Kierkegaard Books

  kierkegaard books: The Essential Kierkegaard Søren Kierkegaard, 2023-08-08 An anthology containing substantial excerpts from the Danish philosopher's major works.
  kierkegaard books: Philosopher of the Heart Clare Carlisle, 2019-04-04 Selected as a Book of the Year in The Times Literary Supplement 'This lucid and riveting new biography at once rescuses Kierkegaard from the scholars and shows why he is such an intriguing and useful figure' Observer Søren Kierkegaard, one of the most passionate and challenging of modern philosophers, is now celebrated as the father of existentialism - yet his contemporaries described him as a philosopher of the heart. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen analysing love and suffering, courage and anxiety, religious longing and defiance, and forging a new philosophical style rooted in the inward drama of being human. As Christianity seemed to sleepwalk through a changing world, Kierkegaard dazzlingly revealed its spiritual power while exposing the poverty of official religion. His restless creativity was spurred on by his own failures: his relationship with the young woman whom he promised to marry, then left to devote himself to writing, haunted him throughout his life. Though tormented by the pressures of celebrity, he deliberately lived amidst the crowds in Copenhagen, known by everyone but, he felt, understood by no one. When he collapsed exhausted at the age of 42, he was still pursuing the question of existence: how to be a human being in this world? Clare Carlisle's innovative and moving biography writes Kierkegaard's remarkable life as far as possible from his own perspective, conveying what it was like to be this Socrates of Christendom - as he put it, living life forwards yet only understanding it backwards.
  kierkegaard books: Stages on Life's Way Søren Kierkegaard, 1967
  kierkegaard books: The Essential Kierkegaard Søren Kierkegaard, 2013-02-04 A comprehensive anthology of Kierkegaard’s writings that offers an unmatched introduction to one of the most original and influential modern philosophers This is the most comprehensive anthology of Søren Kierkegaard’s works ever published in English. Drawn from the volumes of Princeton’s authoritative Kierkegaard’s Writings series by editors Howard and Edna Hong, these carefully chosen selections represent every major aspect of Kierkegaard’s extraordinary output, which changed the course of modern intellectual history with its mix of philosophy, psychology, theology, and literary criticism. The anthology reveals the most important themes of his work, especially what it means to exist and to be human, and captures the unique character of his writings, with their shifting pseudonyms, complex dialogues, and powerful combination of irony, satire, sermon, polemic, humor, and fiction. A superb introduction and guide to the Danish philosopher, The Essential Kierkegaard vividly demonstrates why his work continues to speak so directly to so many readers. Traces the full span of Kierkegaard’s writings, from his early journals to his final work Features generous selections from all of Kierkegaard’s most important works, including Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Works of Love, and The Sickness unto Death Presents selections from lesser-known writings, including Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions and The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air Includes an introduction to Kierkegaard’s writings and explanatory notes for each selection
  kierkegaard books: Repetition and Philosophical Crumbs Soren Kierkegaard, Edward F. Mooney, 2009-05-14 'The love of repetition is in truth the only happy love' So says Constantine Constantius on the first page of Kierkegaard's Repetition. Life itself, according to Kierkegaard's pseudonymous narrator, is a repetition, and in the course of this witty, playful work Constantius explores the nature of love and happiness, the passing of time and the importance of moving forward (and backward). The ironically entitled Philosophical Crumbs pursues the investigation of faith and love and their tense relationship with reason. Written only a year apart, these two works complement each other and give the reader a unique insight into the breadth and substance of Kierkegaard's thought. The first reads like a novel and the second like a Platonic dialogue, but both engage, in different ways, the same challenging issues. These are the first translations to convey the literary quality and philosophical precision of the originals. They were not intended, however, for philosophers, but for anyone who feels drawn to the question of the ultimate truth of human existence and the source of human happiness. ABOUT THE SERIES: For over 100 years Oxford World's Classics has made available the widest range of literature from around the globe. Each affordable volume reflects Oxford's commitment to scholarship, providing the most accurate text plus a wealth of other valuable features, including expert introductions by leading authorities, helpful notes to clarify the text, up-to-date bibliographies for further study, and much more.
  kierkegaard books: The Prayers of Kierkegaard Søren Kierkegaard, 1956 Soren Kierkegaard's influence has been felt in many areas of human thought from theology to psychology. Nearly 100 of his prayers are gathered here, illuminating his own life of prayer and speaking to the concerns of Christians today.
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard and Death Patrick Stokes, Adam J. Buben, 2011-10-20 “This impressive [anthology] succeeds admirably at demonstrating how the Kierkegaardian corpus presents . . . a philosophy of finite existence” (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews). 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 books: Fear and Trembling Søren Kierkegaard, 1994 Now recognized as one of the nineteenth century's leading psychologists and philosophers. Kierkegaard was among other things the harbinger of exisentialisim. In FEAR AND TREMBLING he explores the psychology of religion, addressing the question 'What is Faith?' in terms of the emotional and psychological relationship between the individual and God. But this difficult question is addressed in the most vivid terms, as Kierkegaard explores different ways of interpreting the ancient story of Abraham and Isaac to make his point.
  kierkegaard books: Names & Nicknames of Places & Things Laurence Urdang, 1987
  kierkegaard books: The Naked Self Patrick Stokes, 2015 Across his relatively short and eccentric authorial career, Soren Kierkegaard develops a unique, and provocative, account of what it is to become, to be, and to lose a self, backed up by a rich phenomenology of self-experience. Yet Kierkegaard has been almost totally absent from the burgeoning analytic philosophical literature on self-constitution and personal identity. How, then, does Kierkegaard's work appear when viewed in light of current debates about self and identity--and what does Kierkegaard have to teach philosophers grappling with these problems today? The Naked Self explores Kierkegaard's understanding of selfhood by situating his work in relation to central problems in contemporary philosophy of personal identity: the role of memory in selfhood, the relationship between the notional and actual subjects of memory and anticipation, the phenomenology of diachronic self-experience, affective alienation from our past and future, psychological continuity, practical and narrative approaches to identity, and the intelligibility of posthumous survival. By bringing his thought into dialogue with major living and recent philosophers of identity (such as Derek Parfit, Galen Strawson, Bernard Williams, J. David Velleman, Marya Schechtman, Mark Johnston, and others), Stokes reveals Kierkegaard as a philosopher with a significant--if challenging--contribution to make to philosophy of self and identity.
  kierkegaard books: Philosophical Fragments, or a Fragment of Philosophy/Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est. (Two books in one volume) Søren Kierkegaard, 2013-04-21 This volume contains a new translation, with a historical introduction by the translators, of two works written under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. Through Climacus, Kierkegaard contrasts the paradoxes of Christianity with Greek and modern philosophical thinking. In Philosophical Fragments he begins with Greek Platonic philosophy, exploring the implications of venturing beyond the Socratic understanding of truth acquired through recollection to the Christian experience of acquiring truth through grace. Published in 1844 and not originally planned to appear under the pseudonym Climacus, the book varies in tone and substance from the other works so attributed, but it is dialectically related to them, as well as to the other pseudonymous writings. The central issue of Johannes Climacus is doubt. Probably written between November 1842 and April 1843 but unfinished and published only posthumously, this book was described by Kierkegaard as an attack on modern speculative philosophy by means of the melancholy irony, which did not consist in any single utterance on the part of Johannes Climacus but in his whole life. . . . Johannes does what we are told to do--he actually doubts everything--he suffers through all the pain of doing that, becomes cunning, almost acquires a bad conscience. When he has gone as far in that direction as he can go and wants to come back, he cannot do so. . . . Now he despairs, his life is wasted, his youth is spent in these deliberations. Life does not acquire any meaning for him, and all this is the fault of philosophy. A note by Kierkegaard suggests how he might have finished the work: Doubt is conquered not by the system but by faith, just as it is faith that has brought doubt into the world!.
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard's Writings Søren Kierkegaard,
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard Anthology Søren Kierkegaard, 1946 Chronicles Kierkegaard's intellectual and spiritual development through selected writings.
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard C. Stephen Evans, 2009-04-09 This clear, readable introduction to Kierkegaard presents him as a thinker with powerful answers to the questions which philosophers ask.
  kierkegaard books: The Portable Kierkegaard Søren Kierkegaard, Eduard Geismar, 2009-02
  kierkegaard books: For Self-examination ; Judge for Yourself! Søren Kierkegaard, Howard Vincent Hong, Edna Hatlestad Hong, 1990 For Self-Examination and its companion piece Judge for Yourself! are the culmination of Søren Kierkegaard's second authorship, which followed his Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Among the simplest and most readily comprehended of Kierkegaard's books, the two works are part of the signed direct communications, as distinguished from his earlier pseudonymous writings. The lucidity and pithiness, and the earnestness and power, of For Self-Examination and Judge for Yourself! are enhanced when, as Kierkegaard requested, they are read aloud. They contain the well-known passages on Socrates' defense speech, how to read, the lover's letter, the royal coachman and the carriage team, and the painter's relation to his painting. The aim of awakening and inward deepening is signaled by the opening section on Socrates in For Self-Examination and is pursued in the context of the relations of Christian ideality, grace, and response. The secondary aim, a critique of the established order, links the works to the final polemical writings that appear later after a four-year period of silence.
  kierkegaard books: Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death Søren Kierkegaard, Gordon Marino, 2013-04-28 Walter Lowrie's classic, bestselling translation of Søren Kierkegaard's most important and popular books remains unmatched for its readability and literary quality. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death established Kierkegaard as the father of existentialism and have come to define his contribution to philosophy. Lowrie's translation, first published in 1941 and later revised, was the first in English, and it has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to Kierkegaard's thought. Kierkegaard counted Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death among the most perfect books I have written, and in them he introduces two terms--the absurd and despair--that have become key terms in modern thought. Fear and Trembling takes up the story of Abraham and Isaac to explore a faith that transcends the ethical, persists in the face of the absurd, and meets its reward in the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice, while The Sickness Unto Death examines the spiritual anxiety of despair. Walter Lowrie's magnificent translation of these seminal works continues to provide an ideal introduction to Kierkegaard. And, as Gordon Marino argues in a new introduction, these books are as relevant as ever in today's age of anxiety.
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard for Beginners Donald Palmer, 2007 Philosophically, Soren Kierkegaard was the `bridge' that led from Hegel to Existentialism. Kierkegaard abhorred Hegel's abstract, know-it-all idealism that tried to capture reality in a few words. Kierkegaard's attack on social and religious complacency and his single-handed assault on traditional Western philosophy generated a crisis that produced a radically new way of philosophising and made him the founder of the school that would later be called Existentialism. Kierkegaard For Beginners explains, plainly and simply, this great thinker.
  kierkegaard books: The Living Thoughts of Kierkegaard Soren Kierkegaard, 1999-09-30 Translated from the Danish by Walter Lowrie, David Swenson, and Alexander Dru The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard is one of the master thinkers of the modern age, a defining influence on existentialism and on twentieth-century theology, and this brilliantly tailored selection from his vast and varied writings--made by the great English poet W.H Auden--is a perfect introduction to his work. Auden's inspired and incisive response to a thinker who had done much to shape his own beliefs is a fundamental reading of an author whose spirit remains as radical as ever more than 150 years after he wrote.
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard: Exposition & Critique Daphne Hampson, 2013-04-25 A clear introduction to the major works of Kierkegaard that highlights the Lutheran framework of his thought, the book combines exposition of the texts within their philosophical, theological, and historical context with an engaging critical dialogue that brings Kierkegaard into debate with twenty-first century thought.
  kierkegaard books: The Soul of Kierkegaard Søren Kierkegaard, 2012-07-12 Kierkegaard's journals reflect his further thoughts on the ideas developed in his philosophical and theological works, on his tumultuous career as an author, and on his own relationship with his work and readers.
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard and Possibility Erin Plunkett, 2023-08-24 How does our conception of possibility contribute to our understanding of self and world? In what sense does the possible differ from the merely probable, and what would it mean to treat possibility as part of the real? This book is an opportunity to see Kierkegaard as contributing to a distinctive phenomenology, ontology, and psychology of possibility that addresses the question of our existential relationship to the possible. The term 'possibility' (Mulighed) and its variants occur with curious frequency across Kierkegaard's writings. Key to Kierkegaard's understanding of the self, possibility is linked to a number of core concepts in his works: from imagination, anxiety, despair, and 'the moment' to the idea in The Sickness Unto Death that “God is that all things are possible”. Responding to what he sees as a Hegelian and Aristotelian misunderstanding of possibility, Kierkegaard offers a novel reading of the possible that, in turn, directly influences 20th-century philosophers such as Heidegger, Deleuze, and Derrida. Kierkegaard gives a rich account of how anxiety and despair, as lived experiences of possibility, not only show us the contingency and fragility of the systems and identities we presently inhabit but also reveal a more fundamental contingency that demands a new way of relating to the possible. For Kierkegaard, hope, faith, and love are attitudes in which meaning is forged by embracing contingency. In a time of political, social, and environmental uncertainty Kierkegaard's work on radical possibility seems more relevant than ever.
  kierkegaard books: A Confusion of the Spheres Genia Schönbaumsfeld, 2007-09-27 Allusions to the relation between Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein are common in philosophy, but there has been little serious commentary on the relationship of their ideas. Genia Schönbaumsfeld closes this gap and offers new readings of Kierkegaard's and Wittgenstein's intriguing and influential conceptions of philosophy and religious belief.
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard in Golden Age Denmark Bruce H. Kirmmse, 1990-08-22 . . . the most important contribution to Kierkegaard studies to be published in English in recent years. . . . Not only is it a fascinating, surprising, and perceptive study of Kierkegaard within his time and world, Kirmmse has produced a research resource, a reference work, that is simply without parallel or equal. —Michael Plekon It is a rare work of philosophy that not only clarifies its subject but also places it within an intellectual and historical context. In his study of 19th-century Danish philosopher Kierkegaard, Kirmmse accomplishes both, setting a standard . . . —Library Journal . . . an outstanding contribution to Kierkegaard research . . . The book is intellectual history of the highest calibre. —So[slash]ren Kierkegaard Newsletter This excellent book is recommended for all collections on Kierkegaard . . . For all readers. —Choice This richly researched and readable book supplies an important contribution to the widespread reappropriation of Kierkegaard's thought currently taking place. —Theology Today This book is a tour de force in intellectual history. —Review of Metaphysics Kirmmse's book is a major work of scholarship that confers on Kierkegaard's social and intellectual universe a depth and a richness of detail that will permanently alter the familiar stereotypes about Kierkegaard's isolation from his fellow Danes and his supposedly fanatical campaign against philistine Denmark and its corrupt state church. —American Historical Review Against the background of Denmark's evolution from a mercantile economy to a broad-based agricultural economy, Kirmmse reinterprets Kierkegaard's thought as a reaction to the tensions within his society.
  kierkegaard books: The Point of View Søren Kierkegaard, 1998 As a spiritual autobiography, Kierkegaard's The Point of View for My Work as an Author stands among such great works as Augustine's Confessions and Newman's Apologia pro Vita Sua. Yet Point of View is neither a confession nor a defense; it is an author's story of a lifetime of writing, his understanding of the maze of greatly varied works that make up his oeuvre. Upon the imminent publication of the second edition of Either/Or, Kierkegaard again intended to cease writing. Now was the time for a direct report to history on the authorship as a whole. In addition to Point of View, which was published posthumously, the present volume also contains On My Work as an Author, a contemporary substitute, and the companion piece Armed Neutrality.
  kierkegaard books: How To Read Kierkegaard John D. Caputo, 2014-04-03 Soren Kierkegaard is one of the prophets of the contemporary age, a man whose acute observations on life in nineteenth-century Copenhagen might have been written yesterday, whose work anticipated fundamental developments in psychoanalysis, philosophy, theology and the critique of mass culture by over a century. John Caputo offers a compelling account of Kierkegaard as a thinker of particular relevance in our postmodern times, who set off a revolution that numbers Martin Heidegger and Karl Barth among its heirs. His conceptions of truth as a self-transforming 'deed' and his haunting account of the 'single individual' seemed to have been written with us especially in mind. Extracts include Kierkegaard's classic reading of the story of Abraham and Isaac, the jolting theory that truth is subjectivity and his ground-breaking analysis of the concept of anxiety.
  kierkegaard books: The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard John Lippitt, George Pattison, 2013-01-31 The Oxford Handbook of Kierkegaard brings together an outstanding selection of contemporary specialists and uniquely combines work on the background and context of Kierkegaard's writings, exposition of his key ideas, and a survey of his influence and heritage.
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard Michael Watts, 2003 This a clear and concise introduction to Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.ichael Watts uses Kierkegaard's own writings to introduce his theoriesbout living a truthfu; and spiritual life, while explaining the enormousnfluence of the philosopher's personal life on his work and beliefs. As theounder of 20th century existentialism, and the first philosopher to definehe idea of angst, Kierkegaard's profound influence on modern life is clearlyefined in accessible terms in this guide for students and general readers.
  kierkegaard books: A Short Life of Kierkegaard Walter Lowrie, 2013-05-05 A small, insignificant-looking intellectual with absurdly long legs, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a veritable Hans Christian Andersen caricature of a man. A strange combination of witty cosmopolite and melancholy introvert, he spent years writing under a series of fantastical pseudonyms, lavishing all the splendor of his magnificent mind on a seldom-appreciative world. He had a tragic love affair with a young girl, was dominated by an unforgettable Old Testament father, fought a sensational literary duel with a popular satiric magazine, and died in the midst of a violent quarrel with the state church for which he had once studied theology. Yet this iconoclast produced a number of brilliant books that have profoundly influenced modern thought. In this classic biography, the celebrated Kierkegaard translator Walter Lowrie presents a charming and warmly appreciative introduction to the life and work of the great Danish writer. Lowrie tells the story of Kierkegaard's emotionally turbulent life with a keen sense of drama and an acute understanding of how his life shaped his thought. The result is a wonderfully informative and entertaining portrait of one of the most important thinkers of the past two centuries. This edition also includes Lowrie's wry essay How Kierkegaard Got into English, which tells the improbable story of how Lowrie became one of Kierkegaard's principal English translators despite not learning Danish until he was in his 60s, as well as a new introduction by Kierkegaard scholar Alastair Hannay.
  kierkegaard books: Fear and Trembling: A New Translation Søren Kierkegaard, 2021-11-30 This newly translated Fear and Trembling, a foundational document of modern philosophy and existentialism, could not be more apt for our perilous times. First published in 1843 under the pseudonym Johannes de silentio (“John of Silence”), Søren Kierkegaard’s richly resonant Fear and Trembling has for generations stood as a pivotal text in the history of moral philosophy, inspiring such artistic and philosophical luminaries as Edvard Munch, W. H. Auden, Walter Benjamin, and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. Now, in our era of immense uncertainty, renowned Kierkegaard scholar Bruce H. Kirmmse eloquently brings this classic work to a new generation of readers. Retelling the biblical story of the binding of Isaac, Fear and Trembling expounds on the ordeal of Abraham, who was commanded by God to sacrifice his own son in an exceptional test of faith. Disgusted at the self-certainty of his own age, Kierkegaard investigates the paradox underlying Abraham’s decision to allow his duty to God to take precedence over his duties to his family. As Kierkegaard’s narrator explains, the story presents a difficulty that is not often considered—namely, that after the ordeal is over and Isaac has been spared at the last moment, Abraham is capable of receiving him again and living normally, even joyfully, for the rest of his days. Almost inexplicably, “Abraham had faith and did not doubt.” Deftly tracing the autobiographical threads that run throughout the work, Kirmmse initially, in his lucid and engaging introduction, demystifies Kierkegaard’s fictive narrator, Johannes de silentio, drawing parallels between Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son and the author’s personal “sacrifices.” Ultimately, however, Kirmmse reveals Fear and Trembling as a fiercely polemical volume, designed to provoke the reader into considering what is actually meant by the word “faith,” and whether those who consider themselves “true believers” actually are. With a vibrancy almost never before seen in English, and “a matchless grasp of the intricacies of Kierkegaard’s writing process” (Gordon Marino), Kirmmse here definitively demonstrates Kierkegaard’s enduring power to illuminate the terrible wonder of faith.
  kierkegaard books: The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air Søren Kierkegaard, 2018-04-03 A masterful new translation of one of Kierkegaard's most engaging works In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells his followers to let go of earthly concerns by considering the lilies of the field and the birds of the air. Søren Kierkegaard's short masterpiece on this famous gospel passage draws out its vital lessons for readers in a rapidly modernizing and secularizing world. Trenchant, brilliant, and written in stunningly lucid prose, The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air (1849) is one of Kierkegaard's most important books. Presented here in a fresh new translation with an informative introduction, this profound yet accessible work serves as an ideal entrée to an essential modern thinker. The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air reveals a less familiar but deeply appealing side of the father of existentialism—unshorn of his complexity and subtlety, yet supremely approachable. As Kierkegaard later wrote of the book, Without fighting with anybody and without speaking about myself, I said much of what needs to be said, but movingly, mildly, upliftingly. This masterful edition introduces one of Kierkegaard's most engaging and inspiring works to a new generation of readers.
  kierkegaard books: Either/Or, Part II Søren Kierkegaard, 2013-04-21 Søren Kierkegaard, the nineteenth-century Danish philosopher rediscovered in the twentieth century, is a major influence in contemporary philosophy, religion, and literature. He regarded Either/Or as the beginning of his authorship, although he had published two earlier works on Hans Christian Andersen and irony. The pseudonymous volumes of Either/Or are the writings of a young man (I) and of Judge William (II). The ironical young man's papers include a collection of sardonic aphorisms; essays on Mozart, modern drama, and boredom; and The Seducer's Diary. The seeming miscellany is a reflective presentation of aspects of the either, the esthetic view of life. Part II is an older friend's or, the ethical life of integrated, authentic personhood, elaborated in discussions of personal becoming and of marriage. The resolution of the either/or is left to the reader, for there is no Part III until the appearance of Stages on Life's Way. The poetic-reflective creations of a master stylist and imaginative impersonator, the two men write in distinctive ways appropriate to their respective positions.
  kierkegaard books: The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard Alastair Hannay, Gordon Daniel Marino, 1997-10-28 Each volume of this series of Companions to major philosophers contains specially-commissioned essays by an international team of scholars, together with a substantial bibliography, and will serve as a reference work for students and non-specialists. The contributors to this Companion probe the full depth of Kierkegaard's thought revealing its distinctive subtlety. The topics covered include Kierkegaard's views on art and religion, ethics and psychology, theology and politics, and knowledge and virtue. Much attention is devoted to the pervasive influence of Kierkegaard in twentieth-century philosophy. New readers will find this the a convenient and accessible guide to Kierkegaard. Advanced students and specialists will find a conspectus of recent developments in the interpretation of Kierkegaard.
  kierkegaard books: Passion for Nothing Peter Kline, 2017-09-01 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.
  kierkegaard books: Fear and Trembling Soren Kierkegaard, 2013-01-18 In our time nobody is content to stop with faith but wants to go further. It would perhaps be rash to ask where these people are going, but it is surely a sign of breeding and culture for me to assume that everybody has faith, for otherwise it would be queer for them to be . . . going further. In those old days it was different, then faith was a task for a whole lifetime, because it was assumed that dexterity in faith is not acquired in a few days or weeks. When the tried oldster drew near to his last hour, having fought the good fight and kept the faith, his heart was still young enough not to have forgotten that fear and trembling which chastened the youth, which the man indeed held in check, but which no man quite outgrows. . . except as he might succeed at the earliest opportunity in going further. Where these revered figures arrived, that is the point where everybody in our day begins to go further.
  kierkegaard books: Fear and Trembling Søren Kierkegaard, 2014-02 Soren Kierkegaard reflects poetically and philosophically on the biblical story of God's command to Abraham, that he sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of faith. Was Abraham's proposed action morally and religiously justified or murder? Is there an absolute duty to God? Was Abraham justified in remaining silent? In pondering these questions, Kierkegaard presents faith as a paradox that cannot be understood by reason and conventional morality.
  kierkegaard books: Passionate Reason C. Stephen Evans, 1992-11-22 Johannes Climacus, SÃ ̧ren Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author of Philosophical Fragments, invents a religion suspiciously resembling Christianity as an alternative to the assumption that humans possess the Truth within themselves. Through this literary device, Climacus raises in a fresh and audacious way age-old questions about the relation of Christian faith to human reason. Is the idea of a human incarnation of God logically coherent? Is religious faith the product of a voluntary choice? In a comprehensive discussion of one of Kierkegaard's most important books, C. Stephen Evans elucidates Kierkegaard's novel explanation that the tension between faith and reason must be understood as a consequence of the passionate character of reason itself. Passionate Reason situates Kierkegaard's philosophy in the context of postmodern religious thought, providing a contemporary reading of Fragments as a challenge to both the modern Enlightenment critique of reason and the postmodern abandonment of truth.
  kierkegaard books: Sickness Unto Death Soren Kierkegaard, 1989-08 Famed for the depth and acuity of its modern psychological insights, this classic work of theistic existentialist thought explores the concept of despair.
  kierkegaard books: Kierkegaard For Beginners Donald D. Palmer, 2007-08-21 The Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard was one of the most original thinkers of the 19th Century – and one of the most enigmatic men who ever walked the Earth. Philosophically, Kierkegaard was the “bridge” that led from Hegel to Existentialism. Kierkegaard abhorred Hegel’s abstract, Know-it-all idealism that tried to capture reality in a few words. Kierkegaard’s attack on social and religious complacency and his single-handed assault on traditional Western philosophy generated a crisis that produced a radically new way of philosophizing and made him the founder of the school that would later be called Existentialism. To Kierkegaard, reality was personal, subjective – it began and ended with the individual – and philosophy was not something one merely talked about, it was the way you lived. For such a brilliant thinker, the way Kierkegaard lived was… somewhat too interesting? His “abstract” love affair? His obsession with death? His “leap of Faith,” his cynicism, his marvelous sense of humor – how do you put all that into one man? For starters, you read Kierkegaard For Beginners. It explains, plainly and simply, the great Danish thinker’s obsession with the particularity of human existence as well as his demonstration of how the creation of an authentic new kind of individual is possible
Søren Kierkegaard - Wikipedia
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (/ ˈsɒrən ˈkɪərkəɡɑːrd / SORR-ən KEER-kə-gard, US also /- ɡɔːr / -⁠gor; Danish: …

Søren Kierkegaard - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
May 22, 2023 · Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was an astonishingly prolific writer whose work—almost …

Søren Kierkegaard | Danish Philosopher & Existentialist
May 1, 2025 · Søren Kierkegaard (born May 5, 1813, Copenhagen, Den.—died Nov. 11, 1855, Copenhagen) was a …

Key Concepts in the Philosophy of Søren Kierkeg…
Søren Kierkegaard was a 19th-century Danish philosopher who many consider both the father of the philosophical …

Kierkegaard, Søren | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In addition to being dubbed “the father of existentialism,” Kierkegaard is best known as a trenchant critic of Hegel …

Søren Kierkegaard - Wikipedia
Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (/ ˈsɒrən ˈkɪərkəɡɑːrd / SORR-ən KEER-kə-gard, US also /- ɡɔːr / -⁠gor; Danish: [ˈsɶːɐn ˈɔˀˌpyˀ ˈkʰiɐ̯kəˌkɒˀ] ⓘ; [1] 5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855 [2]) was a Danish …

Søren Kierkegaard - Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
May 22, 2023 · Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was an astonishingly prolific writer whose work—almost all of which was written in the 1840s—is difficult to categorize, spanning …

Søren Kierkegaard | Danish Philosopher & Existentialist | Britannica
May 1, 2025 · Søren Kierkegaard (born May 5, 1813, Copenhagen, Den.—died Nov. 11, 1855, Copenhagen) was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and cultural critic who was a major …

Key Concepts in the Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard
Søren Kierkegaard was a 19th-century Danish philosopher who many consider both the father of the philosophical school of thought called Existentialism and one of the great Christian …

Kierkegaard, Søren | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
In addition to being dubbed “the father of existentialism,” Kierkegaard is best known as a trenchant critic of Hegel and Hegelianism and for his invention or elaboration of a host of …

The Father of Existentialism: Who Was Søren Kierkegaard?
May 26, 2025 · Michael Kierkegaard, Søren Kierkegaard’s father. Source: Wikimedia Commons In his personal journal, Kierkegaard wrote that he owes “everything to the wisdom of an old man …

Kierkegaard’s Philosophy - philosophiesoflife.org
Kierkegaard is considered a precursor in this existentialist turn, though he lived prior to the formal emergence of existentialism as a school of thought. Kierkegaard published most of his works …

Soren Kierkegaard — The Father of Existentialism - The Living …
Søren Kierkegaard is best known as the "Father of Existentialism". But unlike many of his Existentialist peers from Nietzsche to Camus, Kierkegaard was not an atheist. He was a …

Søren Kierkegaard – The Hong Kierkegaard Library - St. Olaf …
Read the below to learn more about the Danish philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. Additional resources can be found on the Søren Kierkegaard Centre website, here. By Gordon Marino. …

Philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard - Wikipedia
Kierkegaard was a 19th century Danish philosopher who has been called the "Father of Existentialism". [1] His philosophy also influenced the development of existential psychology. …