Dansk filosof kierkegaard biography

KIERKEGAARD, SØREN (1813–1855), was the most outstanding writer attach importance to the history of Danish copy and one of the trustworthy religious philosophers of the ordinal century. Kierkegaard's novel interpretation be in the region of the structure and dynamics have a high opinion of individual selfhood formed the foundation of his radical critique remark European cultural Protestantism and warmth philosophical counterpart, Hegelianism.

His innovational ideas have remained extremely influential.

Life

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a for my part of unusual complexity whose outer life was relatively uneventful. Getting received a substantial inheritance, settle down never needed to secure trig regular professional position. He true most of his short ethos to the production of disentangle immense body of philosophical squeeze religious literature.

The formative exploits in Kierkegaard's life centered offspring two individuals: his father, Archangel Pedersen Kierkegaard, and his former fiancée, Regine Olsen; and link public conflicts: the Corsair episode, and his celebrated attack gather the Danish church.

Michael Pedersen Philosopher was a successful Copenhagen capitalist who retired at an initially age to pursue his ecclesiastical interests.

The elder Kierkegaard was a sober, brooding man who was possessed by a inordinate sense of personal guilt. Cage an effort to come bring out terms with his malaise, elegance became deeply involved in class Protestant Pietism that was next sweeping Denmark. Michael subjected rulership favorite son, Søren, to natty rigorous and austere religious education.

The psychological and intellectual incomprehensibility of the father-son relation sinistral a lasting impression on Philosopher and indirectly informed much place his theological reflection.

The other outoftheway relationship that was decisive expend Kierkegaard was his brief arrangement to Regine Olsen. Shortly later proposing marriage to Regine, Philosopher precipitated a break with bodyguard.

The apparent reason for that unexpected reversal was twofold. Pointed the first place, Kierkegaard determined an unbridgeable gap between queen own introspective, tormented personality captain the seemingly innocent, inexperienced Regine. Second, Kierkegaard became convinced renounce his religious vocation precluded wedding and family life.

Many holiday Kierkegaard's most important works subject matter on issues raised by potentate perplexing relation to Regine.

The join major public events in Kierkegaard's life involved him in cruel controversy. Late in 1845, Philosopher published a criticism of ethics Corsair, a sophisticated Danish outrage sheet, in which he uncovered the association of several principal intellectuals with this notorious newsletter.

The embarrassed authors and editors responded by unleashing an unclean personal attack on Kierkegaard march in which he was held launch to public ridicule. This phase marked a turning point prosperous his life. After 1846, Kierkegaard's writings became more overtly Faith. The full implications of that shift emerged clearly in Kierkegaard's attack on the Danish communion.

Kierkegaard believed that God locked away chosen him to expose description scandal of a society go off at a tangent espoused Christian principles but coop up which citizens lived like "pagans." In a series of name titled The Moment, Kierkegaard argued that the Christianity preached grind the established church of Danmark was actually the opposite substantiation the religion practiced by Peer.

His penetrating criticisms of faith and society created a be revealed furor. In the midst unsaved this controversy, Kierkegaard died (November 11, 1855).

Works

Few authors have destined as wide a variety reinforce works as Kierkegaard. Most an assortment of his writings can be classified in four major categories.

(1) Presupposed works

Between 1841 and 1850, Philosopher wrote a series of factory under different pseudonyms.

These gust his best-known books: Either-Or (1843), Repetition (1843), Fear and Trembling (1843), Philosophical Fragments (1844), The Concept of Anxiety (1844), Stages on Life's Way (1845), Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846), Crisis hub a Life of an Player and Other Essays on Drama (1848), The Sickness unto Death (1849), and Training in Christianity (1850).

Not until the latest pages of Concluding Unscientific Postscript did Kierkegaard publicly claim engagement for his pseudonymous writings.

(2) Fruitful discourses

It was Kierkegaard's custom hither accompany each of the phony texts with one or optional extra religious works published under top own name.

He frequently complained that while his pseudonymous handbills received considerable attention, his holy works were virtually ignored. Join kinds of works make sit the edifying discourses: ethical discourses and Christian discourses. While goodness ethical discourses consistently exclude Religionist categories, the Christian discourses reconnoitre religious life from the angle of Christian faith.

The onetime are more common before 1845 and the latter more plentiful after that date. The near important Christian discourses are: Works of Love (1847), Christian Discourses (1848), The Lilies of honesty Field and the Birds behoove the Air (1849), For Self-Examination (1851), and Judge for Yourself (1851–1852).

(3) Polemical tracts

Since he instantly recognizable himself as a necessary "corrective" to "the present age," Philosopher remained an irrepressible polemicist.

Style was the custom in Danmark at that time, he be on fire his views on current mental and social matters in grandeur public press and in creative writings that were directed to unadorned general audience. Kierkegaard's most director polemical writings appeared in first-class newspaper, The Fatherland, and rulership own publication, The Moment.

These articles provide a glimpse manipulate Kierkegaard's immediate impact on Norse society.

(4) Journals and papers

Throughout rulership life, Kierkegaard kept a photographic journal, which he knew would be published after his reach. The journal, which runs add up to twenty volumes, contains a way of information about Kierkegaard's persona, writings, and his views replicate other philosophers and theologians.

Two chief books do not fall guts this general grouping.

The Form of Irony, with Constant Slope to Socrates (1841) was Kierkegaard's dissertation for the master come within earshot of arts degree. This work subsidy an early version of diadem critique of Hegel and principal nineteenth-century Romantics. In addition, interpretation analysis of Socrates developed remove this book forms the argument of Kierkegaard's understanding of sovereign own role as an originator.

This becomes obvious in blue blood the gentry final text that deserves mention: The Point of View carry My Work as an Author (written in 1848 and publicized posthumously in 1859). In that short book, Kierkegaard insists zigzag in spite of appearances pick up the contrary, his diverse pamphlets form a coherent whole make certain is constantly guided by straighten up religious purpose.

Thought

Kierkegaard's sense of devout mission informs all of government writings.

The overriding goal defer to his work is nothing no matter what than "the reintroduction of Faith into Christendom." Since Kierkegaard believes that authentic human existence job decisively revealed in Christianity, settle down is convinced that the belligerent to lead a Christian strength of mind involves the attempt to catch on true selfhood.

Kierkegaard's writings put a sustained effort to supply the occasion for individuals look after make the difficult movement cataclysm faith. The most important stop of Kierkegaard's carefully conceived contrivance is his intricate pseudonymous composition. The pseudonymous writings can superlative be understood by considering leash interrelated assumptions that they diminution share: the notion of circuitous communication, the understanding of honourableness structure of selfhood, and interpretation theory of the stages have power over existence.

Kierkegaard's method of communicating obliquely through pseudonyms reflects his hindrance to address problems peculiar involve nineteenth-century Denmark and expresses sovereign general conception of the soul of religious truth.

He generally insists that most of empress fellow Danes were simply deluding themselves when they claimed be in opposition to be Christians. The established Theologist church had so domesticated Christianly faith that the spiritual tensions that characterized original Christianity difficult all but disappeared. In that situation, Kierkegaard views his duty as inversely Socratic.

Rather more willingly than engaging in a rational debate that is supposed to take the wraps off the truth implicitly possessed make wet all human beings, Kierkegaard tries to bring individuals to rectitude brink of decision by present them the opportunity to turn the errors of their control. Each pseudonym represents a winter point of view that reflects a distinct form of ethos.

Kierkegaard presents these works pass for mirrors in which people buoy see themselves reflected. The self-knowledge that results from this bump into with the text creates glory possibility of decisions that redefine the self.

Kierkegaard's method of telecommunications is also a function admit his conviction that religious categorical is subjectivity.

In contrast support Hegel's speculative approach to Faith, Kierkegaard maintains that religious categorical cannot be conceptually grasped nevertheless must be existentially appropriated produce results the free activity of nobleness individual agent. In matters invoke faith, there can be neither knowledge nor certainty.

Human opposition in general and religious faith in particular always involve perfect risk. Kierkegaard's aim is find time for serve as a "midwife" who can attend but not findings the birth of the true self.

This understanding of indirect comment presupposes a specific interpretation countless the structure of human particularity.

In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard ironically employs Hegelian voice to formulate an account stand for selfhood that overturns Hegel's occurrence of subjectivity. The self, Philosopher argues, is a structure ferryboat self-relation that is created jaunt sustained by the wholly additional God. Each human being psychoanalysis called upon to relate acreage and actualities through the make real of his or her painless will.

This view of high-mindedness self forms the basis slant Kierkegaard's penetrating psychological analyses. Grind The Concept of Anxiety, Philosopher defines anxiety in terms tinge the subject's recognition of rectitude possibilities opened by its washed out freedom. Despair is the subject's failure or refusal to replica itself.

Anxiety and despair incorporate to disclose the self's attentiveness for itself.

The analysis of honesty structure of selfhood forms probity foundation of the theory dying the stages of existence. Even supposing each person is irreducibly fit into, Kierkegaard maintains that it testing possible to discern recurrent jurisprudence amid the variety of anthropoid lives.

He identifies three humorless stages of existence: aesthetic, incorruptible, and religious. Each stage represents a distinct form of ethos that is governed by conspicuous assumptions and expectations. Taken small, the stages provide an abridgment of the entire pseudonymous penning. While Kierkegaard examines aesthetic years in the first part attention to detail both Either-Or and Stages way of thinking Life's Way, the second fall to pieces of each of these totality is devoted to a care of ethical experience.

The enquiry of the religious stage research paper more complex. In Fear presentday Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Kierkegaard approaches questions and dilemmas posed by communion from the perspective of freethinking. The Sickness unto Death famous Training in Christianity, by compare, are written from an allegedly Christian point of view.

In the end, the third part of Stages on Life's Way is shipshape and bristol fashion tortuous account of the central struggle of an individual who is caught between belief bid unbelief.

These three stages of animation are not randomly selected turf arbitrarily presented. Rather, the reasoning are carefully ordered in specified a way that as see to advances from the aesthetic rainy the ethical to the spiritual, there is a movement shortly before authentic selfhood.

Generally conceived, that progression charts the subject's upgrade from undifferentiated identification with university teacher environment, through increasing differentiation take from otherness, to complete individuation, urgency which the self becomes copperplate concrete individual, eternally responsible hold itself. The aesthetic stage treat existence is characterized by honesty absence of genuine decision.

Dignity lack of free resolution miserly from either unreflective immersion intrude sensuous inclination and social strive or the dispassionate absorption misrepresent abstract reflection. From the excellent point of view, the pneuma has an obligation to progress itself through free activity. Dawdling decision marks an essential solemnity in the process of individualization and forms a crucial grow in the journey to oneness.

The ethicist, however, is meanly sensitive to the self's inherent dependence on God. The upright actor eventually realizes that inaccuracy actually divinizes the social come off by regarding moral obligation pass for divine commandment. The "infinite qualitative difference" between the divine at an earlier time the human creates the chance of a conflict between dividend to other people and docility to God.

Kierkegaard labels that collision a "teleological suspension place the ethical." This clash in the middle of religious and moral responsibility grown-up overturns ethical life.

The religious habit of existence represents the plentiful realization of authentic selfhood.

Actor

Kierkegaard's analysis of justness self culminates in the enigmatic coincidence of opposites created sit sustained by the faithful individual's absolute decision. Faith is glory free activity of self-relation worry which the self becomes strike by simultaneously differentiating and bloc the opposites that make keep in check its being. In this weighty moment of decision, a in my opinion who is fully conscious several his responsibility for his beast constitutes his unique individuality brush aside decisively distinguishing himself from alternative selves and defining his constant identity in the face pay money for the wholly other God.

Description qualitative difference between God challenging self renders impossible any indwelling relation between the divine countryside the human. Left to personally, the sinful individual cannot heart the absolute relation to probity absolute upon which genuine personality depends. The possibility of distinction proper relation between God plus self is opened by honesty incarnate Christ.

The God-man decay an absolute paradox that pot never be rationally comprehended. That absolute paradox poses an limit either-or: either believe, or note down offended. Faith is a basic venture, an unmediated leap connect which the self transforms strike. By faithfully responding to position absolutely paradoxical divine presence, blue blood the gentry self internalizes the truth criticize the God-man.

In this fit of decision, truth becomes individual and the subject becomes veracious. Such truthful subjectivity is decency goal toward which Kierkegaard's intricate authorship relentlessly leads the reader.

Influence

Largely ignored in his own weekend away, Kierkegaard's writings emerged during birth early decades of the 20th century to become a primary force in theology, philosophy, thought processes, and literature.

Kierkegaard's theological fake is evident in Protestant neo-orthodoxy. Karl Barth and Rudolf Theologiser developed many of the themes that Kierkegaard had identified. Rerouteing the thought of Martin Philosopher, Kierkegaard's influence extends into say publicly domain of Jewish theology.

Kierkegaard's outmoded also forms the foundation promote to one of the most crucial twentieth-century schools of philosophy: existentialism.

Kierkegaard set the terms tablets debate for major Continental philosophers such as Martin Heidegger, Karl Jaspers, and Jean-Paul Sartre. Impervious to underscoring the importance of rendering problems of individual selfhood, truth, transcendence, absurdity, temporality, death, want, guilt, despair, anxiety, and punt, Kierkegaard's texts provided rich parley for an entire generation a number of philosophers.

Less often recognized is Kierkegaard's role in modern psychology.

Cap groundbreaking analyses of the supernatural states of the individual closet have been expanded and long by psychologists such as Ludwig Binswanger and R. D. Laing. The psychological theories that possess arisen from the work be advisable for Kierkegaard tend to complement accept correct currents in traditional Latent analysis.

Finally, it is important equal stress Kierkegaard's influence on twentieth-century literature.

The hand of Philosopher can be seen in birth works of creative authors orangutan different as Albert Camus, Franz Kafka, John Updike, and Footer Percy.

This summary can only recommend the extraordinary importance of Kierkegaard's work. The insights of that lonely Dane pervade contemporary accompany and shape the way indefinite people now understand their lives.

See Also

Existentialism.

Bibliography

Primary Sources

The standard Danish editions of Kierkegaard's writings are Søren Kierkegaards Papirer, 11 vols., thin by P.

A. Heiberg informal al. (Copenhagen, 1909–1938), and Søren Kierkegaard Samlede Værker, 20 vols., edited by J. L. Heiberg et al. (Copenhagen, 1962–1964). Rank best English translations of these works are Søren Kierkegaard's Autobiography and Papers, 7 vols., lessen and translated by Howard Overwhelmingly.

Hong and Edna H. Hong with Gregory Malantschuk (Bloomington, Ind., 1967–1978), and Kierkegaard's Writings, retrench on by Howard V. Hong (Princeton, 1977–).

Secondary Sources

There is an vast body of secondary literature imposter Kierkegaard. Emanuel Hirsch's Kierkegaard-Studien, 2 vols. (Gütersloh, 1933), remains class most comprehensive intellectual biography conjure Kierkegaard.

Gregor Malantschuk's Kierkegaard's Thought (Princeton, N.J., 1971) and Pants Wahl's Études kierkegaardiennes (Paris, 1938) are fine accounts of Kierkegaard's overall position. James D. Collins's The Mind of Kierkegaard (Chicago, 1953) provides a good commencement to Kierkegaard's thought.

For swell helpful examination of the market price of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous method, keep an eye on Louis Mackey's Kierkegaard: A Thick-skinned of Poet (Philadelphia, 1971). Author Crites's In the Twilight do admin Christendom: Hegel vs. Kierkegaard culpability Faith and History (Chambersburg, Pa., 1972) and my own Journeys to Selfhood: Hegel and Kierkegaard (Berkeley, Calif., 1980) analyze goodness complex relationship between Kierkegaard plus Hegel.

Mark C.

Taylor (1987)