Word and Spirit

by Hall, Ronald L.

• ISBN13: 9780253327529
• ISBN10: 0253327520
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1993-03-01
• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr

Summary

By means of a Kierkegaardian critique of postmodernism, Ronald L. Hall argues that the postmodernist flirtation with Kierkegaard ignores the existential import of his thought. Word and Spirit offers a novel interpretation of Kierkegaard's conception of the self, according to which spirit is essentially linked to the speech act. In an extended interpretation of Kierkegaard's Either/Or, Hall uses insights from Austin, Wittgenstein, Polanyi, and Poteat to fill out and explicate Kierkegaard's views in the context of modern language philosophy. The enriched concept of the speech act represented by the Hebrew idea of dabhar frames Hall's critique of irony, romanticism, Don Giovanni, Faust, the demonic, music, and ultimately, postmodernisim in a Kierkegaardian mode. The result of the modern suspicion of speech, Hall concludes, is a demonic, musical spiritlessness.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
Prologue: Kierkegaard's Critique of the Modern Age	p. 1
Sensuality and Spirit	p. 15
Spirit as Psyche	p. 19
Spirit as Pneuma	p. 29
Architecture and Sculpture: Psychical Paradigms of Aesthetic Immediacy	p. 37
Music and Speech: Pneumatic Paradigms of Aesthetic and Existential Immediacy	p. 41
Dabhar and Existential Immediacy	p. 55
Speech and Human Being	p. 59
Speech and Being Human	p. 68
Word and Spirit	p. 72
Freedom and Temporality	p. 74
Efficacy and Contingency	p. 80
Don Giovanni, Music, and the Demonic Immediacy of Sensuality	p. 90
Music, Worldlessness, and Anxiety	p. 94
The Demonic Retreat from the Word	p. 100
Music and Sensuous Immediacy	p. 109
Lyricism and Reflective Immediacy	p. 113
Faust, Romantic Irony, and the Demonic Immediacy of Spirituality	p. 118
The Faustian Project	p. 130
Faust and Modernity	p. 143
Modern Science and Mathematics-as-Music	p. 148
The Humanities and Speech-as-Music	p. 158
Post-Modernism and the Triumph of the Demonic	p. 164
Speaking as Reading, Speaking as Writing, and Writing as Music	p. 169
Coping with the Flux	p. 183
Epilogue: Mastered Irony and the Recovery of Spirit	p. 200
Notes	p. 207
Index	p. 214
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