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The Logic of Contemporaneity: On Anti-Climacus’s Philosophy of History

  • Thomas J. Millay EMAIL logo
Published/Copyright: July 14, 2022
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Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook
From the journal Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Volume 27 Issue 1

Abstract

Near the end of Practice in Christianity, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Anti-Climacus denies that progress occurs within history. We are not getting better every day, in every way. According to Anti-Climacus, we are the same as we have always been. This essay sets Anti-Climacus’s denial of progress in its historical context, arguing that he develops a counter-philosophy of history which combats the prevailing Hegelianism of his age. The essay also draws connections between Anti-Climacus’s philosophy of history and the themes of imitation and contemporaneity, showing how a denial of history’s progress enables contemporary humans to interact with the same world Christ faced.

Online erschienen: 2022-07-14

© 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Title pages
  3. Preface
  4. Contents
  5. Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works
  6. Section 1:   Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works
  7. Either/Or Read as Bildungsroman
  8. Wielding Fear and Trembling Against Religious Violence and Bigotry
  9. Repetition and the Art of Writing Novels
  10. Voice and Fertility, (Self‐)Impregnation and (Inter‐)Dependence: The Pseudonyms and their (Narratives about) Wives
  11. The Logic of Contemporaneity: On Anti-Climacus’s Philosophy of History
  12. “A Place of Rest at the Foot of the Altar”: Topological Categories and Correlations in Kierkegaard’s last Discourse at the Communion on Fridays
  13. Section 2: Concepts, Problems and Theories in Kierkegaard
  14. Section 2:   Concepts, Problems and Theories in Kierkegaard
  15. Kierkegaard’s View on Theater “with Continual References” to Contemporary Theater Theories
  16. Kierkegaard’s Hermeneutics of Anxiety and Agonistic Hermeneutics
  17. Kierkegaard’s Strong Anti-Rationalism: Offense as a Propaedeutic to Faith
  18. Kierkegaard’s Deontology of Love
  19. What Thinkers Call “the Other”
  20. Colossal Vacuums: Kierkegaard and the Rise of the Public in the Anthropocene
  21. Revolutionizing the Right to Revolt: Søren Kierkegaard and the Responsibility to Revolt
  22. ‚Für das Bestehende spendiert‘: Die Kategorie des Korrektivs als Instrument der schriftstellerischen und existentiellen Selbstpositionierung Kierkegaards
  23. Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Reception
  24. Section 3:   Kierkegaard’s Sources and Reception
  25. Time or Eternity? An Approach to the Kierkegaardian Notion of Spirit through the Movement of Finitude in Dialogue with Levinas
  26. Toward an Upbuilding Metapsychology: Kierkegaard, Lacan, and the Infinite Movement
  27. Who Permits Evil? Plantinga’s Free Will Defense and Kierkegaard’s Free Spirit Offense: In Search of a Coherent Theistic Solution to the Problem of Evil
  28. Law and Gospel, Distinction and Dialectic: C.F.W. Walther, Søren Kierkegaard, and the Rich Young Ruler
  29. Revisiting the Czech Reception of Kierkegaard in Early 20th Century
  30. Kierkegaard and Religionswissenschaft: A Source- and Reception-Historical Survey (Part 1)
  31. Section 4: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries – Sources in Translation and Commentary
  32. Section 4:   Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries – Sources in Translation and Commentary
  33. Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s “On the Principle of the Beginning of History”
  34. Heiberg’s Article on History and Kierkegaard’s Critique
  35. Backmatter
  36. Abbreviations
https://doi.org/10.1515/kierke-2022-0006

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Frontmatter
  2. Title pages
  3. Preface
  4. Contents
  5. Section 1: Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works
  6. Section 1:   Interpreting Kierkegaard’s Works
  7. Either/Or Read as Bildungsroman
  8. Wielding Fear and Trembling Against Religious Violence and Bigotry
  9. Repetition and the Art of Writing Novels
  10. Voice and Fertility, (Self‐)Impregnation and (Inter‐)Dependence: The Pseudonyms and their (Narratives about) Wives
  11. The Logic of Contemporaneity: On Anti-Climacus’s Philosophy of History
  12. “A Place of Rest at the Foot of the Altar”: Topological Categories and Correlations in Kierkegaard’s last Discourse at the Communion on Fridays
  13. Section 2: Concepts, Problems and Theories in Kierkegaard
  14. Section 2:   Concepts, Problems and Theories in Kierkegaard
  15. Kierkegaard’s View on Theater “with Continual References” to Contemporary Theater Theories
  16. Kierkegaard’s Hermeneutics of Anxiety and Agonistic Hermeneutics
  17. Kierkegaard’s Strong Anti-Rationalism: Offense as a Propaedeutic to Faith
  18. Kierkegaard’s Deontology of Love
  19. What Thinkers Call “the Other”
  20. Colossal Vacuums: Kierkegaard and the Rise of the Public in the Anthropocene
  21. Revolutionizing the Right to Revolt: Søren Kierkegaard and the Responsibility to Revolt
  22. ‚Für das Bestehende spendiert‘: Die Kategorie des Korrektivs als Instrument der schriftstellerischen und existentiellen Selbstpositionierung Kierkegaards
  23. Section 3: Kierkegaard’s Sources and Reception
  24. Section 3:   Kierkegaard’s Sources and Reception
  25. Time or Eternity? An Approach to the Kierkegaardian Notion of Spirit through the Movement of Finitude in Dialogue with Levinas
  26. Toward an Upbuilding Metapsychology: Kierkegaard, Lacan, and the Infinite Movement
  27. Who Permits Evil? Plantinga’s Free Will Defense and Kierkegaard’s Free Spirit Offense: In Search of a Coherent Theistic Solution to the Problem of Evil
  28. Law and Gospel, Distinction and Dialectic: C.F.W. Walther, Søren Kierkegaard, and the Rich Young Ruler
  29. Revisiting the Czech Reception of Kierkegaard in Early 20th Century
  30. Kierkegaard and Religionswissenschaft: A Source- and Reception-Historical Survey (Part 1)
  31. Section 4: Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries – Sources in Translation and Commentary
  32. Section 4:   Kierkegaard’s Contemporaries – Sources in Translation and Commentary
  33. Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s “On the Principle of the Beginning of History”
  34. Heiberg’s Article on History and Kierkegaard’s Critique
  35. Backmatter
  36. Abbreviations
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