Kierkegaard, Lessing and the problem of philosophical crumbs

Abstract

The present article aims at presentation and clarification of what Kierkegaard (under the pseudonym?s pen Johannes Climacus) called “the problem of Crumbs”. As central moment of the kierkegaardian?s critique to the objective treatment of the Christianity?s truth, the problem of Crumbs remount to a G. E. Lessing?s short essay and prefigure what afterwards, in the Concluding unscientific postscript to the Philosophical Crumbs, will be developed more fully and specifically as the subjective problem of the Christianity?s truth, namely, as the problem of become a Christian. Obviously, the problem in question, synthesized in the three interrogations that open the Philosophical Crumbs, is inserted into ample set of problems whose presentation and development is assumed by the work of Kierkegaard as a whole. In view of the complexities involved here, the article proposes to analyze the problem of Crumbs within the limits of their preliminary formulation. In general terms, it is shown as Clímacus, although it is exceedingly close to Lessing, develops a critique of some of the ideas advocated by the German thinker and as gives to the problem a more lucid and comprehensive development.