ABSTRACT
In the preface to Philosophical Fragments, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, describes the behavior of an individual who thinks about his situation in contradiction to what it really is as a “singularly stupid” individual, that is, as irrational. In this specific situation, the individual thinks his work is one of extreme historical significance and is thus “transported into a state of bliss, into what could be called the howling madness of the higher lunacy, symptomatized by yelling, convulsive yelling.”5 This state, Johannes writes, is “irrational exaltation.”6 Elsewhere, in Stages on Life’s Way, this concept remains consistent with its use in Philosophical Fragments. Here, Plato’s and Aristotle’s notion of a woman is represented as “an incomplete form, consequently an irrational quantity that perhaps in a better existence can be led back to the male form.”7 The context here, like that
Woman is characterized as irrational insofar as her behavior cannot be measured against an absolute standard, even against an ethical standard.8 In sum, woman is deemed an irrational being insofar as there is nothing consistent with regard to her thoughts or emotions. Furthermore, she can escape the confines of acceptable behavior, as judged in home or society and thrive in contradiction or irrational behavior, by advantage of her female sex, that is, her beauty.9
