Volume 20, Issue 1

Kierkegaard is often regarded as an opponent of metaphysics per se. However, he not only implicitly espouses metaphysical positions, but also his understanding of existence rests upon an explicit metaphysical differentiation between being qua actuality and being qua thought, which results in a difference between actuality (Virkelighed) and reality (Realitet). I begin by analyzing an apparent contradiction between two of Kierkegaard’s statements on the relations between being and thought, which leads me both to inquire into that distinction and to retrace the roots of Kierkegaard’s account. Finally, I present Kierkegaard’s final positions and point out some of their existential consequences

We may correctly say that Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most influential Christian-religious thinkers of the modern era, but are we equally justified in categorizing his writings as foundationally religious? This paper challenges a prevailing exclusive-theological interpretation that contends that Kierkegaard principally writes from a Christian dogmatic viewpoint. I argue that Kierkegaard’s religion is better understood as an outcome of his philosophical analysis of human nature. Conclusively, we should appreciate Kierkegaard first as a philosopher, whose aim is the explication of human subjectivity, and not primarily as an orator of Christian orthodoxy

This article offers an evaluation of Climacus’ objections to the arguments for the existence of God. With one exception (the critique of the ontological argument, which seems to anticipate the contemporary logico-empiricist position), these objections are found wanting. In the first general objection, Climacus seems to jump illegitimately from the objective reality of God’s existence (or non-existence) to the subjective conviction about God’s existence (or nonexistence). In the second, one might find exceptions to Climacus’ assertion that one can never deduce the existence of persons from the facts of the palpable world. Next, the objection against the teleological argument is inconclusive, since, in my opinion, Climacus does not offer a clear structure to-or critique of-this argument. Lastly, the ethico-religious objection fails because God’s existence- even if one would accept the reality of a sensus divinitatis-is not yet transparently evident to us. Nonetheless, in Climacus’ treatment of all these objections we observe similarities with certain ideas of contemporary reformed epistemology: a skepticism with regard to natural theology, a belief in a sensus divinitatis, and a positive assessment of the role of faith as an epistemological presupposition.

Contrary to what many hold, Kierkegaard does not champion the God of classical theism. On the contrary, he criticizes the ideologies, anthropomorphisms and misleading objectifications of classical theism. He understands God not as a perfect being but as the fundamental dynamic reality of love without which nothing else could and would exist. In his view God is not a first cause or a necessary being but the infinite or eternal actuality of creative and transforming love: a love that is self-communicating and the source of all life and love in heaven and on earth

The present article aims at giving a survey of Kierkegaard’s view(s) on divine omnipotence. In addition, an attempt is made to contextualize his view by trying to incorporate it into an overall typological scheme of (mostly) current approaches to the problem. Finally, the scope, significance and viability of Kierkegaard’s account will be assessed. The article arrives at three major conclusions: (1) Kierkegaard’s view of divine omnipotence is best understood in light of (a particular reading of) the notorious claim that “all things are possible for God”; moreover, in Kierkegaard the latter gives rise to a distinction between two essential forms of omnipotence, O 1 and O 2 -O 2 being a self-coercive (on God’s part) and in fact paradoxical manifestation of O 1 . (2) Kierkegaard’s standpoint does not easily lend itself to being incorporated into the overall typological scheme. (3) The radical and strikingly novel implications of his view regarding a number of classical problems in philosophy of religion (divine omnipotence versus divine love; divine omnipotence versus human freedom; the problem of theodicy) can only be subscribed to by accepting the price of systematically “ambiguizing,” as it were, perhaps even “equivocalizing” all key terms concerned

Kierkegaard’s account of Socratic irony in The Concept of Irony is often criticized for neglecting the “positive” articulation of “mastered” irony. Scholars regularly cite the superior authority of Johannes Climacus, who, in Concluding Unscientific Postscript, chides “Magister Kierkegaard” for this precise lapse. In this essay, I develop an interpretation of Socratic irony that is faithful both to the account elaborated in The Concept of Irony and to the wider contemporaneous reception of Socratic irony. The most plausible explanation for this reception is that the irony of Socrates was exclusively negative-just as “Magister Kierkegaard” proposed in The Concept of Irony

In this article I raise the question of whether or not Kierkegaard’s earliest pseudonymous work, Either/Or, is a “religious” work, as he later claims in The Point of View for My Work as an Author. Contra Henning Fenger, Joakim Garff, and Alastair Hannay, I argue with Charles Bellinger, David Law, Robert Perkins and Joel Rasmussen that Either/Or is in fact a religious work. After giving a definition of the term “religious,” I carry this out primarily by paying close attention to the text and secondarily by an examination of what kind of vocational approach to writing Either/Or evinces, a question which Law notes has not yet been adequately addressed in Kierkegaard studies

Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous authorship is characterized by a profusion of literary techniques that belong to the tradition of the ludic or selfconscious novel (the fiction that makes its fictionality manifest). In the present contribution the self-conscious literary plays carried out by Kierkegaard will be interpreted from the perspective of the philosophy of the subject, since both the self-conscious novel and Kierkegaard’s production can be related to this philosophical tradition. The article is organized as follows: first appears a very brief sketch of the way in which self-conscious literature and the philosophy of the subject are related. After this, follows a commentary on the notion of individuality in On the Concept of Irony. Kierkegaard’s dissertation is read as a work in the tradition of the philosophy of the subject that, at the same time, surpasses the idea of subjectivity as metaphysical principle. Finally, a close reading of Either/Or intends to show how Kierkegaard develops his ideas about subjectivity in a literary frame-that of the self-conscious novel

Surprisingly little has been written about Kierkegaard’s thought in relation to the Internet in general, and Social Networking Services in particular. Scholarly discussion about Kierkegaard and the Internet has focused nearly solely on his 1846 Literary Review of Two Ages, in relation to his view on the press and the public. In this article, Kierkegaard’s category of recollection is taken into the contemporary discussion in media studies, philosophy of technology and sociology regarding the question of what it means to exist online. Recollection is presented here as a way of existing online and is discussed in relation to everyday existential encounters such as death, breakups, dating, hookups, and identity construction. The aim of this article is to offer a reading of Kierkegaard’s thought in relation to the Internet through the lens of his category of recollection

Although Rachel Bespaloff published only two short studies of Kierkegaard’s works (1934-1935), her work, some of the first critical analyses of his philosophy, had a profound impact on Kierkegaard’s reception in France. Despite the fact that she published no studies of Kierkegaard’s works after 1935, her essays and letters nevertheless attest to a continued interest in the Danish philosopher, in whom she seeks a new source for philosophy. As a Jewish intellectual writing in a historically troubled context, Bespaloff’s readings are critically engaged and question how Kierkegaard’s philosophy can be received and appropriated in the context of the 20 th century

In three short essays published in 1951 (“Kierkegaard”), 1955 (“Kierkegaard. Zu seinem 100. Todestag”) and 1964 (“Kierkegaard heute”)-later collected in the volume Aneignung und Polemik (1968)-Karl Jaspers summarizes Kierkegaard’s thought in an unusual way. The main goal of the present article is to clarify how, in Aneignung und Polemik, Jaspers indicates how Kierkegaard’s philosophy may still echo in the liquid age. In an age in which life is a stage, and seems to succumb increasingly to the power of mass media, Jaspers’ reading of Kierkegaard invites us to be ourselves and to open ourselves to the hidden sense against the despair brought about by the paradoxical combination of homogenization and solipsism. Kierkegaard’s way, he suggests, offers an authentic way to accept our own human limits. But according to Jaspers, Kierkegaard perhaps tells us something more: If in a time of destruction and transitions, philosophy seems to lose its power to illuminate human existence, this is to be laid at the door of the “original thinkers” who do not rise to the challenge of thinking the original philo-ousia, the “love towards essential being.”

During the first half of the 20th century, especially between the two world wars, the German-speaking countries experienced the so-called Kierkegaard Renaissance. Although at that time a wide range of thinkers engaged with Kierkegaard’s writings, Georg Lukács and Theodor W. Adorno argue that Kierkegaard exercised a particularly strong influence on fascist thought. Furthermore, Wilfried Greve claims that Kierkegaard was widely interpreted in the decisionist-irrationalist fashion during the Third Reich, which resulted in the appropriation of Kierkegaard by the ideologues of National Socialism, particularly by Alfred Baeumler, a leading intellectual of National Socialism, and by Emanuel Hirsch, a leading theologian of the “German Christians” movement at the time. In the present article I examine historical examples of the decisionist-irrationalist Kierkegaard interpretation. Then I discuss Carl Schmitt’s appropriation of Kierkegaard and the critical responses to it from Karl Löwith and Norbert Bolz. This discussion leads to the conclusion that the decisionist-irrationalist Kierkegaard interpretation takes on an “occasionalistic” character and thereby willy nilly renders the arbitrary or accidental content of the decision absolute. It can be maintained that this “occasionalistic” character of the decisionistirrationalist interpretation paved the way for a Kierkegaard appropriation favored by fascist ideologues in the interwar period

The developments and trajectories in modern theology cannot be fully appreciated or understood apart from reference to Kierkegaard’s thought. Given the complexities of Kierkegaard’s authorship, it is not surprising that his influence on modern theology was varied but profound. Recent contributions to Kierkegaard scholarship have shed much light on the reception of Kierkegaard in modern theology. This essay explores primary themes of that reception and analyzes significant insights gained through that collection of research for our understanding of the ambivalent but weighty influence of Kierkegaard’s thought on modern theology. The essay also provides a window into a variety of ways Kierkegaard was both appreciated and misunderstood by significant modern theologians, with some implications for how we can read Kierkegaard profitably today in theological discourse

The overall aim in this text is to make clear the relationship between Kierkegaard and Ricoeur with regard to the notion of narrative identity. Thus, I would like to demonstrate that Ricoeur’s idea of mimesis becomes highly present in Kierkegaard’s writings in the very moment one recognizes the importance of the narrative in his authorship and takes the existential implications of these narratives into account. In unfolding some of these implications, I will emphasize the crucial difference between identifying oneself with one’s own history and the individual’s identification with an extraneous story. At the end of my text, I will use Kierkegaard to articulate some conflicts implied in Ricoeur’s idea of the third mimesis and its relation to the notion of an imitatio Christi

Kierkegaard’s journals, notebooks and loose papers represent a generally neglected part of his vast corpus of writings. The present two-part article tells the story of this material from the time of Kierkegaard’s death until the creation of the new Danish edition, Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter. This first part explains the general nature of the surviving material. An account is further given of the long road that Kierkegaard’s Nachlass took from its discovery upon his death in 1855 to its current home at the Royal Library in Copenhagen. The goal is to provide little-known factual information about this large body of material and to encourage scholars to use it more frequently in their studies.

The present article explains the principles behind the different Danish editions of Kierkegaard’s Nachlass. Particular attention is given to the new Danish edition, Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter. An attempt is made to evaluate critically each of these editions and the way in which they present the materials from the Nachlass to the reader. It is argued that while Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter makes some very significant contributions, there still remain problems to be solved