Still further away, in the mountain ranges of Transylvania, ruled Count Dracula; allegedly spreading vampires over all Europe. Still another threat was lingering over a society without future and without hope. The atmosphere derives from the twilight times of the Habsburg Empire. The Empire departed, but the horrors it had created still stay with us, become ever more global, and remain the underpinning of our unspoken fears and misgivings even today.

  2.2.2. Bohr's Copenhagen

  Something rotten in the state of Denmark

  Denmark had been a major power in northern Europe, and it had acquired a status of wealth by global trade. The country was in close cultural contact with the Germanic world. It was in good contact with the literature and philosophy of the Continent, and its educational level was advanced and high. It experienced a strong blow to its economic strength when the English fleet attacked and conquered Copenhagen. This was caused by the alliance of Denmark with Napoleon's France, which made the British include the country in their blockade of the Continental ports. Following this the country suffered an increased inflation, which in 1813 caused the bankruptcy of the national bank. In 1814 Denmark was forced to hand over Norway to Sweden.

  Towards the end of the nineteenth century, Denmark seemed to be a happy and advanced democratic country. However, it had lost its greatness and was adjusting to its new role as a minor power in Europe. On February 1, 1864 Bismarck had ordered his troops into the regions of Schleswig and Holstein, which up to that time had been under Danish rule. The region was considered part of German territory, the population was partly German‐speaking, and the access to the North Sea was attractive to the expansive German politics. The Danes defended their domains, but the outcome was a given: Germany took over one‐third of the kingdom of Denmark and one‐third of its population. The loss resulted in a period of depression and paralysis, which may be paralleled in the gloom of the Kierkegaard philosophy. However, the country recollected itself, and its inner evolution compensated to some extent for the loss of status in the world. A period of cultural development followed; literature and music flowered and the national self‐esteem rose anew.

  The intellectual atmosphere in Copenhagen was still strongly under the influence of Søren Kierkegaard, who had died already in 1855. The gloomy world view of this thinker, who taught that rational arguments must stop and be replaced by discontinuous leaps of faith, formed a basis for a re‐evaluation of all (p.32) values later advocated by Nietzsche and taken up by the existentialist movement. Niels Bohr had read Kierkegaard, he admired his use of the language but did not accept his arguments and ideas. Thus he should not have been influenced by his thinking. It is, on the other hand, possible that the tone of the philosophical arguments he encountered during the discussions in his boyhood left unconscious traces on his way of thinking. I will return to this issue later.

  During the Copenhagen student debates in 1824 a philosopher and author Poul Martin Møller had presented parts of his novel A Danish Student's Tale, which contributed to the debate gaining more and more ground in the city. The student debates also offered the first forum for the emerging thinker Kierkegaard. Thus a circle is closing. Møller was a colorful person, who was appointed professor of philosophy first in Christiania (now Oslo) and from 1831 in Copenhagen. This left his novel unfinished. As a professor Møller lectured on Hegel and the history of philosophy. These lectures were attended by Kierkegaard, who acquired an extensive knowledge of antiquity from them. As a teacher Møller was more known for his aphoristic presentation than for discursive arguments. Møller died in 1838.

  Møller's novel was read and liked by Bohr. He there found a description of the inactivity which may derive from eternal contemplation of the activity to be undertaken. Thus thinking about writing becomes an obstacle to actually starting the activity. Bohr highly liked this tale and quoted it often.

  This may be seen as the story of a personal development, how the individual finds his way and task in the emptiness of the universe here symbolized by contemporary society. In this tale, we encounter the Licentiate, who, in spite of the best intentions, is unable to get his work under way [24]. He is challenged by the visiting relative.

  Nothing which can be done should be postponed to tomorrow.

  Licentiate: If you deny me that, you must necessarily allow me that it just as well may be done one minute or a second later, and this cursed possibility lasts as long as one breezes. Nobody can show me how such a postponement which lasts a second or a fraction thereof should have any disastrous consequences, and because nobody can show me that, my life goes into a standstill.

  My unending consideration of this implies that I do nothing. Furthermore I come to think of my thoughts about it, indeed I think about my thinking thereof and I devote myself into an eternally descending line of “I's” who observe each other. I do not know at which “I”, I may stop, and in the moment I stop at one, there is again an “I” which does the stopping. I become confused and feel dizzy as if I looked into a bottomless abyss. The considerations end by giving me an annoying head ache.

  This sentiment was appreciated by Bohr, who considered it an impressive demonstration of the dilemma of an acting subject in the world of doubtful grasping of reality. This has fixed a position for the Danish student in the history of quantum physics. Its author Poul Møller has achieved a certain fame as one of the few known individuals influencing Bohr.

  (p.33) This fame is, however, to some extent ill deserved. It seems to derive from an excerpt in Goethe's work Dichtung und Wahrheit usually translated as Fiction and Truth, part I, book 7:

  I had often pressed my friend Behrisch, too, that he would make plain to me what was meant by experience? But, because he was full of nonsense, he put me off with fair words from one day to another, and at last, after great preparations, disclosed to me, that true experience was properly when one experiences how an experienced one must experience in experiencing his experience.

  As this work appeared in 1811, it is likely that it was known to Møller when he wrote his novel. This is difficult to prove, but acknowledging the central position of Goethe, it seems likely.

  2.2.3. Kierkegaard as symbol of the times

  For a long time the European scene was dominated by stability. Political matters were prescribed by the rule of the Estates and spiritual matters were taken care of by the Church. The dominance of Catholicism was broken by the Protestant Reformation, but still the clergy stated what was the official opinion and what was not.

  The ideology was, however, to yield to new views. Behind the upheaval of the French Revolution lay the swell of liberal ideas emerging during the eighteenth century. It seemed that suddenly everything could be re‐evaluated; religious doctrines could be overcome and the nobility could be eliminated. The world was ready to redefine its basic tenets. The new freedom was intoxicating, but it left the humans without signposts to direct their lives.

  The grand political system envisaged by Hegel may be seen as an attempt to bring order into a universe without a firm foundation. It was a good try, and it seemed to be satisfactory for a time. In the form of Marxism, it indirectly showed the way to a new systematic certainty whose footprints are manifestly visible today.

  But Hegel's system was not to show the road to our modern world. After an initial fascination, its shortcomings became obvious and new roads had to be found. Humankind had to define itself in the novel universe without solid ground to support the mental constructions, without self‐evident dogma and a governing God. The duty to show the way into this process became the fate of a lonely Danish writer and thinker, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard. In spite of writing all his texts in his native Danish he was to become a European celebrity and virtually the father of the later existentialist movement.

  Different countries reacted differently to the religious feeling of being lost. In Denmark, the mighty personality of Nicolai Frederik Severin Grundtvig (1783–1872) dominated the scene. He started as a scholar devoted to old Nordic literature, but after a religious awakening he proceeded to vitalize both the Danish church and the religious life in his country. His strong polemics created opposition, and he came to develop his ideology of a free church in the liberal (p.34) atmosphere in England. Grundtvig was later able to return to Denmark and became something of a father figure for a generation of younger theologians. Their opposition to an old‐fashioned and rigid view of religion served to keep the debate open for a long period. Matters of religion were certainly clearly visible to the intellectually alert in Copenhagen during the early nineteenth century.

  Søren's father, Michael Pedersen originated from a simple country background. As a young boy, the father got the opportunity to move to Copenhagen, where he eventually entered the cloth and textile business and managed to create a solid middle‐class position for himself. In the economic crash of Denmark in 1813, Michael Pedersen had managed to move his assets into bonds that retained their value. Consequently, he did not suffer and emerged comparably wealthy. He had seven children, with Søren being the youngest; of the four boys, only he and his elder brother Peter Christian, who was eight years older, lived to mature age. Niels Andreas, who was four years ‘older’, died in the USA at the age of 24. Even one of the sisters died prematurely at the age of 25.

  Michael Pedersen was not one to easily adopt novel and liberal ideas. He gave his boys a stern religious upbringing which came to dominate their lives and views. He, apparently, suffered from a melancholy state of mind combined with a conviction of moral shortcomings. This was not a healthy atmosphere to grow up in. The elder boy, Peter, traveled in Europe, imbibed the cultural mood of the time, returned with a German doctorate, and took up a career in the Church. Søren was less ambitious, at least in the beginning. He was supposed to study theology but apparently concentrated his efforts on philosophical and esthetical topics at the university. He claimed that his father's religious indoctrination had made his life miserable [25] and [26].

  Choosing an attitude to life

  Søren Kierkegaard certainly felt the burden of moral and religious duties as urgent and heavy. He experienced a strong feeling of moral obligation combined with a despair lest he be unable to live up to the requirements set by his convictions. In this aspect he seems to be very similar to Ludwig Wittgenstein who also felt isolated and left on his own in sorting out the duties and requirements of life.

  In contrast to his brother Peter, Søren did not pursue his studies with any efficiency. He took part in happy student life, involved himself in the debates of the time, and hid much of his inner doubts about the meaningfulness of it all. He possessed a strong satirical talent and managed to hide much of his deeply felt seriousness behind a verbal camouflage giving him a reputation as a fearsome opponent and a master at arguments putting down pompous and superficial pretensions. We do, however, know much about his inner considerations, because he was a prolific writer of notebooks expressing the attitudes and queries of his inner life.

  Søren's doubts directed him to seek kindred spirits in literature. Faust was an obvious one: at the time of course the works of Goethe were everywhere (p.35) present. Another character who fascinated him was Ahasverus, the wandering Jew, whose fate had come to symbolize the human quest for the meaning of life after the collective fall into sin against living God. Another Dane, H. C. Andersen, struggled in vain to write a play about the theme of Ahasverus.

  A most curious hero of Søren Kierkegaard was the German folklore character of Till Eulenspiegel. He was a typical trickster figure, who vacillated between being the ingenious thief and the innovative prankster. The stories are often crude and based on bawdy verbal humour. Kierkegaard's fashination with this figure serves to prove his strong attraction to the humorous and satirical. Interpreted at a higher plane, Eulenspiegel may be taken to symbolize the outsider, who is not only a social outcast but also the superior individual rising above good and evil. He has taken full responsibility for his life and chooses freely the course of his actions which also implies full responsibility for the results.

  In the same vein, Kierkegaard feels attracted to the Don Juan figure as put forward by Mozart. In his later writings, Kierkegaard extols Don Juan as a person above considerations limited by reflection and language. Here again, we encounter the individual making his own rules and finally having to face the ultimate fate of all outsiders, to be condemned to his personal version of hell. Interestingly enough, one of the later leaders of the existential philosophy, Albert Camus, chooses Don Juan as an example of a person committed to a full life in a world deprived of divine direction.

  An influential teacher

  A person with lasting influence on both Kierkegaard and the Danish cultural scene was the author and philosopher Poul Møller. He was born in 1794 and lived only to 44 but he had a diverse and influential career. During the years 1826 to 1830 he was professor of philosophy in Christiania (now Oslo); from 1831 he was professor in Copenhagen.

  In order to live up to his duties as a teacher Møller abandoned his literary ambitions and concentrated on philosophy, specializing in the topical issue of Hegel. In addition to Hegelian thought, Møller had a deep interest in classical culture, predominantly Greek, which gave Søren Kierkegaard a good basis for his departure from the conventional wisdom. Møller's own contributions to philosophy were not systematic and rigorous; he was a master of short aphorisms, which also characterize his posthumously published works Scattered Thoughts (1839–43).

  Møller's reputation does, however, rest mainly on his literary production. Foremost here is the unfinished novel A Danish Student's Tale. This may be seen as the story of a personal development, how the individual finds his way and task in the emptiness of the universe here symbolized by contemporary society. As described above, we encounter the Licentiate, who, in spite of the best intentions, is unable to get his work under way. This lays down the mood; the human individual feels unable to choose an action, and hence nothing is achieved. Theren (p.36)is no doubt that Møller here captures the mood of the existentialist message of the twentieth century. According to F. Coplestone [27]:

  Existentialism lays emphasis on the human situation or condition. We are told, for example, that man finds himself in the world, that he is a being in the world. We are told that he is a finite, unstable being, menaced by death from the start. We are told that he is free, that he transcends his past and inevitably shapes himself by his free choices in such a way that he is never a mere “object” until death extinguishes his possibilities. As a conscious free being, man stands out from the background of nature.

  This echoes the dilemma of the Danish Licentiate at the beginning of the nineteenth century. No wonder the legacy of Kierkegaard's lingers over present‐ day existentialism. Also, as we will see, the writing of Møller has influenced the thinking of modern physics through Niels Bohr in, perhaps, unexpected ways.

  The difficulty to find the right moment for action goes a long way back. The argument was put forward by Aristotle as an objection to a finite beginning of the universe. If nothing existed, there could be no cause singling out a definite beginning from the unstructured nothingness before creation. If there could be no reason to start the universe at a specific time, and the universe exists, there can be no beginning. This argument may well have been known to the classically knowledgeable Møller. Later it was to pose a problem to the Christian doctrine of divine creation. The issue was taken up by Augustine, who claimed that if time was created at the same instant as the universe no conflict arises. Curiously enough, it seems that modern cosmology solves the problem in the same manner.

  Finally a degree

  In the summer of 1838 Søren's father, Michael Pedersen, died at the age of 82. It seems that Søren Kierkegaard finally was freed of the inaction imposed by the dominance of his father. He suddenly took up his studies and conducted them to an end. A contributing factor may well have been the death of his mentor Møller, but it seems likely that a factor was the difficulty in combining Søren's attitudes with the religious zeal of his fathers.

  Søren's enthusiasm to study surprised many; he had become the archetype of the eternal student. However, in 1840, he passed the written and oral examinations for his university degree in theology. His performance was not outstanding, but he had carried it to completion in record time. Kierkegaard, however, still had to write and defend a thesis.

  Kierkegaard got a dispensation to write his thesis in Danish instead of the customary Latin. He chose the title On the Concept of Irony with Constant Reference to Socrates. Here he was able to combine two of his interests: the ironic view of discourse combined with his knowledge of the classics. The whole work was very much in line with his track record and abilities. Irony was his trademark and he could excellently apply it to academic writing. In fact, it has been claimed that the whole presentation was an example of metalogics; the subject of the work, “irony in writing”, is not argued for but shown by the (p.37) presentation of the thesis as an example. If this is so, it seems to connect the work to Wittgenstein's claim that the profound things of human life cannot be stated but only shown.

  Kierkegaard's dissertation did not meet with unequivocal acceptance, but in October 1841 he was awarded the title of magister artium. He now had a degree, and in front of him lay the decision what to do with the rest of his life. He had initiated his career as an author by publishing the booklet From the Papers of One Still Living in 1838. He could fulfill this promise by remaining a free writer; the inheritance after his father formed the basis for this. On the other hand, the financial situation did not allow for the support of a family. In that case he would have to apply for a position, presumably in the Church. Then, the duties and surroundings might well hamper the writing. Thus a decision needed to be taken.

 

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