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Heiberg’s Article on History and Kierkegaard’s Critique

  • Jon Stewart 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

This article provides an introduction to Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s “On the Principle of the Beginning of History” from 1843. The Danish poet, playwright and critic attended Hegel’s lectures in Berlin in 1824 and returned to Copenhagen a convinced Hegelian. He spent the next two decades pursuing a campaign to spread the word about Hegel’s philosophy in the Kingdom of Denmark. His little-known article on history draws substantially on Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, which had been published by Heiberg’s acquaintance Eduard Gans in 1837 as a part of the complete works edition of Hegel’s writings. Kierkegaard makes Heiberg’s article the object of criticism in The Concept of Anxiety and a draft of Prefaces. In the former he claims that Heiberg’s occupation with the beginning of world history trivializes the issue of sin. In the latter he charges Heiberg with plagiarism. The present article introduces Heiberg’s article and gives an account of Kierkegaard’s criticism.

This work was produced at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. It was supported by the Agency APVV under the project “Philosophical Anthropology in the Context of Current Crises of Symbolic Structures,” APVV-20 – 0137. Jon Stewart is Senior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy of the Slovak Academy of Sciences and Visiting Professor, Universidad Panamericana, Instituto de Humanidades, Josemaría Escrivá de Balaguer 101, Aguascalientes, 20290, Mexico. I also gratefully acknowledge the help of my friend Finn Gredal Jensen from the Society for Danish Language and Literature.

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-2022-0023

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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