposite is true. So,
for example , “it is either night or it is day”.

Kierkegaard took exception to the either/or, suggesting that a

proposition could contain its opposite as well as itself.

Kierkegaard’s Either/Or uses a variety of literary styles and

genres to introduce his ideas in such a way that they cannot be
instantly discounted.

1. The aesthetic stage

Kierkegaard proposes three stages in adult development: the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious.
There is nothing inevitable about the movement between the stages and for Kierkegaard this is
about choice and the motivation of despair. The aesthetic stage can be broadly characterised as
living for pleasure or ensuring one’s life is interesting.

The aesthetic stage involves:

1. Avoiding boredom

2. Living in the mood

3. First love

For Kierkegaard, all aesthetic views of life are forms of despair:

“It turns out, then, that every aesthetic view of life is despair, and that everyone who lives
aesthetically is in despair whether he knows it or not. But if one does know it, and you indeed do,
then a higher form of existence is an inescapable requirement.”

2. The ethical stage

In despair, the individual chooses the ethical stage which involves:

1. Seeing tasks

2. Making choices

3. Involvement in the community

“For the person who lives aesthetically sees only possibilities everywhere; for him it is these that
form the content of the future, whereas the person who lives ethically sees tasks everywhere.”
Choosing the ethical becomes important in itself:

“That which is chosen does not exist and comes into existence through the choice - and that which is
chosen exists; otherwise it was not a choice “

And there’s no possibility of going back to the way things were:

“for someone who lives aesthetically does not choose, and someone who, once the ethical has
become apparent to him, chooses the aesthetic, does not live in the aesthetic sphere for he sins and
comes under the category of the ethical, even if his life must be described as unethical.”

3. The religious stage

Kierkegaard does not detail what the religious stage involves in Either/Or but wants to bring the
reader to the point where they might make the choice or ‘leap of faith’ for themselves. Kierkegaard
suggests that the either/or at stake is not either the aesthetic or the ethical but either the
aesthetic/ethical or the religious. But as for Kierkegaard an idea contains its own opposite, the
aesthetic and ethical would not disappear but would be at the service of the religious. It is like a
cathedral, which has aesthetic elements in its design and ethical elements in the labour required to
produce it, but also an overall religious function that swallows up the other parts.

For Kierkegaard, most people are in despair, whether they know it or not and the person who says “I
am in despair” is actually half-way to being mended. The Christian differs from the pagan in that he
senses there is something to be feared more than death, which is despair. Despair, for Kierkegaard,
is sin and sin is defined as:

“In despair not wanting to be oneself, or wanting in despair to be oneself”

This encompasses all who sorrow in the aesthetic stage but also those who toil in the ethical.

“And this is one of the most crucial definitions for the whole of Christianity: that the opposite of sin
is not virtue, but faith.”

This contains Kierkegaard’s distrust of the morality of the crowd. In the leap of faith, individuals are
alone before God. That is, the either/or is not sin or virtue but sin/virtue or faith.

“In relating itself to itself and in wanting to be itself, the self is grounded transparently in the power
which established it. Which formula in turn, as has been frequently remarked, is the definition of
faith.”

References

Either/Or: A Fragment of Life by Søren Kierkegaard. Translated by Alastair Hannay (Penguin, 1992)
The Sickness unto Death by Søren Kierkegaard. Translated by Alastair Hannay
(Penguin, 2008)
Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard. Translated by Alastair Hannay (Penguin, 1985)
Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography by Joakim Garff (Princeton University Press, 2005) Anthony
Storm’s commentary on Kierkegaard. http://sorenkierkegaard.org/eitheror.html
Swiss Cottage Library has a good selection of books on Kierkegaard