Research Statement

My research primarily concerns the normativity of communication and pedagogy. In general, I am interested in the way different ethical or religious frameworks place restrictions on the kind of communicative and pedagogical strategies we should employ. More specifically, I am interested in those frameworks in which the viability of ordinary strategies gets called into question. This focus provides me with a two-fold agenda. First, I aim to investigate to what extent and why straightforward modes of communication (e.g. didactic discourse and straightforward philosophical argumentation) fail. Second, I aim to explore to what extent and why indirect modes (e.g. literature, art, humor, and deception) succeed where straightforward modes fail.

In the next several years, I aim to pursue this agenda in three distinct ways. First, I aim to develop and publish the core chapters of my dissertation. The general purpose of these publications will be to present Kierkegaard’s views on indirect communication in a way that contemporary philosophers find interesting and compelling. Although I will be faithful to Kierkegaard’s texts, I will not hesitate to push his project forward with arguments of my own. This philosophical approach has gained some popularity among recent commentators, especially those working on Kierkegaard’s ethics and philosophy of religion. (See, for example, C. Stephen Evans’ recent book, Kierkegaard’s Ethic of Love.) Still, there is room to extend the approach to other areas of Kierkegaard’s thought. I intend to fill this void in the area of philosophy of communication.

Second, I aim to research and write about the historical antecedents to Kierkegaard’s views on communication. Much as Michelle Kosch has done with respect to Kierkegaard’s views on freedom (see her Freedom and Reason in Kant, Schelling and Kierkegaard), I intend to show that Kierkegaard’s views on this topic “were not made up in Copenhagen out of whole cloth.”[1] Several of the German Romanics who influenced him shared the commitments that led him to use indirect communication, such as respect for the autonomy of readers. More strikingly, they employed some of the very same artful literary devices. For example, anticipating the strategy Kierkegaard takes up in Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Lessing presents his views in an ambiguous way in order to force his readers to decide for themselves how to interpret him. And, foreshadowing the strategy Kierkegaard deploys in Either/Or, Schleiermacher refuses to provide the readers of Confidential Letters Concerning Lucinde with a final conclusion. Instead, he presents them with a set of alternatives and allows them to form their own conclusion. By drawing attention to this larger tradition, I hope to counter the impression that Kierkegaard’s use of indirect communication was simply idiosyncratic and hence not worth taking seriously. In addition, by cultivating a deeper understanding of why reflective individuals in the past turned towards non-standard modes of discourse, I hope to give us a better idea of whether such tactics have a place in our communicative practices today.

Third, I intend to explore contemporary philosophical work on the role of literature in moral and religious pedagogy. Although my research in this area is in its infancy, I can say that I hope to develop Martha Nussbaum’s view that literature serves as an important means for helping us become better moral perceivers. In addition, I hope to expand upon the view that literature provides a vehicle for conveying non-propositional or non-cognitive content. I think this contemporary work could be used to shed light on the thought of Kierkegaard and the German Romantics. Nevertheless, I am primarily interested in it for its own sake.

In addition to these three projects, I plan to work on an issue that lies at the foundation of ethical and religious pedagogy for Kierkegaard: viz. the possibility of evaluating others. The backdrop for this project will be Kierkegaard’s hermeneutic of charity. Following Kant, Kierkegaard locates the source of moral and religious value in the possession of a good will. And like Kant, he holds that we cannot discern the presence or absence of such a will in others simply by observing their behavior. Yet we have no other evidence to go by. Consequently, we cannot make definitive judgments about their moral or religious standing. Given this fact, Kierkegaard argues, love demands that we operate by a principle of charity. We have an obligation to provide the best possible interpretation of others’ actions and even to offer mitigating explanations when their actions appear censurable. This hermeneutic creates a serious problem for ethical and religious pedagogy. For, on the one hand, any decision to engage in such pedagogy presupposes that others stand in need of our assistance. Yet, on the other hand, the principle of charity entail entails that we can never come to this conclusion. I aim to show that this is a more serious problem for Kierkegaard than commentators have hitherto acknowledged. Nevertheless, I aim to address the problem by urging that our attitude towards Kierkegaard’s writings undergo a Copernican revolution. Rather than seeing them as devoted to helping his readers, we should see them as intended to further his own moral and religious upbringing. In light of this shift in interpretation, I aim to provide a new account of the function of Kierkegaard’s artful literary devices.