A Philosopher’s Fairy Tale: Dostoevskij and Kierkegaard on Imaginary Worlds

ABSTRACT

The faculty of imagination plays an important but somewhat ambivalent role in the works of Fëdor Dostoevskij and Søren Kierkegaard. On the one hand, both Kierkegaard and Dostoevskij believe that it can facilitate the becoming of ethical and religious subjectivity, but they are also aware that an overly active imagination can lead to escapism which may in turn hinder ethical and religious self-development. This paper focuses specifically on the negative side of imagination, examining the stories of Frater Taciturnus from Kierkegaard’s Stages on Life’s Way and General Ivolgin from Dostoevskij’s The Idiot, both of whom construct highly elaborate personal imaginary worlds which, as this paper argues, serve as a means of escapism. The paper outlines the structure of these imaginary worlds and examines how they serve as a means of avoiding personal and moral responsibility.

KEYWORDS:

• Dostoevskij
• Kierkegaard
• Imaginary worlds
• Imagination
• Philosophy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The discussion of imagination (φᾰντᾰσῐ́ᾱ) first appears in Plato (Sheppard 2015, 2).

2 See Becker-Lindenthal for a detailed overview of the positive aspects of Kierkegaardian imagination (Becker-Lindenthal 2020).

3 Works of Kierkegaard cited by volume and page refer to Kierkegaard’s collected works (Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter, Copenhagen, 1997–; cited as SKS volume:page).

4 Works of Dostoevskij cited by volume and page refer to Dostoevskij’s collected works (Polnoe sobranie sočinenij v tridcati tomach, Leningrad, 1972–1990; cited as PSS volume:page).

5 The word Taciturnus is derived from the Latin term tacere that designates the act of being silent.

6 Taciturnus believes that to have faith is to live with a smile on one’s face, knowing that one floats above “70,000 fathoms of water” (Kierkegaard SKS 6:411).

7 “Saaledes forstaaer jeg mig selv. Nøiet med det Mindre – haabende at det Større muligen engang skal forundes mig” (Kierkegaard SKS 6:448).

8 “[…] er jeg glad ved Tilværelsen, glad ved den lille Verden, der er min Omgivelse” (Kierkegaard SKS 6:448).

9 It was Bartholomew (2013, 952), who first noticed the fairy-tale like quality of the opening lines of Quidam’s diary.

10 The folk tale Von dem Dummling was collected by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812, one year before Kierkegaard was born.

11 The most complete biography of Ivolgin can be found in Podosokorskij 2008.

12 This ambivalence is not a mere by-product of translation, since the word кажется in the original Russian sentence “Весьма часто правда кажется невозможною” also implies “seeming” in both the existential (as in ‘seems to be’ inexistent) and the intersubjective (as in ‘seems to others’) sense.