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Kierkegaard and Hegelian Christianity

T.L.S. Sprigge

in The God of Metaphysics

This chapter discusses the position presented by Kierkegaard in his two related works: Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, which were published under the pseudonym, ... More

This chapter discusses the position presented by Kierkegaard in his two related works: Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript, which were published under the pseudonym, Johannes Climacus. It is shown that in Fragments, Climacus merely tried out the idea of God incarnating himself to achieve mutual love with men in spite of their fallen state, but did not specify Christianity as proclaiming the realization of this idea. In Concluding Unscientific Postscript, the focus is more explicitly on Christianity. Kierkegaard’s most thorough discussion of ethics, Works of Love, is also examined, which emphasizes the need for Christians to grow out of worldly self-love and embrace a life of suffering.Less

The Ethical Task as the Human Task

C. Stephen Evans

in Kierkegaard's Ethic of Love: Divine Commands and Moral Obligations

Unlike Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard affixes his name to Concluding Unscientific Postscript, as the ‘editor’, thereby signalling his close affinity to the position outlined by the book’s pseudonym ... More

Unlike Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard affixes his name to Concluding Unscientific Postscript, as the ‘editor’, thereby signalling his close affinity to the position outlined by the book’s pseudonym Johannes Climacus. Kierkegaard himself, in The Point of View for My Work as an Author, tells us that he placed his name on the title page as a signal of the similarity of Climacus’s views to his own. Indeed, Climacus provides a formal structure that can be used to illuminate what Kierkegaard says in his own voice in Works of Love and elsewhere. From Climacus in Concluding Unscientific Postscript – and from Kierkegaard himself in Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing – we have a conception of the ethical life as a life that involves a relationship with God. This knowledge of God, however, is not rooted in God’s revelation in history but is, instead, rooted in the individual’s own conscience.Less

History

Stephen Backhouse

in Kierkegaard's Critique of Christian Nationalism

Chapter 5 considers Kierkegaard's complaint with the ‘world historical’ influence on Christian thought. Critics often charge Kierkegaard with radically separating the individual from all meaningful ... More

Chapter 5 considers Kierkegaard's complaint with the ‘world historical’ influence on Christian thought. Critics often charge Kierkegaard with radically separating the individual from all meaningful relation to history. Instead the chapter argues that a right historical orientation is crucial to Kierkegaard's project. Christian nationalisms depend upon a belief in the divine unfolding expressed in the development of national cultures, and hence presuppose a change in the essential ethical task facing persons over time. Kierkegaard challenges these notions with his attack on the ‘world‐historical’ point of view. He does this not by abstracting persons from history but rather by heightening the importance of the place of individuals in their immediate surroundings. The chapter focuses on Concluding Unscientific Postscript and Two Ages, demonstrating Kierkegaard's conviction that while the trappings of culture change over time, what is essential about the human condition does not.Less

Sense and Ineffabilia—Kierkegaard and the Tractatus

Genia Schönbaumsfeld

in A Confusion of the Spheres: Kierkegaard and Wittgenstein on Philosophy and Religion

The aim of this chapter is to undermine ‘resolute’ readings, advanced by James Conant, of both the Tractatus and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Interesting parallels are indeed discernible ... More

The aim of this chapter is to undermine ‘resolute’ readings, advanced by James Conant, of both the Tractatus and Concluding Unscientific Postscript. Interesting parallels are indeed discernible between Kierkegaard and the early Wittgenstein, but the exposure of a doctrine of ‘substantial nonsense’ (or of ineffable truth) isn't one of them. For whilst Wittgenstein is clearly committed to the notion of ineffabilia in the Tractatus, Climacus'/Kierkegaard's project in Postscript has nothing whatever to do with such a conception. A profound disanalogy therefore exists, in this respect, between the early Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard. The points of contact that can therefore be perceived between the early Wittgenstein and the Danish philosopher cannot be located in the actual endorsement (or rejection) of similar views about the nature of language and what lies beyond its limits, but are rather to be found in a certain commonality of vision as regards ethics and religion.Less

Kierkegaard’s Socratic Task and the Development of the Pseudonymous Works: 1844–6

Jon Stewart

in Søren Kierkegaard: Subjectivity, Irony, & the Crisis of Modernity

This chapter explores Kierkegaard’s books Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, Prefaces, Stages on Life’s Way, and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. These books present a complex ... More

This chapter explores Kierkegaard’s books Philosophical Fragments, The Concept of Anxiety, Prefaces, Stages on Life’s Way, and the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. These books present a complex series of works ostensibly authored by different pseudonyms. We see that many of the main motifs concerning Socrates that Kierkegaard originally treated in The Concept of Irony now reappear in different contexts. This is particularly interesting when we consider that these works treat important Christian concepts such as the incarnation, the revelation, faith, sin, and forgiveness. Surprisingly Kierkegaard believes that the pagan Socrates has some important insights for Christians today. This chapter also highlights Kierkegaard’s polemic with Heiberg and his conflict with the satirical journal The Corsair. The chapter ends with a discussion of the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and explores Kierkegaard’s conception of a parallel authorship that features a series of pseudonymous works that run alongside a series of signed works.Less

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments

Daphne Hampson

in Kierkegaard: Exposition & Critique

This chapter offers a reading of Søren Kierkegaard's philosophical work Concluding Unscientific Postscript to ‘Philosophical Fragments’ to illuminate his ideas about ‘the eternal’ and its Paradox. ... More

This chapter offers a reading of Søren Kierkegaard's philosophical work Concluding Unscientific Postscript to ‘Philosophical Fragments’ to illuminate his ideas about ‘the eternal’ and its Paradox. The book is divided into two parts, the second of which concerns subjectivity and the subjective relation to the thought of the eternal within religion in general and within Christianity in particular. The chapter first considers Kierkegaard's views about Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel and Hegelianism within the context of the relationship between modernity and Christianity and the relationship of history to faith. It then examines Kierkegaard's arguments about God's transcendence and revelation, faith and subjectivity. The chapter concludes by asking whether Kierkegaard's authorship may or may not have fed into the cult of irrationalism.Less

A First And Last Explanation

Sheridan Hough

in Kierkegaard's Dancing Tax Collector: Faith, Finitude, and Silence

Here the text makes an innovative use of Kierkegaard’s own denial of his authorship in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript.

On Kierkegaard’s Account of the Problem of Taking over Concrete Existence

K. E. Løgstrup

in Kierkegaard's and Heidegger's Analysis of Existence and its Relation to Proclamation

This chapter considers the question of how the desire to be an authentic individual can be realized in concrete existence. It is argued that Heidegger does not really deal with this issue, but that ... More

This chapter considers the question of how the desire to be an authentic individual can be realized in concrete existence. It is argued that Heidegger does not really deal with this issue, but that it is central to Kierkegaard. For Kierkegaard, to achieve this the individual must decide to act not in the light of the finite and temporal, but of the infinite and eternal which is the ground of their existence, which is thus to act in the light of an infinite demand which comes from God, and to realize that before God the individual is nothing. It is argued, however, that this leaves the individual with insufficient grounds for action in the finite world, as illustrated in Kierkegaard’s treatment of the ‘edifying diversion’ of a trip to the Deer Park which is discussed in Concluding Unscientific Postscript.Less