Kierkegaard by
C. Stephen Evans provides a clear, readable introduction to Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55) as a philosopher and thinker. His book is organised around Kierkegaard's concept of the three'stages'or'spheres'of human existence, which provide both a developmental account of the human self and an understanding of three rival views of human life and its meaning. Evans also discusses such important Kierkegaardian concepts as'indirect communication','truth as subjectivity', and the Incarnation understood as'the Absolute Paradox'. Although his discussion emphasises the importance of Christianity for understanding Kierkgaard, it shows him to be a writer of great interest to a secular as well as a religious audience. Evans'book brings Kierkegaard into conversation with western philosophers past and present, presenting him as one who gives powerful answers to the questions which philosophers ask.
Kierkegaard by
Kierkegaard is a fascinating author. Living shortly after the dawn of modernity in the Enlightenment, he restates classical Christianity in novel and dynamic fashion. His Lutheran heritage is pivotal here as he places'faith'over against'reason'. But we should recognise that decidedly pre-modern epistemological presuppositions lie behind Kierkegaard's theological contentions, giving us pause for thought. A profound thinker with eclectic interests, philosophical, theological, ethical, social and pastoral, Kierkegaard never ceases to engage the reader. His insights into human life - the matter of coherence of the self, the crucial category of the individual, or the significance of choice - are memorable. A fine writer with observant eye, Kierkegaard enthrals the reader with his flair, perspicacity and ready wit. After an initial chapter on Kierkegaard's intellectual milieu, the book considers seven of his major texts. An'Exposition', with extensive quotation, sets the text in philosophical, theological and historical context. Following which a'Critique'raises issues, ranging from Kierkegaard's indifference to biblical scholarship, to his lack of recognition of the regularity of causation, and his a-political outlook. A final chapter considers Kierkegaard as a person and evaluates the authorship. Lucidly written, Hampson's book provides a general introduction to Kierkegaard, while greatly aiding novice readers of his texts. It should also command the attention of scholars, for its forthright debate with Kierkegaard and for illuminating, as has no previous work, his Lutheran thought forms. Provocative and original, it will leave its mark on Kierkegaard scholarship, while raising seminal questions for the wider theological enterprise.
Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling by
Søren Kierkegaard was without question one of the most important and influential thinkers of the nineteenth century. Fear and Trembling is a classic text in the history of both philosophical and religious thought that still challenges readers with its original philosophical perspective and idiosyncratic literary style. Kierkegaard's'Fear and Trembling': A Reader's Guide offers a concise and accessible introduction to this hugely important and notoriously demanding work. Written specifically to meet the needs of students coming to Kierkegaard for the first time, the book offers guidance on: - Philosophical and historical context - Key themes - Reading the text - Reception and influence - Further reading
Kierkegaard and Christendom by
In contrast to those critics who consistently have accused Soren Kierkegaard of neglecting the social dimension of human life, John Elrod holds that in those books written after the publication of Concluding Unscientific Postscript Kierkegaard turned his attention to the social and political issues of nineteenth-century Denmark.Originally published in 1981.The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Kierkegaard and Death by
Few philosophers have devoted such sustained, almost obsessive attention to the topic of death as Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard and Death brings together new work on Kierkegaard's multifaceted discussions of death and provides a thorough guide to the development, in various texts and contexts, of Kierkegaard's ideas concerning death. Essays by an international group of scholars take up essential topics such as dying to the world, living death, immortality, suicide, mortality and subjectivity, death and the meaning of life, remembrance of the dead, and the question of the afterlife. While bringing Kierkegaard's philosophy of death into focus, this volume connects Kierkegaard with important debates in contemporary philosophy.
Kierkegaard and Philosophy by
Kierkegaard and Philosophy makes many of the most important papers on Kierkegaard available in one place for the first time. These seventeen essays, written over a period of over twenty years, have all been substantially revised or specially prepared for this collection, with a new introduction by the author.In the first part, Alastair Hannay concentrates on Kierkegaard's central philosophical writings, offering closely text-based accounts of the silent concepts Kierkegaard uses. The second part shows the relevance of other thinkers'treatments of shared themes, pointing out where they differ from Kierkegaard. The concluding chapter provides a reason Kierkegaard himself would give for disagreeing with those who claim his texts are infinitely interpretable.Written by the world's foremost Kierkegaard scholar and translator, Kierkegaard and Philosophy is an indispensible resource for all students of Kierkegaard's work.
Kierkegaard and the Paradox of Religious Diversity by
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) famously critiqued Christendom — especially the religious monoculture of his native Denmark. But what would he make of the dizzying diversity of religious life today? In this book George Connell uses Kierkegaard's thought to explore pressing questions that contemporary religious diversity poses. Connell unpacks an underlying tension in Kierkegaard, revealing both universalistic and particularistic tendencies in his thought. Kierkegaard's paradoxical vision of religious diversity, says Connell, allows for both respectful coexistence with people of different faiths and authentic commitment to one's own faith. Though Kierkegaard lived and wrote in a context very different from ours, this nuanced study shows that his searching reflections on religious faith remain highly relevant in our world today.
Narrative, Identity and the Kierkegaardian Self by
Is each of us the main character in a story we tell about ourselves, or is this narrative understanding of selfhood misguided and possibly harmful? Are selves and persons the same thing? And what does the possibility of sudden death mean for our ability to understand the narrative of ourselves? These questions have been much discussed both in recent philosophy and by scholars grappling with the work of the enigmatic 19th-century thinker Søren Kierkegaard. For the first time, this collection brings together figures in both contemporary philosophy and Kierkegaard studies to explore pressing issues in the philosophy of personal identity and moral psychology. It serves both to advance important ongoing discussions of selfhood and to explore the light that, 200 years after his birth, Kierkegaard is still able to shed on contemporary problems.
On Soren Kierkegaard by
Tracing a path through Kierkegaard's writings, this book brings the reader into close contact with the texts and purposes of this remarkable 19th century Danish writer and thinker. Kierkegaard writes in a number of voices and registers: as a sharp observer and critic of Danish culture, or as a moral psychologist, and as a writer concerned to evoke the religious way of life of Socrates, Abraham, or a Christian exemplar. In developing these themes, Mooney sketches Kierkegaard's Socratic vocation, gives a close reading of several central texts, and traces'The Ethical Sublime'as a recurrent theme. He unfolds an affirmative relationship between philosophy and theology and the potentialities for a religiousness that defies dogmatic creeds, secular chauvinisms, and restrictive philosophies.
The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard by
Richard McCombs presents Søren Kierkegaard as an author who deliberately pretended to be irrational in many of his pseudonymous writings in order to provoke his readers to discover the hidden and paradoxical rationality of faith. Focusing on pseudonymous works by Johannes Climacus, McCombs interprets Kierkegaardian rationality as a striving to become a self consistently unified in all its dimensions: thinking, feeling, willing, acting, and communicating. McCombs argues that Kierkegaard's strategy of feigning irrationality is sometimes brilliantly instructive, but also partly misguided. This fresh reading of Kierkegaard addresses an essential problem in the philosophy of religion—the relation between faith and reason.
The Philosophy of Kierkegaard by
Although the ideas of Søren Kierkegaard played a pivotal role in shaping mainstream German philosophy and French existentialism, the question of how philosophers should read Kierkegaard is difficult. His intransigent religiosity has led some philosophers to view him essentially as a religious thinker with an anti-philosophical attitude. In a major new survey of Kierkegaard's thought, George Pattison addresses this question and shows that although it would be difficult to claim a'philosophy of Kierkegaard'as one can a philosophy of Kant or Hegel, there are significant common interests in Kierkegaard's central thinking and the questions that concern philosophers today. The Philosophy of Kierkegaard examines existence, anxiety, the good, and the infinite qualitative difference and the absolute paradox, arguing that the challenge of self-knowledge in an age of moral and intellectual uncertainty which lies at the heart of Kierkegaard's writings is as important today as it was in the culture of post-Enlightenment modernity.
Starting with Kierkegaard by
Søren Kierkegaard was one of the most important European philosophers of the nineteenth-century and is widely regarded as the founder of existentialism. His work had a profound influence on some of the main intellectual currents of the last two centuries. Clearly and thematically structured, with investigations into a host of Kierkegaard's key concepts-including'immediacy','sin','despair','individuality'and'the crowd'-and with references to a wide range of his works, Starting with Kierkegaard provides the reader with a balanced overview of the Danish philosopher's project, paying as much attention to the signed'edifying'works as to the famous authorship of the pseudonyms.Starting with Kierkegaard also offers a short survey of the historical, biographical and philosophical context of Kierkegaard's ideas as they started to take shape in the 1830s. The book closes with a discussion of Kierkegaard and society, and of his continuing relevance to today. Starting with Kierkegaard is the ideal introduction for anyone coming to the work of this hugely important thinker for the first time.
Søren Kierkegaard by
"The day will come when not only my writings, but precisely my life--the intriguing secret of all the machinery--will be studied and studied." Sren Kierkegaard's remarkable combination of genius and peculiarity made this a fair if arrogant prediction. But Kierkegaard's life has been notoriously hard to study, so complex was the web of fact and fiction in his work. Joakim Garff's biography of Kierkegaard is thus a landmark achievement. A seamless blend of history, philosophy, and psychological insight, all conveyed with novelistic verve, this is the most comprehensive and penetrating account yet written of the life and works of the enigmatic Dane who changed the course of intellectual history.Garff portrays Kierkegaard not as the all-controlling impresario behind some of the most important works of modern philosophy and religious thought--books credited with founding existentialism and prefiguring postmodernism--but rather as a man whose writings came to control him. Kierkegaard saw himself as a vessel for his writings, a tool in the hand of God, and eventually as a martyr singled out to call for the end of "Christendom." Garff explores the events and relationships that formed Kierkegaard, including his guilt-ridden relationship with his father, his rivalry with his brother, and his famously tortured relationship with his fiance Regine Olsen. He recreates the squalor and splendor of Golden Age Copenhagen and the intellectual milieu in which Kierkegaard found himself increasingly embattled and mercilessly caricatured.Acclaimed as a major cultural event on its publication in Denmark in 2000, this book, here presented in an exceptionally crisp and elegant translation, will be the definitive account of Kierkegaard's life for years to come.
Kierkegaard by
Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) had a mission. The church had become weak, flabby and inconsequential. Being a Christian was more a cultural heritage than a spiritual reality. His mission{u2015}reintroduce the Christian faith to Christians. How could he break through to people who were members of the church and thought they were Christians already? Like an Old Testament prophet, Kierkegaard used a variety of pointed and dramatic ways to shake people from their slumber. He incisively diagnosed the spiritual ailments of his age and offered a fresh take on classic Christian teaching. Mark Tietjen thinks that Kierkegaard's critique of his contemporaries strikes close to home today. We also need to listen to one of the most insightful yet complex Christian thinkers of any era. Through an examination of core Christian doctrines -- the person of Jesus Christ, human nature, Christian witness and love --Tietjen helps us hear Kierkegaard's missionary message to a church that often fails to follow Christ with purity of heart.
Kierkegaard and Christian Faith by
Kierkegaard and Christian Faith responds directly to the perennial and problematic concern of how to read Kierkegaard. Specifically, this volume presses the question of whether the existentialist philosopher, who so troubled the waters of nineteenth-century Danish Christendom, is a "Christian thinker for our time." The chapters crisscross the disciplines of philosophy, theology, literature, and ethics, and are as rich in argument as they are diverse in style. Collectively the chapters demonstrate a principled agreement that Kierkegaard continues to be relevant, even imperative. Kierkegaard and Christian Faith reveals just how Kierkegaard's work both defines and reconfigures what is meant by "Christian thinker."
The Literary Kierkegaard by
Eric Ziolkowski’s monumental study examines Kierkegaard’s “whole ‘prolix literature,’” including both the pseudonymous and the signed published writings as well as the private journals, papers, and letters, in relation to works by five literary giants from different times and places: Clouds by Aristophanes; Parzival by the medieval German poet Wolfram von Eschenbach; Don Quixote by Cervantes; certain plays, particularly Hamlet, by Shakespeare; and the fictional, poeticphilosophical work Sartor Resartus, together with some of the essays by Kierkegaard’s Scottish contemporary Thomas Carlyle. No full or complete understanding of the writings of an author as prolific and complex as Kierkegaard is possible
The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard by
"The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard' offers 29 chapters written by leading international scholars, regarding Kierkegaard's historical context, authorship, writing style, major philosophical topics, and continuing influence in the disciplines of philosophy, theology, and literature.
Passion for Nothing by
Passion for Nothing offers a reading of Kierkegaard as an apophatic author. As it functions in this book, "apophasis" is a flexible term inclusive of both "negative theology" and "deconstruction." One of the main points of this volume is that Kierkegaard's authorship opens pathways between these two resonate but often contentiously related terrains. The main contention of this book is that Kierkegaard's apophaticism is an ethical-religious difficulty, one that concerns itself with the "whylessness" of existence. This is a theme that Kierkegaard inherits from the philosophical and theological traditions stemming from Meister Eckhart. Additionally, the forms of Kierkegaard's writing are irreducibly apophatic-animated by a passion to communicate what cannot be said. The book examines Kierkegaard's apophaticism with reference to five themes: indirect communication, God, faith, hope, and love. Across each of these themes, the aim is to lend voice to "the unruly energy of the unsayable" and, in doing so, let Kierkegaard's theological, spiritual, and philosophical provocation remain a living one for us today.
Reasonableness of Faith by
In Reasonableness of Faith Tony Kim gives an account of the nature of the relationship between faith and reason through a study of Søren Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments, which was published under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. The relationship between faith and reason is problematized by the fact that these ideas essentially occupy different realms of human thought. Kim argues that Clim
Søren Kierkegaard: Subjectivity, Irony, and the Crisis of Modernity by
Soren Kierkegaard: subjectivity, irony, and the crisis of Modernity' examines the thought of Soren Kierkegaard, a unique figure, who has inspired, provoked, fascinated, and irritated people ever since he walked the streets of Copenhagen. At the end of his life, Kierkegaard said that the only model he had for his work was the Greek philosopher Socrates. This work takes this statement as its point of departure. Jon Stewart explores what Kierkegaard meant by this and to show how different aspects of his writing and argumentative strategy can be traced back to Socrates. The main focus is 'The Concept of Irony,' which is a key text at the beginning of Kierkegaard's literary career. Although it was an early work, it nevertheless played a determining role in his later development and writings. Indeed, it can be said that it laid the groundwork for much of what would appear in his later famous books such as 'Either/Or' and 'Fear and Trembling'." -- Publisher description.
Kierkegaard's Influence on Theology by
Kierkegaard has always enjoyed a rich reception in the fields of theology and religious studies. This reception might seem obvious given that he is one of the most important Christian writers of the nineteenth century, but Kierkegaard was by no means a straightforward theologian in any traditional sense. He had no enduring interest in some of the main fields of theology such as church history or biblical studies, and he was strikingly silent on many key Christian dogmas. Moreover, he harbored a degree of animosity towards the university theologians and churchmen of his own day. Despite this, he has been a source of inspiration for numerous religious writers from different denominations and traditions. Tome I is dedicated to the reception of Kierkegaard among German Protestant theologians and religious thinkers. The writings of some of these figures turned out to be instrumental for Kierkegaard's breakthrough internationally shortly after the turn of the twentieth century. Leading figures of the movement of 'dialectical theology' such as Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Paul Tillich and Rudolf Bultmann spawned a steadily growing awareness of and interest in Kierkegaard's thought among generations of German theology students. Emanuel Hirsch was greatly influenced by Kierkegaard and proved instrumental in disseminating his thought by producing the first complete German edition of Kierkegaard's published works. Both Barth and Hirsch established unique ways of reading and appropriating Kierkegaard, which to a certain degree determined the direction and course of Kierkegaard studies right up to our own times.