3 - Johannes Climacus' revocation

Summary

REASONS FOR REVOKING

On page 522 of Postscript, Johannes Climacus says that everything he has said up until then is to be “understood in such a way that it is revoked.” On the preceding page he describes the book as “superfluous” (CUP 521). This must come as a surprise to most readers hardy enough to have reached that point. Could this be a further twist to the self-advertised humorist's playful mood? In whatever way we grasp them, the humorist's words suggest that if we have understood him – but perhaps also his humor? – we should not be surprised. Taking a chance on at least this remark being serious, that means that if we had really understood him up to this point we should have been expecting a revocation, or at least suspecting something of the sort; the greater our surprise, the less we have understood.

A playful and sometimes acerbic irony characterizes Climacus' gargantuan book. More than merely a decorative interpolation in the text, the irony more often has the feel of a default mode into which the author relapses whenever the (often very long) bouts of serious discussion are over. This underlying tone of irony is also in evidence here: Climacus suggests a parallel with the Catholic Imprimatur: “in Catholic books, especially from former times, one finds at the back a note informing the reader that everything is to be understood conformably with the doctrine of the holy universal mother church” (CUP 522).