A Portrait of Spiritlessness in the Age of Leveling
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Mathias G. Parding
Abstract
Since the spirit of the time greatly influences the individual, Kierkegaard becomes increasingly aware of a socio-political environment in which a specific psychological character is molded, namely that of spiritlessness. Consequently, my primary objective in this paper will be to examine how this character manifests itself as a socio-psychological phenomenon in the age of leveling. How does spiritlessness constitute what we can call a pathology of normality as an emblematic despair of the age? In trying to answer this question I hope to clarify the reason for Kierkegaard’s increasingly problematic relation to his time. Since the intimate relationship between the concept of spiritlessness and leveling is given the most systematic account in Two Ages, most of the contributions in this paper will derive from this work.
© 2018 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston
Articles in the same Issue
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
- There is No Teleological Suspension of the Ethical: Kierkegaard’s Logic Against Religious Justification and Moral Exceptionalism
- Kierkegaard on Variation and Thought Experiment
- Subjectivity and Ambiguity: Anxiety and Love in Kierkegaard
- Faith and Knowledge: Remarks Inspired by Søren Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments
- Anti-Climacus’ Inverted Dialectic of Divine Grace and Human Activity
- Recognition, Self-Recognition, and God: An Interpretation of The Sickness unto Death as an Existential Theory of Self-Recognition
- A Portrait of Spiritlessness in the Age of Leveling
- The Reality of Love: An Affirmative Vision of Christianity Based on Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of the Maxim: Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
- Section 2: Source–work Studies
- Kierkegaard and the Danish Golden Age: The Strengths and Limits of Source-Work Research
- From Enthusiasm to Irony: Kierkegaard’s Reception of Norse Mythology and Literature
- Die Ausnahme bei Christian Garve und Søren Kierkegaard
- Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
- Erkenntnis und Liebe. Zur Nähe und Ferne zwischen Heinrich Barths und Søren Kierkegaards Verständnis von Gemeinschaft
- Communication of Existence: Søren Kierkegaard and Gabriel Marcel
- Pseudonymous Voices Talking Back: Kierkegaard’s Plural Perspectives and a Wittgensteinian Point of View
- Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
- Andreas Frederik Beck’s Review of Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors
Articles in the same Issue
- Front matter
- Title pages
- Preface
- Contents
- Articles
- Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard: Problems and Perspectives
- There is No Teleological Suspension of the Ethical: Kierkegaard’s Logic Against Religious Justification and Moral Exceptionalism
- Kierkegaard on Variation and Thought Experiment
- Subjectivity and Ambiguity: Anxiety and Love in Kierkegaard
- Faith and Knowledge: Remarks Inspired by Søren Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments
- Anti-Climacus’ Inverted Dialectic of Divine Grace and Human Activity
- Recognition, Self-Recognition, and God: An Interpretation of The Sickness unto Death as an Existential Theory of Self-Recognition
- A Portrait of Spiritlessness in the Age of Leveling
- The Reality of Love: An Affirmative Vision of Christianity Based on Kierkegaard’s Interpretation of the Maxim: Love is the Fulfilling of the Law
- Section 2: Source–work Studies
- Kierkegaard and the Danish Golden Age: The Strengths and Limits of Source-Work Research
- From Enthusiasm to Irony: Kierkegaard’s Reception of Norse Mythology and Literature
- Die Ausnahme bei Christian Garve und Søren Kierkegaard
- Section 3: Kierkegaard Reception
- Erkenntnis und Liebe. Zur Nähe und Ferne zwischen Heinrich Barths und Søren Kierkegaards Verständnis von Gemeinschaft
- Communication of Existence: Søren Kierkegaard and Gabriel Marcel
- Pseudonymous Voices Talking Back: Kierkegaard’s Plural Perspectives and a Wittgensteinian Point of View
- Section 4: Primary Texts in Translation
- Andreas Frederik Beck’s Review of Kierkegaard’s On the Concept of Irony
- Back matter
- Abbreviations
- List of Contributors