‘An understanding with the reader’ which appears as an appendix to
Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript has puzzled readers by apparently
‘taking back’ everything that the pseudonymous author Climacus has said in the
text that precedes it. I agree with John Lippitt that this ‘revocation’ should be read
as a humorous statement; however, I disagree with Lippitt's assessment that the
tone of the revocation is essentially ‘non-urgent’ and
‘modest’. I propose that a
fuller picture of Climacus's character is needed to understand the spirit of the
revocation and its relationship to the rest of the text.