ABSTRACT
However, Kierkegaard not only draws a distinction between the scientist’s and the poet’s view of nature, but upon closer examination of his journal note from June 1, 1835, we find an outline of three modes of man’s (modern) relation to nature: (A) The scientist’s collection of individual facts about nature. This collection leads to a rich manifold of “particular pieces of knowledge.”4 An “extraordinary assiduity”
the true and overall picture. (B) A comprehensive and holistic view of nature. This had been achieved by only a few of Kierkegaard’s contemporaries, who according to him had been able to place all the individual scientific facts into a harmonious picture of the world as a whole, putting the wealth of empirical information “into an adequate light.”6 Individual scientists who reached this point-such as Hans Christian Ørsted (1777-1851), whom Kierkegaard knew personally-give an impression of “peace, harmony and joy.”7 Looking back at the history of thought in the nineteenth century, we may be tempted to designate researchers who have reached this level as “natural philosophers” rather than as natural scientists. However, Kierkegaard does not use this term in his note from 1835. (C) The poetic view of nature, which even goes beyond (and in another direction than) the speculative syntheses of natural philosophy. This poetic view of nature, as Kierkegaard conceives it, uses observations and careful descriptions of selected natural phenomena as lessons for humans to learn-that is, as metaphors, as parables of ethical life. It is only this latter relationship to nature (to animals, plants, landscapes, and inanimate beings) that Kierkegaard himself adopts throughout his life and work, culminating in edifying discourses such as The Lily in the Field and the Bird of the Air (see below, Section III). At the same time, Kierkegaard becomes a sharp critic of the merely empirical sciences, as shown below in Section II.
