What Can the Epistemology of History Teach Us about the Knowledge of Faith?

An Analysis of the “Interlude” of Philosophical Fragments

Abstract

Through the voice of “John Step-by-Step,” Sören Kierkegaard, in Phi- losophical Fragments, offers a remarkable analysis of how faith presents itself as a means for the apprehension of what cannot be apprehended without paradox – specifically, the absolute truth immersed in history. Even if it does not constitute a systematic outline, it is possible to affirm that there is an “epistemology of faith” in Philosophical Fragments, and this happens in two aspects: i) as a reflection that explains faith as a kind of power of the spirit that produces beliefs and life attitu- des regarding an objective field that has a well-defined metaphysical structure; and ii) as a reflection that explains the processes of what happens with the spirit – with reason, will, and everything else that touches the “organ” of faith – when faith is in place. Through i) and ii), faith is also determined a negativo with regard to knowledge. In order to support this thesis, in the present study we make an exercise in reading and analyzing the “Interlude” of Philosophical Fragments. As a result, we obtain an outline of the philosophical bases of the epistemology of Christian faith as an epistemology of belief in historical truths.