1 John Lippitt Philosophy, School of Humanities University of Hertfordshire de Havilland Campus Hatfield, Herts AL10 9AB. j.a.lippitt@herts.ac.uk Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling What neither Abraham nor Johannes de Silentio could say: a reply to Michelle Kosch Abstract: Though there are significant points of overlap between Michelle Kosch‟s reading of Fear and Trembling and my own, this paper focuses primarily on a significant difference: the legitimacy or otherwise of looking to paradigmatic exemplars of faith in order to understand faith. I argue that Kosch‟s reading threatens to underplay the importance of exemplarity in Kierkegaard‟s thought, and that there is good reason to resist her use of Philosophical Fragments as the key to interpreting the „hidden message‟ of Fear and Trembling. Key to both claims is the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. I also briefly sketch an alternative reading of the „hidden message‟, one in which Kierkegaard‟s Christian commitments play a notably different role. I - Fear and Trembling’s secret message The perennial interest in, and range of interpretations of, Fear and Trembling is remarkable. It shows Kierkegaard‟s prediction in his journals that „once I am dead, Fear and Trembling alone will be enough for an imperishable name as an author‟ 1 to have been prophetic indeed. For good or ill, Fear and Trembling is probably the text most commonly associated with his name, although – pace Michelle Kosch - I think there is serious competition for the title of Kierkegaard‟s „most elusive‟ work. Yet as Kosch rightly notes, the mystery trailed by the epigraph - that Fear and Trembling might have a „hidden message‟, and if so, what that message might be - has long since fascinated commentators. Kosch and I will disagree on what that message is, but before getting down to the points of disagreement, let me outline some central issues on which we do agree. First, and most important, we both think it implausibly simplistic to read Fear and Trembling as arguing straightforwardly for the superiority of „the religious‟ to „the ethical‟. Second, we both agree that it is important to note how the pseudonymous author Johannes de Silentio makes clear that a key part of his aim is to prevent faith being sold off too cheaply, at a bargain price. To this end, Kosch draws attention, as have numerous other commentators, to the economic imagery with which the book begins and ends. Third, and relatedly, I agree that „the intended audience consists of people who 1 Kierkegaard, JP 6: 6491. For references to Kierkegaard‟s published works, I cite the first edition of the Samlede Vaerker, the volume numbers and pagination of which is preserved in the margins of Kierkegaard’s Writings, the standard English language translations by the Hongs. For quotations from the journals, I use the Hong translation of the Journals and Papers (abbreviated JP). See References.