Existentialism [The following material includes parts of a lecture delivered by TAAndrew Irvine in 1998.

] Contents Introduction Themes in Existentialism Sren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Existentialism (Irvine) Existentialist Themes (Irvine) Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855): The Father of Existentialism (Irvine) Themes in Kierkegaard's Thought (Irvine) Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Irvine)

Introduction Existentialism can be thought of as the twentieth-century analogue of nineteenth-century romanticism. The two movements have in common the demand that the whole fabric of life be recognized and taken into account in our thinking and acting. As such they express a form of resistance to reductionist analyses of life and its meaning for human beings. But there are also significant differences. Existentialism is typically focused on individual human lives and the poignant inevitability of suffering and choice for each individual whereas romanticism tended to be more oriented to the whole of nature and saw human beings as a part of that wider picture. Furthermore, romanticism flourished before the wars and genocides of the twentieth century whereas existentialism is born amid those horrors. From one point of view, the existentialists divide roughly between writers (most famously, perhaps, Albert Camus) and philosophers. The philosophical existentialists divide roughly between the atheistic and the religious. Sren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) ["the ultimate anti-

Christianity Christian"] is often considered to be the father of them all, but Friedrich Nietzsche ["the ultimate anti-Christ philosopher"] is a crucial figure at the origins of the developing line of atheistic existentialism. Religious existentialists included both Jews such as Martin Buber (18781965) ["the Protestant Jew"] and Christians such as Paul Tillich (1886-1965) ["the Christian crypto-atheist infatuated with Being and God"]. Other religious existentialists include Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, and Karl Rahner. The atheistic existentialists include Martin Heidegger (1889-1976) ["the non-Christian atheist infatuated with Being and time"], though he denied that he was an existentialist, and Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980) [the ultimate atheist infatuated with Being and nothingness]. It is quite a cast of characters. And the classifications make less sense the better you know them, not least because it is hard to disentangle theism and atheism in the context of existential reflection on human life. The plan here is to examine a few themes commonly treated by existentialists and then to examine the thought of Kierkegaard more closely.

Themes in Existentialism Here is a list of themes that are important in existentialism. They are not all taken up by every existentialist thinker and they are not entirely consistent with one another. But thats life, right? 1. Importance of the individual The leading question in this case is "What does it mean to be existing as a human being?" This question leads out in a number of directions.

There is a pressing question concerning what is right and wrong in a world of moral chaos.

There is the daunting issue of what constitutes a meaningful way of life in a world in which all talk of purposes has become obscure.

There is a realization that the human concerns and human experience count in a world that has proven to be mostly unknowable. This corresponds to a suspicion of the reductionistic and over-confident ways of science, philosophy, and metaphysics and also expresses continuity with the instincts of literature, poetry, and art.

The imperative to "be an individual!" takes on great importance as a way of orienting human life in a world described by these other considerations.

2. Importance of choice We see this preeminently in Kierkegaard and Nietzsche. But it is perhaps most colorfully expressed by Karl Rahner who described human beings as one giant decision (in his case, for or against God).

We are constituted by our decisions. We cannot appeal to systems of law or convention or tradition as decisively furnishing instructions for life choices; every choice has to be personally appropriated.

In fact, being human sometimes involves decisions that transcend the realm of moral and conventional concerns.

3. Anxiety regarding life, death, contingencies, and extreme situations Tillichs formulation expresses this point beautifully: he speaks of our anxiety due to the "threat of non-being." The forms of non-being are many and various and each prefigures the ultimate loss of being that is death and the ultimate contingency of being that is birth. Both the chance events and extreme situations of life make evident the threat of non-being and cuase us anxiety.

Being human is finding oneself "thrown" (Heidegger) into a world with no clear logical, ontological, or moral structure.

We hide from death, from uncertainty, from ourselves, from Being-Itself (Tillich) with enormous creativity but with self-destructive consequences.

Extreme situations make our hiding impossible and so they often become the focus for philosophical and literary reflection on human anxiety.

4. Meaning and absurdity Sartre spoke of an unfulfillable desire for complete fulfillment and thereby expressed the meaning of absurdity.

We are forced to ask ultimate questions by the very nature of our lives and by our yearning for orientation and purpose in our lives, yet decisive answers prove unachievable.

Meaning must therefore be constructed through courageous choice in the face of this absurd situation.

This kind of choice cannot be understood as achieving moral certainty; rather it is moral heroism within an essentially morally vague and chaotic world.

5. Authenticity Sartres opposition to bad-faith (or self-deception) is an example of what is meant by authenticity; perhaps Heideggers expatiation of authentic existence is one of the most complete.

We need to face up to our situation rather than making things worse with self-deceptive approaches to religion, metaphysics, morality, or science.

We need to make decisions courageously; the key to this is accepting our own limitations and realizing that we cannot achieve certainty in the making of such decisions.

We need to be honest with ourselves and each other: we must not settle for less than the actual anxiety due us!

6. Social criticism Many existentialists deconstructed social conventions and practices.

They are forms of hiding and expressions of fear and ignorance. Sartre applied this kind of analysis to religion, society, morality, politics, psychoanalysis, scientism, technology, etc.

Existentialist literature often carried out this unmasking of convention and social patterns with enormous effect (especially in the novels of Camus).

7. Importance of personal relations It must be said that the existentialist imperative to be an individual is front and center but another imperative becomes important in some existantialists (especially Buber): be an individual-incommunity!

As the pitfalls of scientism show, relations to objects in the world are deceptive; the important relations are those between people (Bubers I-Thou relation vs. I-It experience).

Creating meaning, if analyzed carefully, actually means creating and discovering relations between people.

Religious existentialists see the God-human relation as the ground of all relations between human beings.

8. Atheism and Religion Here is one of the greatest disagreements among existentialists, testifying perhaps to the inescapable vagueness of the field of life within which human beings must make decisions that create meaning. Though the nature of that field of life and its ground are dramatically contested, all existentialists hold that a decision in relation to it is the key issue for human beings.

It has been said that the world is too small for more than one free reality. This implies that either God is free or human beings are, but not both. To say that both God and human beings are free leads to intolerable problems of theodicy and contradictions while to deny to freedom to both leads to an intolerably meaningless and actually impossible world. This assumption is shared by a strange, divrse group of thinkers.

Calvin and Spinoza said human beings are determined, in order to do justice to the freedom of God.

Sartre said human beings are free, so there can be no God. It is the conviction of human freedom (and really abandonment to freedom) that drives the atheist existentialist rejection of the reality of God.

9. Religion

Religion is a deeply contested point within existentialism

While some existentialists reject the reality of God, other existentialists have no problem with God and see an appropriate tension between divine and human freedom.

However, there is some agreement: all existentialists tend to be suspicious of religion as such (meaning religious organizations and religious systems).

Religious existentialists give profound analyses of ethical and religious choices that are interestingly different from the analyses of courageous choice furnished by atheistic existentialists. For example, Kierkegaard expounded on three stages of life: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious, stressing the rational unaproachability especially of the transition from the ethical to the religious; the criterialessness of the choice to be religious is essential to the life of faith.

Sren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) Life and Works Kierkegaard wanted his tombstone to read: "Sren Kierkegaard (1813-...), That Individual." Here is a picture of the man and here is another. He has been called the father of existentialism. This is appropriate even though he lived in the first half of the nineteenth century because his influence outside of Denmark was only pronounced at the beginning of the twentieth century. Kierkegaard makes for interesting archetypal contrasts with other important thinkers, both before and after him. If Kant is the archetypal rationalist than Kierkegaard is the archetypal romantic. If Hegel is the archetypal systematician, resolving contradictions, Kierkegaard is the archtypal attender to details, relishing paradoxes. And while he shared with the atheist Nietzsche an impression of a harsh world, Kierkegaard thinks that God is the ground and end of the world and of every human longing.

The Three Stages Kierkegaards great question was always "What ought I do?" His most famous answer to the question turns on a three-fold distinction of stages on lifes way.

The first stage is the aesthetic, the quest for sensual and intellectual pleasure. This eventually leads to boredom and then suicide, however, so there is an impulse to move to a form of life in which there is a conception of oughtness.

The second stage is thus the moral in which we freely align ourselves with the moral law, determined to be good. Hegel tried to synthesize the moral life and the aesthetic life but this is actually the highest form of aestheticism. Kierkegaard argued that a jump is involved in moving from one to the other and that we must simply choose.

The third stage is the religious in which we must be open to a teleological suspension of the ethical. In the religious life, divine command is paramount and true love for God is expressed in the willingness to set aside moral habits and respond to the divine command.

Whereas Kant took everything, even God, to be consistent with the moral imperative (this is really his definition of rationality), Kierkegaard argued that the divine command is rationally unapproachable; we must just do it. The contrast between the moral and religious stages is movingly expressed in the discussion of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trmbling. Abraham becomes for Kirkegaard the one whose life of faith (the religious stage) transcends moral categories through obedience to God (even divine whims). The movement from the aesthetic to the ethical to the religious is premised on a vision of the holiness, the unaproachability of God; morality derives from God, it does not rule God. This has a very Lutheran, and actually Scotist, accent. God has set us in a situation in which these choices (particularly regarding the second movement) cannot be made rationally but are finally criterialess; this is essential to the life of faith. This is the brutal situation of human life and draws our attention to the fundamental character of decision: ones very soul depends upon it.

Existentialism (Irvine) Who Am I? Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my cells confinement Calmly, cheerfully, firmly, Like a squire from his country-house. Who am I? They often tell me I would talk to my warders Freely and friendly and clearly, As though it were mine to command. Who am I? They also tell me I would bear the days of misfortune Equably, smilingly, proudly, Like one accustomed to win. Am I then really all that which other men tell of? Or am I only what I know of myself, Restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage, Struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat, Yearning for colours, for flowers, for the voices of birds, Thirsting for words of kindness, for neighbourliness, Trembling with anger at despotisms and petty humiliation, Tossing in expectation of great events, Powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance, Weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making, Faint, and ready to say farewell to it all? Who am I? This or the other? Am I one person today, and tomorrow another? Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,

And before myself a contemptibly woebegone weakling? Or is something within me still like a beaten army, Fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved? Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine. Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, 1944 What is Existentialism? Professor Wildman has remarked that: Existentialism can be thought of as the twentieth century analogue of nineteenth-century romanticism. The two movements have in common the demand that the whole fabric of life be recognized and taken into account in our thinking and acting. As such, they express a form of resistance to reductionistic analyses of life and its meaning for human beings. But there are also significant differences. Existentialism is typically focused on individual human lives and the poignant inevitability6 of suffering and choice for each individual whereas romanticism tended to be more oriented to the whole of nature and saw human beings as a part of that wider picture. Furthermore, romanticism flourished before the wars and genocides of the twentieth century whereas existentialism flourished amid those horrors (Wesley J. Wildman, Existentialism, unpublished notes, 1996). John Macquarrie has characterized existentialism as a style of philosophizing, rather than as a philosophy (John Macquarrie, Existentialism (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1972), 2). His intention is to recognize that a diversity of ideas, emphases, and conclusions are to be found among a group of various thinkers who, nevertheless, have enough in common in the way they think to warrant naming them together. Typically, existentialists take the existing human being as a starting point. The existing human being is distinct from objective nature as a whole because she is a subject, undetermined by laws of nature. She is distinct from previous modern, Western philosophical conceptions of the subject (e.g., the Cartesian) because she is subjective not just as a thinker but as one who acts. Again, she is distinct because she is preoccupied with the problematic finitude of her existing way of being. This last distinction is key. Existence

understood as a distinctive way of being, is the common and fundamental concern of these thinkers. What does it mean to be an existing human being? Existentialism has had at least as much impact through the arts, especially literature, as it has through philosophy. Albert Camus, author of LEtranger (The Stranger) and La Peste (The Plague), among other novels, is perhaps the most famous of the existentialist artists. Jean-Paul Sartre won Nobel Prizes in philosophy and literature. La Nause (Nausea) is probably his best known work of fiction. For the interests of this class, philosophical existentialism may be roughly divided into irreligious and religious existentialism. However it is very difficult to delineate exactly where the division should be drawn. Macquarrie calls Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), the great Christian existentialist (ibid., 6). Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed AntiChrist, (though his sense of his own relationship to Christianity is remarkably complex and deep), is a crucial figure in the development of existentialism, too. Other religious existentialists include Martin Buber, the Jewish philosopher, and Christian theologians Paul Tillich and Karl Rahner. Gabriel Marcel and Karl Jaspers also line up in the religious camp. Sartre, and the German, Martin Heidegger, are explicitly atheistic in their philosophical work, although the role of Heideggers atheism in his life as a whole is an important topic among some students of his work.

Existentialist Themes (Irvine) Freedom and the necessity to choose To be an existing human being means to be free. In contrast with most everything else in the world, a human being is not determined by laws of nature. The human being has a unique freedom to determine his or her own behavior. However, this freedom is in itself a kind of determination which we cannot escape. We are condemned to freedom. For the great majority, this tension is too great. As the pop group, Devo, put it in the 1980s, Freedom of choice is what youve got. Freedom from choice is what you want.

The lack of norms, and anxiety Nature is an arena of facts, but the arena of human freedom is where norms and values feature. However, since nature does not supply them, our freedom is a freedom to make values and norms by which we will abide. The weight of this responsibility produces anxiety, also known as angst, or dread. For Kierkegaard, this is closely related to the guilt of a sinful existence. Meaning and absurdity Knowing that we are the ones who make the meaning of our lives also creates a tension when it comes to the validity of those meanings. There is a kind of bleak absurdity to the prospect of committing our lives to vales and meanings that we know ourselves to have invented. Self-deception and authenticity Nevertheless, to hide from the knowledge of our freedom and pass off our responsibility onto other people, ideas or institutions as if they can take care of our anxiety and absurdity is to engage in bad faith, to use a term used by Sartre. To exist as a human being means to be willing to take up the challenge of ones freedom. There is no exit (the title of one of Sartres plays) by which we could get ourselves off the hook. The individual and they The demand for authenticity also has a social and a political dimension. Some existentialists have been extremely individualistic, while some have been involved in liberation movements. Again, consider Sartre: his comment that, hell is other people is famous, as is his active support of the Algerian struggle for independence from France. Heidegger characterized the threat to authentic existence as they: for example, they say one should always floss before bedtime who is they, really, and who is one? Where is the actual, existing person. On the other hand, Buber argued that authentic existence was impossible without a serious relationship with other persons. Irreligion and religion

The viability of religion is a contested matter among existentialists. Sartre argued that the existence of a God who was free, and so religiously interesting, would entail the cancellation of human freedom; but humans are free, therefore God does not exist. Others saw God as the ultimate Thou who, by engaging in relationship with us, could give authentic meaning to our otherwise absurd existence. Tillich was sympathetic to such a position.

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855): The Father of Existentialism (Irvine) Kierkegaard is often considered the father of existentialism. Although he was active primarily in the first half of the nineteenth century, and dead shortly after it, he gained a sizeable audience outside his native Denmark only in our century. SK was the youngest son of Mikael Kierkegaard, a quite wealthy merchant, and Anne Lund. His father was an important influence in his early childhood, inculcating expectations of intellectual depth, theatrical flair and emotive pietist religion. SK was academically gifted, but his appearanceskinny, awkward, and apparently with some spinal deformationmade him the victim of childrens cruelty. He could give as good as he got, though. Stories suggest he could reduce a bully to tears with verbal jibes and derision. SKs youthful intention was to become a Lutheran pastor. He enrolled in theology at the University of Copenhagen in 1830. There, he encountered the Hegelian system, which reigned in Danish theological and philosophical circles at the time. The philosophy of Hegel is one of the most powerful intellectual influences upon SKs own thought. He often referred to it as simply, The System. He was deeply attracted to it at first, but came to be deeply offended by what he took to be its ignorance and disdain for a truth which is true for me, the idea for which I can live and die (Journal, Aug. 1, 1835). By the time his own writing career began, in 1841, the Systems influence was primarily as a peerless example of human arrogance and farce. However, the state-supported Danish Lutheran Church also failed to satisfy SKs want of a truth that was true for him. Desperate, going against the philosophical mode and religiously estranged from his

father, SK commenced a period of rebellious, rakish living in Copenhagen. He found neither liberty nor consolation in this. Thus commenced a gradual return to Christianity. On his 25th birthday he thoroughly reconciled with his father, and a few days later had some kind of conversion experience. Shortly after these events his father died. SK resolved to return to the University and complete his studies in order to become a pastor. His Masters thesis, The Concept of Irony, gives an indication of SKs abilities. It was written ironically as well as being about irony. One of the readers commented to the effect that it was, perhaps, the most brilliant work he had ever read, and he hoped he would never see anything like it again. Three highly public episodes in SKs life should be noted. The first is his relationship with Regina Olsen. In 1840, SK completed his degree and became engaged to Regina. However, he almost at once discovered a doubt about the fitness of the marriage. He came to believe that the marriage had received a divine veto, and eventuallyalmost a year after the engagement, returned the ring to her. Regina was unconvinced of his sincerity, and for two months, SK sought to break her attachment to him by misrepresenting himself as a scoundrel who had abused Regines affection. Only in this way, he believed, could he be sure to give her the strength to make her own way after such humiliation. Yet, he, too, hoped against hope that a marriage might yet be possible, and the argument of Fear and Trembling, one of two works written during those two months, reflects SKs passionate hope. He attributed his poetic vocation to Regina, and it was a poetic madness equaled by very few writers. His output, in volume and creativity, is prodigious. Some Kierkegaard scholars claim that he wrote himself to death (Anthony Imbrosciano, personal communication). The editors of Concluding Unscientific Postscript describe an example of his literary feats: [Concluding Unscientific Postscript] appeared February 28, 1846, scarcely twenty-one months after the triple publication of [Philosophical] Fragments (June 13, 1844), The Concept of Anxiety (June 17, 1844), and Prefaces (June 17, 1844). According to the statement in Fragments, the copious clothed counterpart that eventually became Postscript was obviously on the agenda, and to write such a substantial work [over 600 pages in the current English edition] would scarcely constitute literary loitering. To maintain the appearance of an idler, however, in order to aid in masking the pseudonymity begun with Either/Or, Kierkegaard, while writingPostscript and other works, continued to be Copenhagens premier peripatetic, made a

journey to Berlin, and averaged an excursion to points on Sjaelland about every ten days. There were also three intervening publications. In addition, the writing of Two Ages was begun late in 1845. Despite the brevity of time and the amazingly prolific productivity during that period of twenty-one months, the writing of Postscript involved sketches, a preliminary draft, a second draft, and a final copy. (SK (Johannes Climacus), Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, vol. II, ed. and trans. Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong with introduction and notes (Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press, 1992), vii-viii.) SK loved the street-life of Copenhagen, and was undoubtedly the most-widely known person in the city. But after publishing a short, critical piece on a popular weekly, The Corsair, in 1845, this enjoyment would be poisoned. He was relentlessly and mercilessly mocked and ridiculed, to the point that even in the countryside, former acquaintances retreated from him in suspicion or flung at him mockery and scorn. The Corsair was little else than a sophisticated scandal-sheet (Mark C. Taylor, Kierkegaard, Encyclopedia of Religion) at the best of times, and the fact that none of Copenhagens educated elite gave any support to SK, deepened his alienation from the Danish bourgeoisie. The affair marked a turning-point, away from pseudonymous writing to concentrate on a Christian authorship written in his own name, and a vehement public protest against Christendom. As part of this attack, SK sat outside churches on Sundays, reading the newspaper, and remonstrating with people not to go in. In 1855, SK collapsed in the street after delivering what proved to be the final issue of his magazine, The Moment, to the printer. He died a few weeks later, affirming his strong Christian faith but refusing to receive communion from a priest of the Danish church. He wished that his epitaph say of him only, That Individual. His wish was denied.

Themes in Kierkegaard's Thought (Irvine) Genesis 22: 1-8.

Is Abraham a great soul, a beautiful soul? Is he perhaps a tragic ethical hero? Or is he something else instead? Fides quaerens intellectum SK has been criticizedor laudedby a number of commentators who call him an antiphilosopher. In the relation between theology and philosophy, SK may be considered as an opponent of the tradition of faith seeking understanding in this respect, that SK rejects any claim that it is possible to go beyond faith, that philosophical understanding can add anything to faith. This is basic to his disagreement with Hegel. Louis Pojman has argued that SK is not an antiphilosopher, that he does in fact have a positive conception of the role of philosophy in demonstrating some truths (Louis P. Pojman, The Logic of Subjectivity: Kierkegaards Philosophy of Religion (University, Alabama: The University of Alabama Press, 1984)). However, he also insists upon that role as involving the demonstration of the limits of reason, a debt linking SK to Kants epistemological position (Xxxxx, Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt). Yet, Kierkegaard also disagrees with Kants decision to make the ethical the supreme expression of religious existence. In Concluding Unscientific Postscript, the pseudonymous Johannes Climacus describes three stages of human development and possibility. This book is one of SKs finest statements of an answer to the great existential question, what ought I to do? The three stages are the aesthetic, the ethical and the religious. The Aesthetic Stage In Hegelian speculation, morality and religion are partial recognitions of the movement of Spirit towards its final and absolute self-realization. Philosophy grasps Geist truly and completely, in the form of the absolute concept. The concept, strictly speaking, is neither a moral principle or stance, nor a religious belief or faith, but the content of consciousness that is conscious of itself. The System is reprehensible in SKs view because it dissolves the concreteness of individual existence, characterized by the necessity to choose. In its stead, the System claims to understand everything in its entirety. SK castigates this as the most dishonest, most comical pretense of the aesthetic way of living. The aesthete cares only about detached, objective

enjoyment, free from any responsibility to actually engage with his existence as such. But existence cannot be detached and indifferent: Existence itself is a systemfor God, but it cannot be a system for any existing (existerende) spirit. Existence is the spacing that holds apart; the systematic is the conclusiveness that combines (SK, Postscript, 118). Within the spacing of existence lies the comical aspect of Hegels philosophy: By beginning straightway with ethical categories against the objective tendency, one does wrong and fails to hit the mark, because one has nothing in common with the attacked. But by remaining within the metaphysical, one can employ the comic, which also is in the metaphysical sphere, in order to overtake such a transfigured professor. If a dancer could leap very high, we would admire him, but if he wanted to give the impression that he could flyeven though he could leap higher than any dancer had ever leapt beforelet laughter overtake him. Leaping means to belong essentially to the earth and to respect the law of gravity so that the leap is merely the momentary, but flying means to be set free from telluric conditions, something that is reserved exclusively for winged creatures, perhaps also for inhabitants of the moon, perhaps and perhaps that is also where the system will at long last find its true readers (ibid., 124). Hegel claims to objectively understand a conceptual necessity that explains everything in the unfolding saga of Spirits progress. SK counters that concepts are mere possibilities unless they are actualized by some individuals subjective decision, and decision as such cannot proceed from understanding but must be a matter of passion. Hegels achievement is monumental, but he has absentmindedly forgottenhimself, his own subjective opposition to the universal, objective system he has made. The system denies the true foundation of decision in absolute, irremediably finite, individual subjectivity: [W]hat is existence for but to be laughed at if men in their twenties have already attained the utmost? And for all that, what loftier emotion has the age found since men gave up entering the monastery? Is it not a pitiable prudence, shrewdness, faintheartedness, it has found, which sits in high places and cravenly makes men believe they have accomplished the greatest things and insidiously withholds them from attempting to do even the lesser things? (SK (Johannes de Silentio), Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death, trans. With introduction and notes by Walter Lowrie (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1954), 110.)

The Ethical Stage An actual aesthete find that her existence leads to boredom and eventually suicide, so there is an impulse to move to a form of life in which there is a concept of oughtness to discipline the aesthetes pleasure. This concept marks the ethical stage. It cannot be attained as a natural development out of the aesthetic stage, but involves a leap. SK understands ethics under Kants influence. The ethical as such is the universal, and the goal of the ethical form of life is to reconcile, or resign, the individual and particular to the universal. Compare this with Kants formulation of the condition of possibility of ethical action: Act only on that maxim which one could will to be a universal law. However, as mentioned above, the ethical is not the highest stage in Kierkegaards assessment. Whereas Kant took everything, even God, to be consistent with the moral imperative Kierkegaard argued that the divine command is rationally unapproachable; we must just do it (Wildman). The Religious Stage A movement into the religious form of life from the ethical is not possible, because the ethical life is one of reconciliation between the individual and the universal. The ethical persons existence is mediated through the universal. SK analyzes religiousness in two forms, in the Postscript, but we shall limit ourselves to considering the distinctive character of true religious life, which is faith. The ethical life is one of reconciliation. The life of faith is a life in paradox. According to Johannes de Silentio: The paradox of faith is this, that the individual is higher than the universal, that the individual (to recall a dogmatic distinction now rather seldom heard) determines his relation to the universal by his relation to the absolute, not his relation to the absolute by his relation to the universal. The paradox can also be expressed by saying that there is an absolute duty toward God. (Fear and Trembling, 80) Faith involves a teleological suspension of the ethical. Abraham:

 acts by virtue of the absurd, for it is precisely absurd that he as the particular is higher than the universal. This paradox cannot be mediated; for as soon as he begins to do this he has to admit that he was in temptation, and if such was the case, he never gets to the point of sacrificing Isaac, or, if he has sacrificed Isaac, he must turn back repentantly to the universal. By virtue of the absurd he gets Isaac again. Abraham is therefore at no instant a tragic hero but something quite different, either a murderer of a believer (ibid., 67). Truth is Subjectivity The conclusions of passion are the only reliable ones, that is, the only convincing ones (ibid., 109). Faith is the highest passion in a man. There are perhaps many in every generation who do not reach it, but no one gets further (ibid., 131).Becoming a Christian. The existing person who chooses the subjective way instantly comprehends the whole dialectical difficulty because he must use some time, perhaps a long time, to find God objectively. He comprehends this dialectical difficulty in all its pain, because he must resort to God at that very moment, because every moment in which he does not have God is wasted. At that very moment he has God, not by virtue of any objective deliberation but by virtue of the infinite passion of inwardness (Postscript, 200). Truth is, an objective uncertainty, held fast through appropriation with the most passionate inwardness (ibid., 203). With regard to the essential truth, a direct relation between spirit and spirit is unthinkable. If such a relation is assumed, it actually means that one party has ceased ton be spirit, something that is not borne in mind by many a genius who both assists people en masse into the truth and is goodnatured enough to think that applause, willingness to listen, signatures, etc. mean accepting the truth. Just as important as the truth, and of the two the even more important one, is the mode in which the truth is accepted, and it is of slight help if one gets millions to accept the truth if by the very mode of their acceptance they are transposed into untruth (ibid., 247).

Concluding Unscientific Postscript (Irvine) Everything I have said today about Kierkegaard, about his thought, is a lie.

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Existentialism From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia "Existential" redirects here. For logical sense of the term, see Existential quantification.

From left to right, top to bottom:Kierkegaard, Dostoyevsky, Nietzsche,Sartre

Existentialism is generally considered to be the philosophical and cultural movement which holds that the starting point of philosophical thinking must be the individual and the experiences of the individual, that moral thinking and scientific thinking together do not suffice to understand human existence, and, therefore, that a further set of categories, governed by the norm of authenticity, is necessary to understand human existence.[1][2][3](Authenticity, in the context of existentialism, is being true to one's own personality, spirit, orcharacter.)[4] Existentialism began in the mid-19th century as a reaction against then-dominant systematic philosophies, with Sren Kierkegaard generally considered to be the first existentialist philosopher.[3][5][6] Opposed to Hegelianism and Kantianism,[3][6] Kierkegaard posited that it is the individual who is solely responsible for giving meaning to life and for living lifepassionately and sincerely.[7][8] Existentialism became popular in the years following World War II and influenced a range of disciplines besides philosophy, including theology, drama, art, literature, and psychology.[9] Existentialists generally regard traditional systematic or academic philosophies, in both style and content, as too abstract and remote from concrete human experience.[10][11] Scholars generally consider the views of existentialist philosophers to be profoundly different from one another relative to those of other philosophies.[3][12][13] Criticisms of existentialist philosophers include the assertions that they confuse their use of terminology and contradict themselves.[14][15][16] Contents [hide]

1 Definitional issues 2 Concepts

o o o

2.1 Existence precedes essence 2.2 The Absurd 2.3 Facticity

o o o o

2.4 Authenticity 2.5 The Other and the Look 2.6 Angst 2.7 Despair

3 Opposition to positivism and rationalism 4 Existentialism and religion 5 Existentialism and nihilism 6 Etymology 7 History
o

7.1 19th century

7.1.1 Kierkegaard and Nietzsche 7.1.2 Dostoyevsky

o o

7.2 Early 20th century 7.3 After the Second World War

8 Influence outside philosophy

o

8.1 Art

8.1.1 Film and television 8.1.2 Literature 8.1.3 Theatre

8.2 Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy

9 Criticisms
o o

9.1 General criticisms 9.2 Sartre's philosophy

10 See also 11 Notes 12 References 13 Further reading 14 External links [edit]Definitional issues

There has never been general agreement on the definition of the term. The first prominent existentialist philosopher to adopt the term as a self-description was JeanPaul Sartre. Existentialism as a term, therefore, has been applied to many philosophers in hindsight. According to philosopher Steven Crowell, defining existentialism has therefore been relatively difficult, and argues that it is better understood as a general approach used to reject certain systematic philosophies rather than as a systematic philosophy.[3] [edit]Concepts [edit]Existence precedes essence Main article: Existence precedes essence A central proposition of existentialism is that existence precedes essence, which means that the most important consideration for the individual is the fact that he or she is an individualan independently acting and responsible conscious being ("existence") rather than what labels, roles, stereotypes, definitions, or other preconceived categories the individual fits ("essence"). The actual life of the individual is what constitutes what could be called his or her "true essence" instead of there being an arbitrarily attributed essence used by others to define him or her. Thus, human beings, through their own consciousness, create their own values and determine a meaning to their life.[17] Although it was Sartre who explicitly coined the phrase, similar notions can be found in the thought of existentialist philosophers such as Kierkegaard and Heidegger. It is often claimed in this context that a person defines himself or herself, which is often perceived as stating that they can wish to be somethinganything, a bird, for instanceand then be it. According to most existentialist philosophers, however, this would constitute an inauthentic existence. Instead, the phrase should be taken to say that the person is (1) defined only insofar as he or she acts and (2) that he or she is responsible for his or her actions. For example, someone who acts cruelly towards other people is, by that act, defined as a cruel person. Furthermore, by this action of cruelty, such persons are themselves responsible for their new identity (a cruel person). This is as opposed to their genes, or 'human nature', bearing the blame.

As Sartre writes it in his work Existentialism is a Humanism: "man first of all exists, encounters himself, surges up in the world and defines himself afterwards." Of course, the more positive, therapeutic aspect of this is also implied: A person can choose to act in a different way, and to be a good person instead of a cruel person. Here it is also clear that since humans can choose to be either cruel or good, they are, in fact, neither of these things essentially.[18] [edit]The Absurd Main article: Absurdism The notion of the Absurd contains the idea that there is no meaning to be found in the world beyond what meaning we give to it. This meaninglessness also encompasses the amorality or "unfairness" of the world. This contrasts with "karmic" ways of thinking in which "bad things don't happen to good people"; to the world, metaphorically speaking, there is no such thing as a good person or a bad thing; what happens happens, and it may just as well happen to a "good" person as to a "bad" person. Because of the world's absurdity, at any point in time, anything can happen to anyone, and a tragic event could plummet someone into direct confrontation with the Absurd. The notion of the absurd has been prominent in literature throughout history. Many of the literary works of Sren Kierkegaard, Franz Kafka, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Albert Camus contain descriptions of people who encounter the absurdity of the world. It is in relation to the concept of the devastating awareness of meaninglessness that Albert Camus claimed that "there is only one truly serious philosophical problem, and that is suicide" in his The Myth of Sisyphus. Although "prescriptions" against the possibly deleterious consequences of these kinds of encounters vary, from Kierkegaard's religious "stage" to Camus' insistence on persevering in spite of absurdity, the concern with helping people avoid living their lives in ways that put them in the perpetual danger of having everything meaningful break down is common to most existentialist philosophers. The possibility of having everything meaningful break down poses a threat of quietism, which is inherently against the existentialist philosophy.[19] It has been said that the possibility of suicide makes all humans existentialists. [20]

[edit]Facticity Main article: Facticity Facticity is a concept defined by Sartre in Being and Nothingness as that "in-itself" of which humans are in the mode of not being. This can be more easily understood when considering it in relation to the temporal dimension of past: One's past is what one is in the sense that it co-constitutes oneself. However, to say that one is only one's past would be to ignore a large part of reality (the present and the future), while saying that one's past is only what one was would entirely detach it from them now. A denial of one's own concrete past constitutes an inauthentic lifestyle, and the same goes for all other kinds of facticity (having a body (e.g. one that doesn't allow a person to run faster than the speed of sound), identity, values, etc.). Facticity is both a limitation and a condition of freedom. It is a limitation in that a large part of one's facticity consists of things one couldn't have chosen (birthplace, etc.), but a condition in the sense that one's values most likely will depend on it. However, even though one's facticity is "set in stone" (as being past, for instance), it cannot determine a person: The value ascribed to one's facticity is still ascribed to it freely by that person. As an example, consider two men, one of whom has no memory of his past and the other remembers everything. They have both committed many crimes, but the first man, knowing nothing about this, leads a rather normal life while the second man, feeling trapped by his own past, continues a life of crime, blaming his own past for "trapping" him in this life. There is nothing essential about his committing crimes, but he ascribes this meaning to his past. However, to disregard one's facticity when one, in the continual process of selfmaking, projects oneself into the future, would be to put oneself in denial of oneself, and would thus be inauthentic. In other words, the origin of one's projection will still have to be one's facticity, although in the mode of not being it (essentially). Another aspect of facticity is that it entails angst, both in the sense that freedom "produces" angst when limited by facticity, and in the sense that the lack of the possibility of having facticity to "step in" for one to take responsibility for something one has done also produces angst.

What is not implied in this account of existential freedom, however, is that one's values are immutable; a consideration of one's values may cause one to reconsider and change them. A consequence of this fact is that one is responsible for not only one's actions, but also the values one holds. This entails that a reference to common values doesn't excuse the individual's actions: Even though these are the values of the society of which the individual is part, they are also her/his own in the sense that she/he could choose them to be different at any time. Thus, the focus on freedom in existentialism is related to the limits of the responsibility one bears as a result of one's freedom: the relationship between freedom and responsibility is one of interdependency, and a clarification of freedom also clarifies that for which one is responsible. The existentialist concept of freedom is often misunderstood as meaning that anything is possible and where values are inconsequential to choice and action. This interpretation of the concept is often related to the insistence on the absurdity of the world and the assumption that there exist no relevant or absolutely good or bad values. However, that there are no values to be found in the world in-itself does not mean that there are no values: We are usually brought up with certain values, and even though we cannot justify them ultimately, they will be "our" values. [edit]Authenticity Main article: Authenticity The theme of authentic existence is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is often taken to mean that one has to "find oneself" and then live in accordance with this self. What is meant by authenticity is that in acting, one should act as oneself, not as One acts or as one's genes or any other essence requires. The authentic act is one that is in accordance with one's freedom. Of course, as a condition of freedom is facticity, this includes one's facticity, but not to the degree that this facticity can in any way determine one's choices (in the sense that one could then blame one's background for making the choice one made). The role of facticity in relation to authenticity involves letting one's actual values come into play when one makes a choice (instead of, like Kierkegaard's Aesthete, "choosing" randomly), so that one also takes responsibility for

the act instead of choosing either-or without allowing the options to have different values. In contrast to this, the inauthentic is the denial to live in accordance with one's freedom. This can take many forms, from pretending choices are meaningless or random, through convincing oneself that some form of determinism is true, to a sort of "mimicry" where one acts as "One should." How "One" should act is often determined by an image one has of how one such as oneself (say, a bank manager, lion tamer, prostitute, etc.) acts. This image usually corresponds to some sort of social norm, but this does not mean that all acting in accordance with social norms is inauthentic: The main point is the attitude one takes to one's own freedom and responsibility, and the extent to which one acts in accordance with this freedom. [edit]The Other and the Look Main article: Other The Other (when written with a capital "o") is a concept more properly belonging to phenomenology and its account of intersubjectivity. However, the concept has seen widespread use in existentialist writings, and the conclusions drawn from it differ slightly from the phenomenological accounts. The experience of the Other is the experience of another free subject who inhabits the same world as a person does. In its most basic form, it is this experience of the Other that constitutes intersubjectivity and objectivity. To clarify, when one experiences someone else, and this Other person experiences the world (the same world that a person experiences), only from "over there", the world itself is constituted as objective in that it is something that is "there" as identical for both of the subjects; a person experiences the other person as experiencing the same as he or she does. This experience of the Other's look is what is termed the Look (sometimes the Gaze). While this experience, in its basic phenomenological sense, constitutes the world as objective, and oneself as objectively existing subjectivity (one experiences oneself as seen in the Other's Look in precisely the same way that one experiences the Other as seen by him, as subjectivity), in existentialism, it also acts as a kind of limitation of one's freedom. This is because the Look tends to objectify what it sees. As such, when one

experiences oneself in the Look, one doesn't experience oneself as nothing (no thing), but as something. Sartre's own example of a man peeping at someone through a keyhole can help clarify this: at first, this man is entirely caught up in the situation he is in; he is in a pre-reflexive state where his entire consciousness is directed at what goes on in the room. Suddenly, he hears a creaking floorboard behind him, and he becomes aware of himself as seen by the Other. He is thus filled with shame for he perceives himself as he would perceive someone else doing what he was doing, as a Peeping Tom. The Look is then co-constitutive of one's facticity. Another characteristic feature of the Look is that no Other really needs to have been there: It is quite possible that the creaking floorboard was nothing but the movement of an old house; the Look isn't some kind of mystical telepathic experience of the actual way the other sees one (there may also have been someone there, but he could have not noticed that the person was there). It is only one'sperception of the way another might perceive him. The concept of the 'Other' has been most comprehensively used by feminist existentialist Simone de Beauvoir. She used this concept in great detail in her feminist book "The Second Sex" to show how, despite women's sincere efforts at proving themselves as human beings firmly established in their own rights, men continue to relegate to them a status of a lower, inferior "other". It is in this context that this feministexistential term has to be understood. [edit]Angst Main article: Angst "Existential angst", sometimes called dread, anxiety or even anguish, is a term that is common to many existentialist thinkers. It is generally held to be a negative feeling arising from the experience of human freedom and responsibility. The archetypal example is the experience one has when standing on a cliff where one not only fears falling off it, but also dreads the possibility of throwing oneself off. In this experience that "nothing is holding me back", one senses the lack of anything that predetermines one to either throw oneself off or to stand still, and one experiences one's own freedom.

It can also be seen in relation to the previous point how angst is before nothing, and this is what sets it apart from fear that has an object. While in the case of fear, one can take definitive measures to remove the object of fear, in the case of angst, no such "constructive" measures are possible. The use of the word "nothing" in this context relates both to the inherent insecurity about the consequences of one's actions, and to the fact that, in experiencing one's freedom as angst, one also realizes that one will be fully responsible for these consequences; there is no thing in a person (his or her genes, for instance) that acts in her or his stead, and that he or she can "blame" if something goes wrong. Not every choice is perceived as having dreadful possible consequences (and, it can be claimed, human lives would be unbearable if every choice facilitated dread), but that doesn't change the fact that freedom remains a condition of every action. One of the most extensive treatments of the existentialist notion of Angst is found in Sren Kierkegaard's monumental work Begrebet Angest. [edit]Despair Main article: Despair Commonly defined as a loss of hope.[21] Despair in existentialism is more specifically related to the reaction to a breakdown in one or more of the defining qualities of one's self or identity. If a person is invested in being a particular thing, such as a bus driver or an upstanding citizen, and then finds his being-thing compromised, he would normally be found in state of despaira hopeless state. For example, a singer who loses her ability to sing may despair if she has nothing else to fall back on, nothing on which to rely for her identity. She finds herself unable to be what defined her being. What sets the existentialist notion of despair apart from the conventional definition is that existentialist despair is a state one is in even when he isn't overtly in despair. So long as a person's identity depends on qualities that can crumble, he is considered to be in perpetual despair. And as there is, in Sartrean terms, no human essence found in conventional reality on which to constitute the individual's sense of identity, despair is a universal human condition. As Kierkegaard defines it in his Either/or: "Let each one learn what he can; both of us can learn that a persons unhappiness never lies in his

lack of control over external conditions, since this would only make him completely unhappy."[22] In Works of Love, he said: When the God-forsaken worldliness of earthly life shuts itself in complacency, the confined air develops poison, the moment gets stuck and stands still, the prospect is lost, a need is felt for a refreshing, enlivening breeze to cleanse the air and dispel the poisonous vapors lest we suffocate in worldliness. ... Lovingly to hope all things is the opposite of despairingly to hope nothing at all. Love hopes all things yet is never put to shame. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of the good is to hope. To relate oneself expectantly to the possibility of evil is to fear. By the decision to choose hope one decides infinitely more than it seems, because it is an eternal decision. p. 246-250 [edit]Opposition to positivism and rationalism See also: Positivism and Rationalism Existentialists oppose definitions of human beings as primarily rational, and, therefore, oppose positivism and rationalism. Existentialism asserts that people actually make decisions based on the meaning to them rather than rationally. The rejection of reason as the source of meaning is a common theme of existentialist thought, as is the focus on the feelings of anxiety and dread that we feel in the face of our own radical freedom and our awareness of death. Kierkegaard advocated rationality as means to interact with the objective world (e.g. in the natural sciences), but when it comes to existential problems, reason is insufficient: "Human reason has boundaries".[23] Like Kierkegaard, Sartre saw problems with rationality, calling it a form of "bad faith", an attempt by the self to impose structure on a world of phenomena "the Other" that is fundamentally irrational and random. According to Sartre, rationality and other forms of bad faith hinder people from finding meaning in freedom. To try to suppress their feelings of anxiety and dread, people confine themselves within everyday experience, Sartre asserts, thereby relinquishing their freedom and acquiescing to being possessed in one form or another by "the Look" of "the Other" (i.e. possessed by another person or at least one's idea of that other person).

[edit]Existentialism and religion See also: Atheistic existentialism, Christian existentialism, and Jewish existentialism An existentialist reading of the Bible would demand that the reader recognize that he is an existing subject studying the words more as a recollection of possible events. This is in contrast to looking at a collection of "truths" that are outside and unrelated to the reader, but may develop a sense of reality/God.[24] Such a reader is not obligated to follow the commandments as if an external agent is forcing them upon him, but as though they are inside him and guiding him from inside. This is the task Kierkegaard takes up when he asks: "Who has the more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a meteor's distance from everyday life-or the learner who should put it to use?"[25] [edit]Existentialism and nihilism See also: Existential nihilism Although nihilism and existentialism are distinct philosophies, they are often confused with one another. A primary cause of confusion is that Friedrich Nietzsche is an important philosopher in both fields, but also the existentialist insistence on the absurd and the inherent meaninglessness of the world. Existentialist philosophers often stress the importance of Angst as signifying the absolute lack of any objective ground for action, a move that is often reduced to a moral or an existential nihilism. A pervasive theme in the works of existentialist philosophy, however, is to persist through encounters with the absurd, as seen in Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus ("One must imagine Sisyphus happy"),[26] and it is only very rarely that existentialist philosophers dismiss morality or one's self-created meaning: Kierkegaard regained a sort of morality in the religious (although he wouldn't himself agree that it was ethical; the religious suspends the ethical), and Sartre's final words in Being and Nothingness are "All these questions, which refer us to a pure and not an accessory (or impure) reflection, can find their reply only on the ethical plane. We shall devote to them a future work."[27] [edit]Etymology

The term "existentialism" was coined by the French philosopher Gabriel Marcel in the mid-1940s.[28][29][30] It was adopted by Jean-Paul Sartre who, on October 29, 1945, discussed his own existentialist position in a lecture to the Club Maintenant in Paris. The lecture was published as L'existentialisme est un humanisme (Existentialism is a Humanism), a short book that did much to popularize existentialist thought.[31] Some scholars argue that the term should be used only to refer to the cultural movement in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s associated with the works of the philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Albert Camus.[3] Other scholars extend the term to Kierkegaard, and yet others extend it as far back as Socrates.[32] However, the term is often identified with the philosophical views of Jean-Paul Sartre.[3] [edit]History [edit]19th century [edit]Kierkegaard and Nietzsche Main article: Sren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche See also: Sren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche Sren Kierkegaard and Friedrich Nietzsche were two of the first philosophers considered fundamental to the existentialist movement, though neither used the term "existentialism" and it is unclear whether they would have supported the existentialism of the 20th century. They focused on subjective human experience rather than the objective truths of mathematics and science, which they believed were too detached or observational to truly get at the human experience. Like Pascal, they were interested in people's quiet struggle with the apparent meaninglessness of life and the use of diversion to escape from boredom. Unlike Pascal, Kierkegaard and Nietzsche also considered the role of making free choices, particularly regarding fundamental values and beliefs, and how such choices change the nature and identity of the chooser.[33] Kierkegaard's knight of faith and Nietzsche's bermensch are representative of people who exhibitFreedom, in that they define the nature of their own existence. Nietzsche's idealized individual invents his or her own values and creates the

very terms they excel under. By contrast, Kierkegaard, opposed to the level of abstraction in Hegel, and not nearly as hostile (actually welcoming) to Christianity as Nietzsche, argues through a pseudonym that the objective certainty of religious truths (specifically Christian) is not only impossible, but even founded on logical paradoxes. Yet he continues to imply that a leap of faith is a possible means for an individual to reach a higher stage of existence that transcends and contains both an aesthetic and ethical value of life. Kierkegaard and Nietzsche were also precursors to other intellectual movements, including postmodernism, and various strands ofpsychology. However, Kierkegaard believed that an individual should live in accordance with his or her thinking. This point of view is forced upon religious individuals much more often than upon philosophers, psychologists, or scientists. [edit]Dostoyevsky Main article: Fyodor Dostoyevsky The first important literary author also important to existentialism was the Russian Fyodor Dostoyevsky.[34] Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground portrays a man unable to fit into society and unhappy with the identities he creates for himself. Jean-Paul Sartre, in his book on existentialism Existentialism is a Humanism, quoted Dostoyevsky's The Brothers Karamazov as an example of existential crisis. Sartre attributes Ivan Karamazov's claim, "If God did not exist, everything would be permitted"[35] to Dostoyevsky himself. Other Dostoyevsky novels covered issues raised in existentialist philosophy while presenting story lines divergent from secular existentialism: for example, in Crime and Punishment, the protagonist Raskolnikov experiences an existential crisis and then moves toward a Christian Orthodox worldview similar to that advocated by Dostoyevsky himself.[citation needed] [edit]Early 20th century See also: Martin Heidegger In the first decades of the 20th century, a number of philosophers and writers explored existentialist ideas. The Spanish philosopherMiguel de Unamuno y Jugo, in his 1913 book The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations, emphasized the life of "flesh and bone" as opposed to that of abstract rationalism. Unamuno rejected systematic

philosophy in favor of the individual's quest for faith. He retained a sense of the tragic, even absurd nature of the quest, symbolized by his enduring interest in Cervantes' fictional character Don Quixote. A novelist, poet and dramatist as well as philosophy professor at the University of Salamanca, Unamuno wrote a short story about a priest's crisis of faith, Saint Manuel the Good, Martyr, which has been collected in anthologies of existentialist fiction. Another Spanish thinker, Ortega y Gasset, writing in 1914, held that human existence must always be defined as the individual person combined with the concrete circumstances of his life: "Yo soy yo y mis circunstancias" ("I am myself and my circumstances"). Sartre likewise believed that human existence is not an abstract matter, but is always situated, also many thought his plays were absurd ("en situacin"). Although Martin Buber wrote his major philosophical works in German, and studied and taught at the Universities of Berlin and Frankfurt, he stands apart from the mainstream of German philosophy. Born into a Jewish family in Vienna in 1878, he was also a scholar of Jewish culture and involved at various times in Zionism and Hasidism. In 1938, he moved permanently to Jerusalem. His best-known philosophical work was the short book I and Thou, published in 1922. For Buber, the fundamental fact of human existence, too readily overlooked by scientific rationalism and abstract philosophical thought, is "man with man", a dialogue that takes place in the so-called "sphere of between" ("das Zwischenmenschliche").[36] Two Ukrainian/Russian thinkers, Lev Shestov and Nikolai Berdyaev, became well known as existentialist thinkers during their post-Revolutionary exiles in Paris. Shestov, born into a Ukrainian-Jewish family in Kiev, had launched an attack on rationalism and systematization in philosophy as early as 1905 in his book of aphorisms All Things Are Possible. Berdyaev, also from Kiev but with a background in the Eastern Orthodox Church, drew a radical distinction between the world of spirit and the everyday world of objects. Human freedom, for Berdyaev, is rooted in the realm of spirit, a realm independent of scientific notions of causation. To the extent the individual human being lives in the objective world, he is estranged from authentic spiritual freedom. "Man" is not to be

interpreted naturalistically, but as a being created in God's image, an originator of free, creative acts.[37] He published a major work on these themes, The Destiny of Man, in 1931. Gabriel Marcel, long before coining the term "existentialism", introduced important existentialist themes to a French audience in his early essay "Existence and Objectivity" (1925) and in his Metaphysical Journal (1927).[38] A dramatist as well as a philosopher, Marcel found his philosophical starting point in a condition of metaphysical alienation: the human individual searching for harmony in a transient life. Harmony, for Marcel, was to be sought through "secondary reflection", a "dialogical" rather than "dialectical" approach to the world, characterized by "wonder and astonishment" and open to the "presence" of other people and of God rather than merely to "information" about them. For Marcel, such presence implied more than simply being there (as one thing might be in the presence of another thing); it connoted "extravagant" availability, and the willingness to put oneself at the disposal of the other.[39] Marcel contrasted secondary reflection with abstract, scientific-technical primary reflection, which he associated with the activity of the abstract Cartesian ego. For Marcel, philosophy was a concrete activity undertaken by a sensing, feeling human being incarnate embodied in a concrete world.[38][40] Although Jean-Paul Sartre adopted the term "existentialism" for his own philosophy in the 1940s, Marcel's thought has been described as "almost diametrically opposed" to that of Sartre.[38] Unlike Sartre, Marcel was a Christian, and became a Catholic convert in 1929. In Germany, the psychologist and philosopher Karl Jaspers who later described existentialism as a "phantom" created by the public[41] called his own thought, heavily influenced by Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, Existenzphilosophie. For Jaspers, "Existenzphilosophy is the way of thought by means of which man seeks to become himself...This way of thought does not cognize objects, but elucidates and makes actual the being of the thinker."[42] Jaspers, a professor at the University of Heidelberg, was acquainted with Martin Heidegger, who held a professorship at Marburg before acceding to Husserl's chair

at Freiburg in 1928. They held many philosophical discussions, but later became estranged over Heidegger's support of National Socialism. They shared an admiration for Kierkegaard,[43] and in the 1930s, Heidegger lectured extensively on Nietzsche. Nevertheless, the extent to which Heidegger should be considered an existentialist is debatable. In Being and Time he presented a method of rooting philosophical explanations in human existence (Dasein) to be analysed in terms of existential categories (existentiale); and this has led many commentators to treat him as an important figure in the existentialist movement. [edit]After the Second World War See also: Jean-Paul Sartre Following the Second World War, existentialism became a well-known and significant philosophical and cultural movement, mainly through the public prominence of two French writers, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, who wrote best-selling novels, plays and widely read journalism as well as theoretical texts. These years also saw the growing reputation of Heidegger's book Being and Timeoutside of Germany.[citation needed]

French philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir Sartre dealt with existentialist themes in his 1938 novel Nausea and the short stories in his 1939 collection The Wall, and had published his treatise on existentialism, Being and Nothingness, in 1943, but it was in the two years following the liberation of Paris

from the German occupying forces that he and his close associates Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and others became internationally famous as the leading figures of a movement known as existentialism.[44] In a very short space of time, Camus and Sartre in particular became the leading public intellectuals of post-war France, achieving by the end of 1945 "a fame that reached across all audiences."[45] Camus was an editor of the most popular leftist (former French Resistance) newspaper Combat; Sartre launched his journal of leftist thought, Les Temps Modernes, and two weeks later gave the widely reported lecture on existentialism and secular humanism to a packed meeting of the Club Maintenant. Beauvoir wrote that "not a week passed without the newspapers discussing us";[46] existentialism became "the first media craze of the postwar era."[47] By the end of 1947, Camus' earlier fiction and plays had been reprinted, his new play Caligula had been performed and his novel The Plague published; the first two novels of Sartre's The Roads to Freedom trilogy had appeared, as had Beauvoir's novel The Blood of Others. Works by Camus and Sartre were already appearing in foreign editions. The Paris-based existentialists had become famous.[44] Sartre had traveled to Germany in 1930 to study the phenomenology of Edmund Husserl and Martin Heidegger,[48] and he included critical comments on their work in his major treatise Being and Nothingness. Heidegger's thought had also become known in French philosophical circles through its use by Alexandre Kojve in explicating Hegel in a series of lectures given in Paris in the 1930s.[49] The lectures were highly influential; members of the audience included not only Sartre and Merleau-Ponty, but Raymond Queneau, Georges Bataille, Louis Althusser, Andr Breton, and Jacques Lacan.[50] A selection from Heidegger's Being and Time was published in French in 1938, and his essays began to appear in French philosophy journals.

French-Algerian philosopher, novelist, and playwright Albert Camus Heidegger read Sartre's work and was initially impressed, commenting: "Here for the first time I encountered an independent thinker who, from the foundations up, has experienced the area out of which I think. Your work shows such an immediate

comprehension of my philosophy as I have never before encountered."[51] Later, however, in response to a question posed by his French follower Jean Beaufret,[52] Heidegger distanced himself from Sartre's position and existentialism in general in hisLetter on Humanism.[53] Heidegger's reputation continued to grow in France during the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1960s, Sartre attempted to reconcile existentialism and Marxism in his work Critique of Dialectical Reason. A major theme throughout his writings was freedom and responsibility. Camus was a friend of Sartre, until their falling-out, and wrote several works with existential themes including The Rebel, The Stranger, The Myth of Sisyphus, and Summer in Algiers. Camus, like many others, rejected the existentialist label, and considered his works to be concerned with facing the absurd. In the titular book, Camus uses the analogy of the Greek myth of Sisyphus to demonstrate the futility of existence. In the myth, Sisyphus is condemned for eternity to roll a rock up a hill, but when he reaches the summit, the rock will roll to the bottom again. Camus believes that this existence is pointless but that Sisyphus ultimately finds meaning and purpose in his task, simply by continually applying himself to it. The first half of the book contains an extended rebuttal of what Camus took to be existentialist philosophy in the works of Kierkegaard, Shestov, Heidegger, and Jaspers. Simone de Beauvoir, an important existentialist who spent much of her life as Sartre's partner, wrote about feminist and existentialist ethics in her works, including The Second Sex and The Ethics of Ambiguity. Although often overlooked due to her relationship with Sartre[citation needed], de Beauvoir integrated existentialism with other forms of thinking such as feminism, unheard of at the time, resulting in alienation from fellow writers such as Camus[citation needed]. Paul Tillich, an important existentialist theologian following Kierkegaard and Karl Barth, applied existentialist concepts to Christian theology, and helped introduce existential theology to the general public. His seminal work The Courage to Be follows Kierkegaard's analysis of anxiety and life's absurdity, but puts forward the thesis that modern humans must, via God, achieve selfhood in spite of life's absurdity. Rudolf Bultmann used Kierkegaard's and Heidegger's philosophy of existence to

demythologize Christianity by interpreting Christian mythical concepts into existentialist concepts. Maurice Merleau-Ponty, an existential phenomenologist, was for a time a companion of Sartre. His understanding of Husserl'sphenomenology was far greater than that of Merleau-Ponty's fellow existentialists.[vague] It has been said that his work Humanism and Terror greatly influenced Sartre. However, in later years they were to disagree irreparably, dividing many existentialists such as de Beauvoir[citation needed], who sided with Sartre. Colin Wilson, an English writer, published his study The Outsider in 1956, initially to critical acclaim. In this book and others (e.g.Introduction to the New Existentialism), he attempted to reinvigorate what he perceived as a pessimistic philosophy and bring it to a wider audience. He was not, however, academically trained, and his work was attacked by professional philosophers for lack of rigor and critical standards.[54] [edit]Influence outside philosophy [edit]Art [edit]Film and television The French director Jean Genet's 1950 fantasy-erotic film Un chant d'amour shows two inmates in solitary cells whose only contact is through a hole in their cell wall, who are spied on by the prison warden. Reviewer James Travers calls the film a, "...visual poem evoking homosexual desire and existentialist suffering," which "... conveys the bleakness of an existence in a godless universe with painful believability"; he calls it "... probably the most effective fusion of existentialist philosophy and cinema." [55] Stanley Kubrick's 1957 anti-war film Paths of Glory "illustrates, and even illuminates...existentialism" by examining the "necessary absurdity of the human condition" and the "horror of war".[56] The film tells the story of a fictional World War I French army regiment ordered to attack an impregnable German stronghold; when the attack fails, three soldiers are chosen at random, court-martialed by a "kangaroo court", and executed by firing squad. The film examines existentialist ethics, such as the issue of whether objectivity is possible and the "problem of authenticity". [56]

On the lighter side, the British comedy troupe Monty Python have explored existentialist themes throughout their works, from many of the sketches in their original television show, Monty Python's Flying Circus, to their 1983 film Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.[57] Some contemporary films dealing with existentialist issues include Fight Club, I Huckabees, Waking Life, The Matrix, Ordinary People, and Life in a Day.[58] Likewise, films throughout the 20th century such as The Seventh Seal, Ikiru, Taxi Driver, High Noon, Easy Rider, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, A Clockwork Orange, Groundhog Day, Apocalypse Now, Badlands, and Blade Runner also have existentialist qualities.[59] The film, The Matrix, has been compared with another movie, Dark City[60] where the issues of identity and reality are raised. In Dark City, the inhabitants of the city are situated in a world controlled by demiurges, much like the prisoners in Plato's cave, in which prisoners see a world of shadows reflected onto a cave wall, rather than the world as it actually is[61]. Notable directors known for their existentialist films include Ingmar Bergman, Franois Truffaut, Jean-Luc Godard, Michelangelo Antonioni, Akira Kurosawa, Terrence Malick, Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky, Hideaki Anno, Wes Anderson, and Woody Allen.[62]Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, New York focuses on the protagonist's desire to find existential meaning.[63] Similarly, in Kurosawa'sRed Beard, the protagonist's experiences as an intern in a rural health clinic in Japan lead him to an existential crisis whereby he questions his reason for being. This, in turn, leads him to a better understanding of humanity. [edit]Literature Existentialist perspectives are also found in literature to varying degrees. Jean-Paul Sartre's 1938 novel Nausea[64] was "steeped in Existential ideas", and is considered an accessible way of grasping his philosophical stance.[65] Since 1970, much cultural activity in art, cinema, and literature contains postmodernist and existentialist elements. Books such as Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?(1968) (now republished as Blade Runner) by Philip K. Dick and Fight Club by Chuck Palahniuk all distort the line between reality and appearance while simultaneously espousing strong existentialist themes.

Ideas from such thinkers as Fyodor Dostoyevsky, Michel Foucault, Franz Kafka, Friedrich Nietzsche, Herbert Marcuse, Gilles Deleuze, and Eduard von Hartmann permeate the works of artists such as Chuck Palahniuk, David Lynch, Crispin Glover, and Charles Bukowski, and one often finds in their works a delicate balance between distastefulness and beauty. [edit]Theatre Jean-Paul Sartre wrote No Exit in 1944, an existentialist play originally published in French as Huis Clos (meaning In Camera or "behind closed doors"), which is the source of the popular quote, "Hell is other people." (In French, "L'enfer, c'est les autres"). The play begins with a Valet leading a man into a room that the audience soon realizes is in hell. Eventually he is joined by two women. After their entry, the Valet leaves and the door is shut and locked. All three expect to be tortured, but no torturer arrives. Instead, they realize they are there to torture each other, which they do effectively by probing each other's sins, desires, and unpleasant memories. Existentialist themes are displayed in the Theatre of the Absurd, notably in Samuel Beckett's Waiting for Godot, in which two men divert themselves while they wait expectantly for someone (or something) named Godot who never arrives. They claim Godot to be an acquaintance, but in fact hardly know him, admitting they would not recognize him if they saw him. Samuel Beckett, once asked who or what Godot is, replied, "If I knew, I would have said so in the play." To occupy themselves, the men eat, sleep, talk, argue, sing, play games, exercise, swap hats, and contemplate suicideanything "to hold the terrible silence at bay".[66] The play "exploits several archetypal forms and situations, all of which lend themselves to both comedy and pathos."[67] The play also illustrates an attitude toward human experience on earth: the poignancy, oppression, camaraderie, hope, corruption, and bewilderment of human experience that can be reconciled only in the mind and art of the absurdist. The play examines questions such as death, the meaning of human existence and the place of God in human existence. Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead is an absurdist tragicomedy first staged at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe in 1966.[68] The play expands upon the exploits

of two minor characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet. Comparisons have also been drawn to Samuel Beckett's Waiting For Godot, for the presence of two central characters who almost appear to be two halves of a single character. Many plot features are similar as well: the characters pass time by playing Questions, impersonating other characters, and interrupting each other or remaining silent for long periods of time. The two characters are portrayed as two clowns or fools in a world that is beyond their understanding. They stumble through philosophical arguments while not realizing the implications, and muse on the irrationality and randomness of the world. Jean Anouilh's Antigone also presents arguments founded on existentialist ideas.[69] It is a tragedy inspired by Greek mythology and the play of the same name (Antigone, by Sophocles) from the 5th century B.C. In English, it is often distinguished from its antecedent by being pronounced in its original French form, approximately "Ante-GN." The play was first performed in Paris on 6 February 1944, during the Nazi occupation of France. Produced under Nazi censorship, the play is purposefully ambiguous with regards to the rejection of authority (represented by Antigone) and the acceptance of it (represented by Creon). The parallels to the French Resistance and the Nazi occupation have been drawn. Antigone rejects life as desperately meaningless but without affirmatively choosing a noble death. The crux of the play is the lengthy dialogue concerning the nature of power, fate, and choice, during which Antigone says that she is, "... disgusted with [the]...promise of a humdrum happiness." She states that she would rather die than live a mediocre existence. Critic Martin Esslin in his book Theatre of the Absurd pointed out how many contemporary playwrights such as Samuel Beckett,Eugne Ionesco, Jean Genet, and Arthur Adamov wove into their plays the existentialist belief that we are absurd beings loose in a universe empty of real meaning. Esslin noted that many of these playwrights demonstrated the philosophy better than did the plays by Sartre and Camus. Though most of such playwrights, subsequently labeled "Absurdist" (based on Esslin's book), denied affiliations with existentialism and were often staunchly antiphilosophical (for example Ionesco often claimed he identified more with 'Pataphysics or with Surrealism than with existentialism), the playwrights are often linked to existentialism based on Esslin's observation.[70]

[edit]Psychoanalysis and psychotherapy Main article: Existential therapy A major offshoot of existentialism as a philosophy is existentialist psychology and psychoanalysis, which first crystallized in the work ofOtto Rank, Freud's closest associate for 20 years. Without awareness of the writings of Rank, Ludwig Binswanger was influenced byFreud, Edmund Husserl, Heidegger, and Sartre. A later figure was Viktor Frankl, who briefly met Freud and studied with Jung as a young man.[71] His logotherapy can be regarded as a form of existentialist therapy. The existentialists would also influence social psychology, antipositivist microsociology, symbolic interactionism, and post-structuralism, with the work of thinkers such as Georg Simmel[72] and Michel Foucault. Foucault was a great reader of Kierkegaard even though he almost never refers this author, who nonetheless had for him an importance as secret as it was decisive.[73] An early contributor to existentialist psychology in the United States was Rollo May, who was strongly influenced by Kierkegaard andOtto Rank. One of the most prolific writers on techniques and theory of existentialist psychology in the USA is Irvin D. Yalom. Yalom states that Aside from their reaction against Freud's mechanistic, deterministic model of the mind and their assumption of a phenomenological approach in therapy, the existentialist analysts have little in common and have never been regarded as a cohesive ideological school. These thinkers - who include Ludwig Binswanger, Medard Boss, Eugne Minkowski, V.E. Gebsattel, Roland Kuhn, G. Caruso, F.T. Buytendijk, G. Bally and Victor Frankl - were almost entirely unknown to the American psychotherapeutic community until Rollo May's highly influential 1985 book Existence - and especially his introductory essay - introduced their work into this country.[74] A more recent contributor to the development of a European version of existentialist psychotherapy is the British-based Emmy van Deurzen. Anxiety's importance in existentialism makes it a popular topic in psychotherapy. Therapists often offer existentialist philosophy as an explanation for anxiety. The assertion is that anxiety is manifested of an individual's complete freedom to decide,

and complete responsibility for the outcome of such decisions. Psychotherapists using an existentialist approach believe that a patient can harness his anxiety and use it constructively. Instead of suppressing anxiety, patients are advised to use it as grounds for change. By embracing anxiety as inevitable, a person can use it to achieve his full potential in life. Humanistic psychology also had major impetus from existentialist psychology and shares many of the fundamental tenets. Terror management theory, based on the writings of Ernest Becker and Otto Rank, is a developing area of study within the academic study of psychology. It looks at what researchers claim to be the implicit emotional reactions of people confronted with the knowledge that they will eventually die. [edit]Criticisms [edit]General criticisms Logical positivists, such as Carnap and Ayer, assert that existentialists are often confused about the verb "to be" in their analyses of "being". [14] Specifically, they argue that the verb is transitive and pre-fixed to a predicate (e.g., an apple is red) (without a predicate, the word is meaningless), and that existentialists frequently misuse the term in this manner. [edit]Sartre's philosophy Many critics argue Sartre's philosophy is contradictory. Specifically, they argue that Sartre makes metaphysical arguments despite his claiming that his philosophical views ignore metaphysics. Herbert Marcuse criticized Being and Nothingness (1943) by JeanPaul Sartrefor projecting anxiety and meaninglessness onto the nature of existence itself: "Insofar as Existentialism is a philosophical doctrine, it remains an idealistic doctrine: it hypostatizes specific historical conditions of human existence into ontological and metaphysical characteristics. Existentialism thus becomes part of the very ideology which it attacks, and its radicalism is illusory".[15] In Letter on Humanism, Heidegger criticized Sartre's existentialism: Existentialism says existence precedes essence. In this statement he is taking existentia and essentia according to their metaphysical meaning, which, from

Plato's time on, has said that essentia precedes existentia. Sartre reverses this statement. But the reversal of a metaphysical statement remains a metaphysical statement. With it, he stays with metaphysics, in oblivion of the truth of Being.[75] [edit]See also

Abandonment (existentialism) Christian existentialism Existentiell Human, All Too Human (TV series) The Ister (film) Lightness List of existentialists Meaning (existential)

[edit]Notes 1. ^ Mullarkey, John, and Beth Lord (eds.). The Continuum Companion to Continental Philosophy. London, 2009, p. 309 2. ^ Stewart, Jon. Kierkegaard and Existentialism. Farnham, England, 2010, p. ix 3. ^ a b c d e f g Crowell, Steven (October 2010). "Existentialism".Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. Retrieved 2012-04-12. 4. ^ Merriam Webster entry for "authentic". 5. ^ Marino, Gordon. Basic Writings of Existentialism (Modern Library, 2004, p. ix, 3). 6. ^ a b McDonald, William. "Sren Kierkegaard". In Edward N. Zalta. Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2009 Edition). 7. ^ Watts, Michael. Kierkegaard (Oneworld, 2003, pp.4-6). 8. ^ Lowrie, Walter. Kierkegaard's attack upon "Christendom"(Princeton, 1969, pp. 37-40). 9. ^ Guignon and Pereboom, Derk, Charles B. (2001).Existentialism: basic writings. Hackett Publishing. p. xiii.

10. ^ Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962), p. 5. 11. ^ Walter Kaufmann, Existentialism: From Dostoyevesky to Sartre, New York (1956) p. 12. 12. ^ John Macquarrie, Existentialism, New York (1972), pp. 1421. 13. ^ Oxford Companion to Philosophy, ed. Ted Honderich, New York (1995), p. 259. 14. ^ a b Carnap, Rudolf, Uberwindung der Metaphysik durch logische Analyse der Sprache [Overcoming Metaphysics by the Logical Analysis of Speech], Erkenntnis (1932), pp.219241. Carnap's critique of Heidegger's "What is Metaphysics". 15. ^ a b Marcuse, Herbert. "Sartre's Existentialism". Printed inStudies in Critical Philosophy. Translated by Joris De Bres. London: NLB, 1972. p. 161 16. ^ Martin Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism", in Basic Writings: Nine Key Essays, plus the Introduction to Being and Time , trans. David Farrell Krell (London, Routledge; 1978), 208.GoogleBooks 17. ^ (French) (Dictionary) "L'existencialisme" - see "l'identit de la personne" 18. ^ Baird, Forrest E.; Walter Kaufmann (2008). From Plato to Derrida. Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Prentice Hall. ISBN 0-13-158591-6. 19. ^ Jean-Paul Sartre. "Existentialism is a Humanism, Jean-Paul Sartre 1946". Marxists.org. Retrieved 2010-03-08. 20. ^ E Keen (1973). Suicide and Self-Deception. Psychoanalytic Review 21. ^ "despair - definition of despair by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia". Tfd.com. Retrieved 2010-03-08. 22. ^ Either/Or Part II p. 188 Hong 23. ^ Soren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers Vol 5, p. 5 24. ^ Hong, Howard V. "Historical Introduction" to Fear and Trembling. Princeton University Press. Princeton, New Jersey. 1983. p. x 25. ^ Kierkegaard, Soren. Works of Love. Harper & Row, Publishers. New York, N.Y. 1962. p. 62 26. ^ Camus, Albert. "The Myth of Sisyphus". NYU.edu

27. ^ Jean-Paul Sartre, Being and Nothingness, Routledge Classics (2003). 28. ^ D.E. Cooper Existentialism: A Reconstruction (Basil Blackwell, 1990, page 1) 29. ^ Thomas R. Flynn, Existentialism: A Very Short Introduction(Oxford University Press, 2006, page 89 30. ^ Christine Daigle, Existentialist Thinkers and Ethics (McGill-Queen's press, 2006, page 5) 31. ^ L'Existentialisme est un Humanisme (Editions Nagel, 1946);English Jean-Paul Sartre, Existentialism and Humanism (Eyre Methuen, 1948) 32. ^ Crowell, Steven. The Cambridge Companion to Existentialism, Cambridge, 2011, p. 316. 33. ^ Luper, Steven. "Existing". Mayfield Publishing, 2000, p.45 and 11 34. ^ Hubben, William. Dostoyevsky, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche and Kafka, Jabberwacky, Scribner, 1997. 35. ^ Sartre, Jean-Paul. Existentialism is a Humanismhttp://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/works/exist/sartre.ht m ; Retrieved 2012-04-01. 36. ^ Maurice S. Friedman, Martin Buber. The Life of Dialogue(University of Chicago press, 1955, page 85) 37. ^ Ernst Breisach, Introduction to Modern Existentialism, New York (1962), pages 173176 38. ^ a b c Samuel M. Keen, "Gabriel Marcel" in Paul Edwards (ed.)The Encyclopaedia of Philosophy (Macmillan Publishing Co, 1967) 39. ^ John Macquarrie, Existentialism (Pelican, 1973, page 110) 40. ^ John Macquarrie, Existentialism (Pelican, 1973, page 96) 41. ^ Karl Jaspers, "Philosophical Autobiography" in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Library of Living Philosophers IX (Tudor Publishing Company, 1957, page 75/11) 42. ^ Karl Jaspers, "Philosophical Autobiography" in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Library of Living Philosophers IX (Tudor Publishing Company, 1957, page 40)

43. ^ Karl Jaspers, "Philosophical Autobiography" in Paul Arthur Schilpp (ed.) The Philosophy of Karl Jaspers (The Library of Living Philosophers IX (Tudor Publishing Company, 1957, page 75/2 and following) 44. ^ a b Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, chapter 3 passim) 45. ^ Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, page 44) 46. ^ Simone de Beauvoir, Force of Circumstance, quoted in Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, page 48) 47. ^ Ronald Aronson, Camus and Sartre (University of Chicago Press, 2004, page 48) 48. ^ Rdiger Safranski, Martin Heidgger Between Good and Evil(Harvard University Press, 1998, page 343 49. ^ Entry on Kojve in Martin Cohen (editor), The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics(Hodder Arnold, 2006, page 158); see also Alexandre Kojve, Introduction to the Reading of Hegel: Lectures on the Phenomenology of Spirit (Cornell University Press, 1980) 50. ^ Entry on Kojve in Martin Cohen (editor), The Essentials of Philosophy and Ethics(Hodder Arnold, 2006, page 158) 51. ^ Martin Hediegger, letter, quoted in Rdiger Safranski, Martin Heidgger Between Good and Evil (Harvard University Press, 1998, page 349) 52. ^ Rdiger Safranski, Martin Heidegger Between Good and Evil (Harvard University Press, 1998, page 356) 53. ^ William J. Richardson, Martin Heidegger: From Phenomenology to Thought (Martjinus Nijhoff,1967, page 351) 54. ^ K. Gunnar Bergstrm, An Odyssey to Freedom University of Uppsala, 1983, page 92;Colin Stanley, Colin Wilson, a Celebration: Essays and Recollections Cecil Woolf, 1988, page 43) 55. ^ James Travers 2005 google search

56. ^ a b Holt, Jason. "Existential Ethics: Where do the Paths of Glory Lead?". In The Philosophy of Stanley Kubrick. By Jerold J. Abrams. Published 2007. University Press of Kentucky. ISBN 0-8131-2445-X 57. ^ "Amazon.com's Films with an Existential Theme". Retrieved 2009-02-02. 58. ^ "Existential & Psychological Movie Recommendations". Existentialtherapy.com. Retrieved 2010-03-08. 59. ^ "Existentialism in Film". Uhaweb.hartford.edu. Retrieved 2010-03-08. 60. ^ http://www.weirdpro.com/?page_id=656 61. ^ http://jaysanalysis.com/tag/demiurge/ 62. ^ "Existentialist Adaptations - Harvard Film Archive". Hcl.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2010-03-08. 63. ^ Chocano, Carina (2008-10-24). "Review: 'Synecdoche, New York'". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 2008-11-17. 64. ^ Sartre, Jean-Paul; (Translated by Robert Baldick) (2000. First published 1938). Nausea. London: Penguin 65. ^ Earnshaw, Steven (2006). Existentialism: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Continuum. p. 75. ISBN 0-8264-8530-8 66. ^ The Times, 31 December 1964. Quoted in Knowlson, J.,Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett (London: Bloomsbury, 1996), p 57 67. ^ Cronin, A., Samuel Beckett The Last Modernist (London: Flamingo, 1997), p 391 68. ^ Michael H. Hutchins (14 August 2006). "A Tom Stoppard Bibliography: Chronology". The Stephen Sondheim Reference Guide. Retrieved 2008-06-23. 69. ^ Wren, Celia (12 December 2007). "From Forum, an Earnest and Painstaking 'Antigone'". Washington Post. Retrieved 2008-04-07. 70. ^ Kernan, Alvin B. The Modern American Theater: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, 1967. 71. ^ Logotherapie-international.eu 72. ^ Stewart, Jon. Kierkegaard and Existentialism. p.38 73. ^ Flynn, Thomas R. Sartre, Foucault, and Historical Reason, p. 323.

74. ^ Yalom, Irvin D. (1980). Existential Psychotherapy. New York: BasicBooks (Subsidiary of Perseus Books, L.L.C.. p. 17.ISBN 0-465-02147-6 Note: The copyright year has not changed, but the book remains in print. 75. ^ Martin Heidegger, "Letter on Humanism", in Basic Writings: Nine Key Essays, plus the Introduction to Being and Time , trans. David Farrell Krell (London, Routledge; 1978), 208.Google Books

1.Experience of ones own existence: It is the only throughhis own being that man comes in contact with reality. The experienceof self necessarily has many modalities, but there is one basicexperience which makes all others possible and without which theycould not be. It is the experience of ones own existence.2.To exist is to stand out: The word existence composed of the Latin words, ex which means out, beyond, above,and sistere, which mean to stand out.3.Man and his body: Have in I have a body, meanspossession. Now this is different from I have a bookalthough both statements refer to possession. First,because I cannot dispose of my body the way I candispose of a book; second, I is not equal to mybody, I am more than my body.4.Being-in-the-world: I am in contact with things andpersons. I am part of the space structure and timeconstellation, which are inherent in this world.5.Being-in-situation: Situations stands here for that zonereality which is influenced by me and influences me.Many elements of my situation are not my own making.I did not choose my parents, my country, the time of mybirth. On the other hand, there are elements where myfree action is decisive: choose of my friends, myinterest, my activities.6.I and my life: I am more than my life. I live my life isdifferent from My life is lived. The first means I amthe master of my life. The second means I am a slave,dictated upon others, such as the media.7.A value to be realized within ourselves: Our authenticgrowth takes place in the here and now of concretesituation. Our giving way to a driver during peak hoursis such a value realized only within ourselves.8.Values we have and values we are: Values we have areon the object level, while values we are on the subjectlevel and, thus, enhance our existence.

9.The vocation of man: Simply put, the personal vocationof man is the perfecting of life and personality to the fullmeasure to which he has been destined.1 0 . C r e a t i v e F i d e l i t y : I t i s t h e a c t u a l c o n t i n u a t i o n o f t h e original dedication to ones personal vocation. Fidelitymeans loyalty to a given word and commitment in spiteof adversities. This fidelity is dynamic and creative.Creativity refers to the mans being a homo viatorand, therefore, in need of transforming his life to acontinuous growth- to authenticity. Creative also meansmans ability to adapt to constantly varyingcircumstances.1 1 . P a i n a n d s u f f e r i n g : F i d e l i t y t o v o c a t i o n i s s e v e r e l y tested when a man is faced with pain and suffering. Theproper attitudes are: (a)accept them, for these alsohave existential value, and(b) try to find out theirmeaning in your life.1 2 . B e i n g - u n t o - d e a t h : A s a n e m b o d i e d b e i n g , m a n i s a l s o a being-fordeath. The common man tries to avoid itsvery possibility, but the philosopher, who wants to cometo the ultimate root of all, reality cannot leave itunconsidered.1 3 . G a i n i n L o s s : T h e u n f o l d i n g o f t h e h u m a n p e r s o n a l i t y is a mixture of joy and pain. It is characteristic of thisunfolding that the higher can be reached by leavingbehind the lower. This is due to the peculiar structure of man, where materiality and spirituality are the twoantipodes.1 4 . a s u p e r - t e m p o r a l d i m e n s i o n s : W h e n a m a n c o m m i t s himself to his personal vacation, his decision is basedupon that which is permanent in his being and, thus, hetranscends the changing elements of time and space.He knows that with the emergence of his spirit his realself will find its highest expression.7. The most Prominent Existentialist1.Soren Kierkegard was born in Copenhagen in 1813 anddied in 1855. This Danish thinker was about to become a minister inthe Danish church when he realized there was a discrepancy between

the religion which was preached and the religion as it might really belived. He became a loner, devoting his life to writing. This Danish thinker, steeped in the knowledge of greek philosophy, is accepted as the father of Existentialism. It doesnot mean though that he is the originator of all modern existentialisttheme, but the claim is richly backed p by his works. The mostimportant of these are:a. Either/Or- where he analyzes the aesthetic and theethical modes of life.c.Fear and trembling where he analyzes the biblical storyof the sacrifice of Isaac, introducing us to the absurd, anexistentialist.3.Karl Jasper, born in 1883, was a german professorwho produced Psychology of World Views (1919)Philosophy (1932), and Philosophical Logic (1947). Heis the nearest to Kierkegaard in beliefs. He considersthe individual as the unique

existent, the being whofreely transcend what he already is and createshimself, as it were, through the exercise of hisfreedom. Indeed, from this point of view man isalways in the making, his own making. Though with an unstable essence, Jasper says mancan be seen from the two inseparable phases of isbeing: Dasien and Existenz. Dasien refers to myself as object and includes my reality. Existenz is verymyself, purely subjective. It cannot analyzed nordefined. It is free. But my existenz is in my dasienand all acts of the former are manifested in thelatter.4. Jean Paul Sartre, born in 1905 and died April 15, 1980, isthe French philosopher mostly credited with the popularizing

Sren Kierkegaard
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Kierkegaard" redirects here. For other uses, see Kierkegaard (disambiguation).

Sren Aabye Kierkegaard

Sketch of Sren Kierkegaard by Niels Christian Kierkegaard, c. 1840

Born

5 May 1813 Copenhagen, Denmark

Died

11 November 1855 (aged 42) Copenhagen, Denmark

Era

19th-century philosophy

Region

Western philosophy

School

Danish Golden Age Literary and Artistic Tradition, precursor to Continental philosophy,[1][2]Existentialism (agnostic,atheistic, Christian),Existential psychology,Absurdism, Neo-orthodoxy, and many more

Main interests Christianity, metaphysics,epistemology, aesthetics,ethics, psychology, philosophy

Notable ideas Regarded as the father ofExistentialism, angst,existential despair, Three spheres of human existence,knight of faith, infinite qualitative distinction

Influenced by[show]

Influenced[show]

Signature

Sren Aabye Kierkegaard (/srn krkrd/ or /krkr/; Danish: [sn ki] (

listen))

(5 May 1813

11 November 1855) was a Danish philosopher,theologian, poet, social critic, and religious author. He wrote critical texts on organized religion, Christendom, morality, ethics, psychology and philosophy of religion, displaying a fondness for metaphor, irony and parables. He is widely considered to be the firstexistentialist philosopher.[4] Much of his philosophical work deals with the issues of how one lives as a "single individual", giving priority to concrete human reality over abstract thinking, and highlighting the importance of personal choice and commitment.[5] He was a fierce critic of idealistintellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel,Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel. His theological work focuses on Christian ethics, on the institution of the Church, and on the differences between purely objective proofs of Christianity. He wrote of the individual's subjective relationship to Jesus

Christ,[6] the God-Man, which came through faith.[7][8]Much of his work deals with the art of Christian love. He was also critical of the state and practice of Christianity, primarily that of the Church of Denmark.
Worldly wisdom is of the opinion that love is a relationship between persons; Christianity teaches that love is a relationship between: a person God -a person, that is, that God is the middle term. To love God is to love oneself truly; to help another person to love God is to love another person; to be helped by another person to love God is to be loved. Works of Love, Hong p. 106-107

His psychological work explored the emotions and feelings of individuals when faced with life choices.[9] His thinking was influenced by Socrates and the Socratic method. Kierkegaard's early work was written under various pseudonyms whom he used to present distinctive viewpoints and interact with each other in complex dialogue.[10] He assigned pseudonyms to explore particular viewpoints in-depth, which required several books in some instances, while Kierkegaard, openly or under another pseudonym, critiqued that position. He wrote many Upbuilding Discourses under his own name and dedicated them to the "single individual" who might want to discover the meaning of his works. Notably, he wrote: "Science and scholarship want to teach that becoming objective is the way. Christianity teaches that the way is to become subjective, to become a subject."[11] The scientist can learn about the world by observation but Kierkegaard emphatically denied that observation could reveal the inner workings of the spiritual world.[12] In 1847 Kierkegaard described his own view of the single individual: God is not like a human being; it is not important for God to have visible evidence so that he can see if his cause has been victorious or not; he sees in secret just as well. Moreover, it is so far from being the case that you should help God to learn anew that it is rather he who will help you to learn anew, so that you are weaned from the worldly point of view that insists on visible evidence. (...) A decision in the external sphere is what Christianity does not want; (...) rather it wants to test the individuals faith."[13]
Contents
[hide]

1 Early years (18131836)

o o

1.1 Journals 1.2 Regine Olsen and graduation (18371841)

2 Authorship (18431846)

o o

2.1 Pseudonymous authorship 2.2 The Corsair Affair

3 Authorship (18471855)

3.1 Attack upon the State Church and death

4 Reception

o o

4.1 19th century reception 4.2 Early 20th century reception

4.2.1 German and English translators of Kierkegaard's works

4.3 Later 20th century reception

5 Philosophy and Theology

5.1 Philosophical criticism

6 Influence 7 Selected bibliography 8 Notes 9 References

o o o

9.1 Books 9.2 Web 9.3 Audio

10 External links

[edit]Early

years (18131836)

Kierkegaard in a coffee-house, an oil sketch by Christian Olavius, 1843

Sren Kierkegaard was born to an affluent family in Copenhagen. His mother, Ane Srensdatter Lund Kierkegaard, had served as a maid in the household before marrying his father, Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard. She was an unassuming figure: quiet, plain, and not formally educated but Henriette Lund, her granddaughter, wrote that she "wielded the sceptre with joy and protected [Soren and Peter] like a hen protecting her children".[14]His father was a "very stern man, to all appearances dry and prosaic, but under his

'rustic cloak' demeanor he concealed an active imagination which not even his great age could blunt." [15] He read the philosophy of Christian Wolff. Kierkegaard preferred the comedies of Ludvig Holberg,[16] the writings of Georg Johann Hamann,[17] Gotthold Ephraim Lessing,[18] and Plato, especially those referring to Socrates. Copenhagen in the 1830s and 1840s had crooked streets where carriages rarely went. Kierkegaard loved to walk them. In 1848, Kierkegaard wrote, "I had real Christian satisfaction in the thought that, if there were no other, there was definitely one man in Copenhagen whom every poor person could freely accost and converse with on the street; that, if there were no other, there was one man who, whatever the society he most commonly frequented, did not shun contact with the poor, but greeted every maidservant he was acquainted with, every manservant, every common laborer."[19] Our Lady's Church was at end of the city, where Bishop Mynster preached the Gospel. At the other end was the Royal Theatre where Fru Heiberg performed.[20] Based on a speculative interpretation of anecdotes in Kierkegaard's unpublished journals, especially a rough draft of a story called "The Great Earthquake",[21] some early Kierkegaard scholars argued that Michael believed he had earned God's wrath and that none of his children would outlive him. He is said to have believed that his personal sins, perhaps indiscretions such as cursing the name of God in his youth or impregnating Ane out of wedlock, necessitated this punishment. Though five of his seven children died before he did, both Kierkegaard and his brother Peter Christian Kierkegaard, outlived him.[22] Peter, who was seven years Kierkegaard's elder, later became bishop in Aalborg.[22] Kierkegaard attended the School of Civic Virtue, stre Borgerdyd Gymnasium, in 1830 when the school was situated in Klarebodeme, where he studied Latin and history among other subjects. He went on to study theology at the University of Copenhagen. He had little interest in historical works, philosophy dissatisfied him, and he couldn't see "dedicating himself to Speculation".[23] He said, "What I really need to do is to get clear about "what am I to do", not what I must know". He wanted to "lead a completely human life and not merely one of knowledge."[24] Kierkegaard didn't want to be a philosopher in the traditional or Hegelian sense[25] and he didn't want to preach a Christianity that was an illusion.[26] "But he had learned from his father that one can do what one wills, and his father's life had not discredited this theory."[27] He became a "spy for God". In 1848 Kierkegaard wrote: Supposing that I had been free to use my talents as I pleased (and that it was not the case that another Power was able to compel me every moment when I was not ready to yield to fair means), I might from the first moment have converted my whole productivity into the channel of the interests of the age, it would have been in my power (if such betrayal were not punished by reducing me to naught) to become what the age demands, and so would have been (Goetheo-Hegelian) one more testimony to the proposition that the world is good, that the race is the truth and that this generation is the court of last resort, that the public is the discoverer of the truth and its judge, &c. For by this treason I should have attained extraordinary success in the world. Instead of this I became (under compulsion) a spy.[28][29]

One of the first physical descriptions of Kierkegaard comes from an attendee, Hans Brchner, at his brother Peter's wedding party in 1836: "I found [his appearance] almost comical. He was then twenty-three years old; he had something quite irregular in his entire form and had a strange coiffure. His hair rose almost six inches above his forehead into a tousled crest that gave him a strange, bewildered look."[30] Kierkegaard's mother "was a nice little woman with an even and happy disposition," according to a grandchild's description. She was never mentioned in Kierkegaard's works. Ane died on 31 July 1834, age 66, possibly from typhus.[31] His father died on 8 August 1838, age 82. On 11 August, Kierkegaard wrote: My father died on Wednesday (the 8th) at 2:00 am I so deeply desired that he might have lived a few years more, and I regard his death as the last sacrifice of his love for me, because in dying he did not depart from me but he died for me, in order that something, if possible, might still come of me. Most precious of all that I have inherited from him is his memory, his transfigured image, transfigured not by his poetic imagination (for it does not need that), but transfigured by many little single episodes I am now learning about, and this memory I will try to keep most secret from the world. Right now I feel there is only one person (E. Boesen) with whom I can really talk about him. He was a "faithful friend."[32] Troels Frederik Lund, his nephew, provided biographers with much information regarding Soren Kierkegaard.

[edit]Journals

The cover of the first English edition ofThe Journals, edited by Alexander Dru in 1938

People understand me so little that they do not even understand when I complain of being misunderstood.

Sren Kierkegaard , Journals Feb. 1836 Kierkegaard's Journals were first given to his brother-in-law, J.C. Lund and then to his brother, Peter Kierkegaard, but serious work on them began in 1865. H.P Barnum translated 18331846[33] but "threw away a significant portion of the originals."[34] This rendered the journals up to 1847 more of a secondary source of information about Kierkegaard than a primary source. However, according to Samuel Hugo Bergmann, "Kierkegaard's journals are one of the most important sources for an understanding of his philosophy".[35] Kierkegaard wrote over 7,000 pages in his journals on events, musings, thoughts about his works and everyday remarks.[36] The entire collection of Danish journals was edited and published in 13 volumes consisting of 25 separate bindings including indices. The first English edition of the journals was edited by Alexander Dru in 1938.[37] The style is "literary and poetic [in] manner".[38]Kierkegaard saw his journals as his legacy: I have never confided in anyone. By being an author I have in a sense made the public my confidant. But in respect of my relation to the public I must, once again, make posterity my confidant. The same people who are there to laugh at one cannot very well be made one's confidant.[39] Kierkegaard's journals were the source of many aphorisms credited to the philosopher. The following passage, from 1 August 1835, is perhaps his most oft-quoted aphorism and a key quote for existentialist studies: What I really need is to get clear about what I must do, not what I must know, except insofar as knowledge must precede every act. What matters is to find a purpose, to see what it really is that God wills that I shall do; the crucial thing is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I am willing to live and die."[40] Although his journals clarify some aspects of his work and life, Kierkegaard took care not to reveal too much. Abrupt changes in thought, repetitive writing, and unusual turns of phrase are some among the many tactics he used to throw readers off track. Consequently, there are many varying interpretations of his journals. Kierkegaard did not doubt the importance his journals would have in the future. In December 1849, he wrote: "Were I to die now the effect of my life would be exceptional; much of what I have simply jotted down carelessly in the Journals would become of great importance and have a great effect; for then people would have grown reconciled to me and would be able to grant me what was, and is, my right."[41]

[edit]Regine

Olsen and graduation (18371841)

Main article: Regine Olsen

Regine Olsen, a muse for Kierkegaard's writings

An important aspect of Kierkegaard's life, generally considered to have had a major influence on his work, was his broken engagement to Regine Olsen (18221904). Kierkegaard and Olsen met on 8 May 1837 and were instantly attracted but sometime around 11 August 1838 he had second thoughts. In his journals, Kierkegaard wrote about his love for her: You, sovereign queen of my heart, Regina, hidden in the deepest secrecy of my breast, in the fullness of my life-idea, there where it is just as far to heaven as to hellunknown divinity! O, can I really believe the poets when they say that the first time one sees the beloved object he thinks he has seen her long before, that love like all knowledge is recollection, that love in the single individual also has its prophecies, its types, its myths, its Old Testament. Everywhere, in the face of every girl, I see features of your beauty, but I think I would have to possess the beauty of all the girls in the world to extract your beauty, that I would have to sail around the world to find the portion of the world I want and toward which the deepest secret of my self polarically points and in the next moment you are so close to me, so present, so overwhelmingly filling my spirit that I am transfigured to myself and feel that here it is good to be. You blind god of erotic love! You who see in secret, will you disclose it to me? Will I find what I am seeking here in this world, will I experience the conclusion of all my life's eccentric premises, will I fold you in my arms, or: Do the Orders say: March on? Have you gone on ahead, you, my longing, transfigured do you beckon to me from another world? O, I will throw everything away in order to become light enough to follow you.[42] On 8 September 1840, Kierkegaard formally proposed to Olsen. He soon felt disillusioned about his prospects. He broke off the engagement on 11 August 1841, though it is generally believed that the two were deeply in love. In his journals, Kierkegaard mentions his belief that his "melancholy" made him unsuitable for marriage, but his precise motive for ending the engagement remains unclear.[22][43] The following quote from his Journals sheds some light on the motivation.

and this terrible restlessnessas if wanting to convince myself every moment that it would still be possible to return to herO God, would that I dared to do it. It is so hard; my last hope in life I had placed in her, and I must deprive myself of it. How strange, I had never really thought of getting married, but I never believed that it would turn out this way and leave so deep a wound. I have always ridiculed those who talked about the power of women, and I still do, but a young, beautiful, soulful girl who loves with all her mind and all her heart, who is completely devoted, who pleadshow often I have been close to setting her love on fire, not to a sinful love, but I need merely have said to her that I loved her, and everything would have been set in motion to end my young life. But then it occurred to me that this would not be good for her, that I might bring a storm upon her head, since she would feel responsible for my death. I prefer what I did do; my relationship to her was always kept so ambiguous that I had it in my power to give it any interpretation I wanted to. I gave it the interpretation that I was a deceiver. Humanly speaking, that is the only way to save her, to give her soul resilience. My sin is that I did not have faith, faith that for God all things are possible, but where is the borderline between that and tempting God; but my sin has never been that I did not love her. If she had not been so devoted to me, so trusting, had not stopped living for herself in order to live for mewell, then the whole thing would have been a trifle; it does not bother me to make a fool of the whole world, but to deceive a young girl.O, if I dared return to her, and even if she did not believe that I was false, she certainly believed that once I was free I would never come back. Be still, my soul, I will act firmly and decisively according to what I think is right. I will also watch what I write in my letters. I know my moods. But in a letter I cannot, as when I am speaking, instantly dispel an impression when I detect that it is too strong."[44] Kierkegaard turned attention to his examinations. On 13 May 1839 he wrote, "I have no alternative than to suppose that it is God's will that I prepare for my examination and that it is more pleasing to him that I do this than actually coming to some clearer perception by immersing myself in one or another sort of research, for obedience is more precious to him than the fat of rams."[45] The death of his father and the death of Poul Mller also played a part in his decision. On 29 September 1841, Kierkegaard wrote and defended his dissertation, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates. The university panel considered it noteworthy and thoughtful, but too informal and witty for a serious academic thesis.[46] The thesis dealt with irony and Schelling's 1841 lectures, which Kierkegaard had attended with Mikhail Bakunin, Jacob Burckhardt, andFriedrich Engels; each had come away with a different perspective.[47] Kierkegaard graduated from university on 20 October 1841 with a Magister Artium, which today would be designated a PhD. He was able to fund his education, his living, and several publications of his early works with his family's inheritance of approximately 31,000 rigsdaler.[37]

[edit]Authorship

(18431846)

Kierkegaard published some of his works using pseudonyms and for others he signed his own name as author. On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates was his university thesis, mentioned

above. His first book, De omnibus dubitandum est(Latin: "Everything must be doubted"), was written in 1841 42 but was not published until after his death. It was written under the pseudonym "Johannes Climacus".[48] Either/Or was published 20 February 1843; it was mostly written during Kierkegaard's stay in Berlin, where he took notes on Schelling'sPhilosophy of Revelation.[49] Edited by Victor Eremita, the book contained the papers of an unknown "A" and "B". Kierkegaard writes inEither/Or, "one author seems to be enclosed in another, like the parts in a Chinese puzzle box,";[50] the puzzle box would prove to be complicated. Kierkegaard claimed to have found these papers in a secret drawer of his secretary.[51] In Either/Or, he stated that arranging the papers of "B" was easy because "B" was talking about ethical situations, whereas arranging the papers of "A" was more difficult because he was talking about chance, so he left the arranging of those papers to chance.[52] Both the ethicist and the aesthetic writers were discussing outer goods, but Kierkegaard was more interested in inner goods. Three months after the publication of Either/Or, he published Two Upbuilding Discourses, in which he wrote: "There is talk of the good things of the world, of health, happy times, prosperity, power, good fortune, a glorious fame. And we are warned against them; the person who has them is warned not to rely on them, and the person who does not have them is warned not to set his heart on them. About faith there is a different kind of talk. It is said to be the highest good, the most beautiful; the most precious, the most blessed riches of all, not to be compared with anything else, incapable of being replaced. Is it distinguished from the other good things, then, by being the highest but otherwise of the same kind as they aretransient and capricious, bestowed only upon the chosen few, rarely for the whole of life? If this were so, then it certainly would be inexplicable that in these sacred places it is always faith and faith alone that is spoken of, that it is eulogized and celebrated again and again."[53] Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 was published under his own name, rather than a pseudonym. On 16 October 1843 Kierkegaard published three books: Fear and Trembling, under the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio; Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 under his own name; and Repetition as Constantin Constantius.[54] He later published Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1843, again using his own name. In 1844, he published Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1844, and Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 under his own name, Philosophical Fragments under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, The Concept of Anxiety under two pseudonyms Vigilius Haufniensis, with a Preface, by Nicolaus Notabene, and finally Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 under his own name. Kierkegaard published Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions under his own name on 29 April, and Stages on Life's Way edited by Hilarius Bookbinder, 30 April 1845. Kierkegaard went to Berlin for a short rest. Upon returning he published his Discourses of 184344 in one volume, Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, 29 May 1845.

[edit]Pseudonymous

authorship

Either/Or, one of Kierkegaard's works, was authored under the pseudonyms "A" and "B", or Judge William, and edited under the pseudonym Victor Eremita.

Pseudonyms were used often in the early 19th century as a means of representing viewpoints other than the author's own; examples include the writers of the Federalist Papersand the Anti-Federalist Papers. Kierkegaard employed the same technique. This was part of Kierkegaard's theory of "indirect communication." He wrote:
No anonymous author can more slyly hide himself, and no maieutic can more carefully recede from a direct relation than God can. He is in the creation, everywhere in the creation, but he is not there directly, and only when the single individual turns inward into himself (consequently only in the inwardness of self-activity) does he become aware and capable of seeing God."
[55]

According to several passages in his works and journals, such as The Point of View of My Work as an Author, Kierkegaard used pseudonyms in order to prevent his works from being treated as a philosophical system with a systematic structure.[56] In the Point of View, Kierkegaard wrote: "The movement: from the poet (from aesthetics), from philosophy (from speculation), to the indication of the most central definition of what Christianity isfrom the pseudonymous Either/Or, through The Concluding Postscript with my name as editor, to the Discourses at Communion on Fridays, two of which were delivered

in the Church of our Lady. This movement was accomplished or described uno tenore, in one breath, if I may use this expression, so that the authorship integrally regarded, is religious from first to lasta thing which everyone can see if he is willing to see, and therefore ought to see."[57][58] Later he would write: "... As is well-known, my authorship has two parts: one pseudonymous and the other signed. The pseudonymous writers are poetic creations, poetically maintained so that everything they say is in character with their poetized individualized personalities; sometimes I have carefully explained in a signed preface my own interpretation of what the pseudonym said. Anyone with just a fragment of common sense will perceive that it would be ludicrously confusing to attribute to me everything the poetized characters say. Nevertheless, to be on the safe side, I have expressly urged that anyone who quotes something from the pseudonyms will not attribute the quotation to me (see my postscript to Concluding Postscript). It is easy to see that anyone wanting to have a literary lark merely needs to take some verbatim quotations from "The Seducer," then from Johannes Climacus, then from me, etc., print them together as if they were all my words, show how they contradict each other, and create a very chaotic impression, as if the author were a kind of lunatic. Hurrah! That can be done. In my opinion anyone who exploits the poetic in me by quoting the writings in a confusing way is more or less a charlatan or a literary toper."[59] Early Kierkegaardian scholars, such as Theodor W. Adorno and Thomas Henry Croxall argue that the entire authorship should be treated as Kierkegaard's own personal and religious views.[60] This view leads to confusions and contradictions which make Kierkegaard appear philosophically incoherent.[61] Many later scholars, such as the post-structuralists, interpreted Kierkegaard's work by attributing the pseudonymous texts to their respective authors. Postmodern Christians present a different interpretation of Kierkegaard's works.[62]Kierkegaard used the category of "The Individual"[63] to stop[64] the endless Either/Or.[65] Kierkegaard's most important pseudonyms,[66] in chronological order, were:

Victor Eremita, editor of Either/Or A, writer of many articles in Either/Or Judge William, author of rebuttals to A in Either/Or Johannes de silentio, author of Fear and Trembling Constantin Constantius, author of the first half of Repetition Young Man, author of the second half of Repetition Vigilius Haufniensis, author of The Concept of Anxiety Nicolaus Notabene, author of Prefaces Hilarius Bookbinder, editor of Stages on Life's Way Johannes Climacus, author of Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Unscientific Postscript

Inter et Inter, author of The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress H.H., author of Two Ethical-Religious Essays Anti-Climacus, author of The Sickness Unto Death and Practice in Christianity

[edit]The

Corsair Affair

On 22 December 1845, Peder Ludvig Mller, a young author of Kierkegaard's generation who studied at the University of Copenhagen at the same time as Kierkegaard, published an article indirectly criticizing Stages on Life's Way. The article complimented Kierkegaard for his wit and intellect, but questioned whether he would ever be able to master his talent and write coherent, complete works. Mller was also a contributor to and editor of The Corsair, a Danish satirical paper that lampooned everyone of notable standing. Kierkegaard published a sarcastic response, charging that Mller's article was merely an attempt to impress Copenhagen's literary elite.

A caricature of Kierkegaard published in The Corsair, a satirical journal

Kierkegaard wrote two small pieces in response to Mller, The Activity of a Traveling Esthetician and Dialectical Result of a Literary Police Action. The former focused on insulting Mller's integrity while the latter was a directed assault on The Corsair, in which Kierkegaard, after criticizing the journalistic quality and reputation of the paper, openly asked The Corsair to satirize him.[67] Kierkegaard's response earned him the ire of the paper and its second editor, also an intellectual of Kierkegaard's own age, Mer Aron Goldschmidt.[68] Over the next few months, The Corsair took Kierkegaard up on his offer to "be abused", and unleashed a series of attacks making fun of Kierkegaard's appearance, voice and habits. For months, Kierkegaard perceived himself to be the victim of harassment on the streets of Denmark. In a journal entry dated 9 March 1846, Kierkegaard made a long, detailed explanation of his attack on Mller and The Corsair, and also explained that this attack made him rethink his strategy of indirect communication.[69]

On 27 February 1846 Kierkegaard published Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, under his first pseudonym, Johannes Climacus. On 30 March 1846 he published Two Ages: A Literary Review, under his own name. A critique of the novel Two Ages (in some translations Two Generations) written byThomasine Christine Gyllembourg-Ehrensvrd, Kierkegaard made several insightful observations on what he considered the nature of modernity and its passionless attitude towards life. Kierkegaard writes that "the present age is essentially a sensible age, devoid of passion [...] The trend today is in the direction of mathematical equality, so that in all classes about so and so many uniformly make one individual". [70] In this, Kierkegaard attacked the conformity and assimilation of individuals into "the crowd"[71] which became the standard for truth, since it was the numerical. As part of his analysis of the "crowd", Kierkegaard accused newspapers of decay and decadence. Kierkegaard stated Christendom had "lost its way" by recognizing "the crowd," as the many who are moved by newspaper stories, as the court of last resort in relation to "the truth." Truth comes to a single individual, not all people at one and the same time. Just as truth comes to one individual at a time so does love. One doesn't love the crowd but does love their neighbor, who is a single individual. He says, "never have I read in the Holy Scriptures this command: You shall love the crowd; even less: You shall, ethico-religiously, recognize in the crowd the court of last resort in relation to 'the truth.'"[72] Kierkegaard takes out his wrath on the crowd, the public, and especially the newspapers in this short sample of his work. In this quote he also gives an inkling of what true Christianity is like. God must be the middle term.[73] "The crowd is untruth. And I could weep, in every case I can learn to long for the eternal, whenever I think about our age's misery, even compared with the ancient world's greatest misery, in that the daily press and anonymity make our age even more insane with help from "the public," which is really an abstraction, which makes a claim to be the court of last resort in relation to "the truth"; for assemblies which make this claim surely do not take place. That an anonymous person, with help from the press, day in and day out can speak however he pleases (even with respect to the intellectual, the ethical, the religious), things which he perhaps did not in the least have the courage to say personally in a particular situation; every time he opens up his gulletone cannot call it a mouthhe can all at once address himself to thousands upon thousands; he can get ten thousand times ten thousand to repeat after himand no one has to answer for it; in ancient times the relatively unrepentant crowd was the almighty, but now there is the absolutely unrepentant thing: No One, an anonymous person: the Author, an anonymous person: the Public, sometimes even anonymous subscribers, therefore: No One. No One! God in heaven, such states even call themselves Christian states. One cannot say that, again with the help of the press, "the truth" can overcome the lie and the error.

"O, you who say this, ask yourself: Do you dare to claim that human beings, in a crowd, are just as quick to reach for truth, which is not always palatable, as for untruth, which is always deliciously prepared, when in

addition this must be combined with an admission that one has let oneself be deceived! Or do you dare to claim that "the truth" is just as quick to let itself be understood as is untruth, which requires no previous knowledge, no schooling, no discipline, no abstinence, no self-denial, no honest self-concern, no patient labor! No, "the truth," which detests this untruth, the only goal of which is to desire its increase, is not so quick on its feet. Firstly, it cannot work through the fantastical, which is the untruth; its communicator is only a single individual. And its communication relates itself once again to the single individual; for in this view of life the single individual is precisely the truth. The truth can neither be communicated nor be received without being as it were before the eyes of God, nor without God's help, nor without God being involved as the middle term, since he is the truth. It can therefore only be communicated by and received by "the single individual," which, for that matter, every single human being who lives could be: this is the determination of the truth in contrast to the abstract, the fantastical, impersonal, "the crowd" "the public," which excludes God as the middle term (for the personal God cannot be the middle term in an impersonal relation), and also thereby the truth, for God is the truth and its middle term." Sren Kierkegaard, Copenhagen, Spring 1847

[edit]Authorship

(18471855)

Kierkegaard's manuscript of The Sickness Unto Death[74]

Kierkegaard began to write again in 1847. His first work in this period was Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits,[43] which included Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing, andWorks of Love, both authored under his own name. There had been much discussion in Denmark about the pseudonymous authors until the publication of Concluding Unscientific Discourses where he openly admitted to be the author of the books because people began wondering if he was, in fact, a Christian or not.[75][76] In 1848 he published Christian Discourses under his own name and The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress under the pseudonym Inter et Inter. Kierkegaard also developed The Point of View of My Work as an Author, his autobiographical explanation for his prolific use of pseudonyms. The book was finished in 1848, but not published until after his death. The Second edition of Either/Or and The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air were both published early in 1849. Later that year he published The Sickness Unto Death, under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus; four months later he wrote Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays under his own name. Another work by

Anti-Climacus, Practice in Christianity, was published in 1850, but edited by Kierkegaard. This work was called Training in Christianity when Walter Lowrie translated it in 1941. In 1851, Kierkegaard began openly presenting his case for Christianity to the "Single Individual". In Practice In Christianity, his last pseudonymous work, he stated, "In this book, originating in the year 1848, the requirement for being a Christian is forced up by the pseudonymous authors to a supreme ideality." [77] He now pointedly referred to the single individual in his next three publications; For Self-Examination, Two Discourses at the Communion on Fridays, and in 1852 Judge for Yourselves!.[78][79] In 1843 he had written inEither/Or: "I ask: What am I supposed to do if I do not want to be a philosopher, I am well aware that I like other philosophers will have to mediate the past. For one thing, this is no answer to my question 'What am I supposed to do?' for even if I had the most brilliant philosophical mind there ever was, there must be something more I have to do besides sitting and contemplating the past. Second, I am a married man and far from being a philosophical brain, but in all respect I turn to the devotees of this science to find out what I am supposed to do. But I receive no answer, for philosophy mediates the past and is in the past-philosophy hastens so fast into the past that, as a poet says of and antiquarian, only his coattails remain in the present. See, here you are at one with the philosophers. What unites you is that life comes to a halt. For the philosopher, world history is ended, and he mediates. This accounts for the repugnant spectacle that belongs to the order of the day in our age-to see young people who are able to mediate Christianity and paganism, who are able to play games with the titanic forces of history, and who are unable to tell a simple human being what he has to do here in life, nor do they know what they themselves have to do."[80] A journal entry about Practice in Christianity from 1851 clarified his intention: What I have understood as the task of the authorship has been done. It is one idea, this continuity from Either/Or to Anti-Climacus, the idea of religiousness in reflection. The task has occupied me totally, for it has occupied me religiously; I have understood the completion of this authorship as my duty, as a responsibility resting upon me. Whether anyone has wanted to buy or to read has concerned me very little. At times I have considered laying down my pen and, if anything should be done, to use my voice. Meanwhile I came by way of further reflection to the realization that it perhaps is more appropriate for me to make at least an attempt once again to use my pen but in a different way, as I would use my voice, consequently in direct address to my contemporaries, winning men, if possible. The first condition for winning men is that the communication reaches them. Therefore I must naturally want this little book to come to the knowledge of as many as possible. If anyone out of interest for the causeI repeat, out of interest for the causewants to work for its dissemination, this is fine with me. It would be still better if he would contribute to its well-comprehended dissemination. I hardly need say that by wanting to win men it is not my intention to form a party, to create secular, sensate togetherness; no, my wish is only to win men, if possible all men (each individual), for Christianity. A request, an urgent request to the reader: I beg you to read aloud, if possible; I will thank

everyone who does so; and I will thank again and again everyone who in addition to doing it himself influences others to do it." Journals of Sren Kierkegaard, June 1, 1851

[edit]Attack

upon the State Church and death

I ask: what does it mean when we continue to behave as though all were as it should be, calling ourselves Christians according to the New Testament, when the ideals of the New Testament have gone out of life? The tremendous disproportion which this state of affairs represents has, moreover, been perceived by many. They like to give it this turn: the human race has outgrown Christianity. Sren Kierkegaard, Journals, p. 446 (19 June 1852)[37]

Kierkegaard mounted an attack on Christian institutions in his final years. He felt the established state church was detrimental to individuals.

Kierkegaard's final years were taken up with a sustained, outright attack on the Church of Denmark by means of newspaper articles published in The Fatherland (Fdrelandet) and a series of self-published pamphlets called The Moment (jeblikket), also translated as "The Instant". These pamphlets are now included in Kierkegaard's Attack Upon Christendom[81]The Instant, was translated into German as well as other European languages in 1861 and again in 1896.[82] Kierkegaard first moved to action after Professor (soon bishop) Hans Lassen Martensen gave a speech in church in which he called the recently deceased Bishop Jakob P. Mynster a "truth-witness, one of the authentic truth-witnesses."[7] Kierkegaard explained, in his first article, that Mynster's death permitted himat lastto be frank about his opinions. He later wrote that all his former output had been "preparations" for this attack, postponed for years waiting for two preconditions: 1) both his father and bishop Mynster should be dead before the attack and 2) he should himself have acquired a name as a famous theologic writer.[83]Kierkegaard's father had been Mynster's close friend, but Sren had long come to see that Mynster's conception of Christianity was mistaken, demanding too little of its adherents. Kierkegaard strongly objected to the portrayal of Mynster as a 'truth-witness'. During the ten issues of jeblikket the aggressiveness of Kierkegaard's language increased; the thousand Danish priests playing Christianity were eventually called man-eaters after having been liars, hypocrites

and destroyers of Christianity" in the first issues. This verbal violence caused a sensation in Denmark, but today Kierkegaard is often considered to have lost control of himself during this campaign.[84] Before the tenth issue of his periodical The Moment could be published, Kierkegaard collapsed on the street. He stayed in the hospital for over a month and refused communion. At that time he regarded pastors as mere political officials, a niche in society who was clearly not representative of the divine. He said to Emil Boesen, a friend since childhood who kept a record of his conversations with Kierkegaard, that his life had been one of immense suffering, which may have seemed like vanity to others, but he did not think it so. [43]

Sren Kierkegaard's grave in Assistens Kirkegrd

Kierkegaard died in Frederik's Hospital after over a month, possibly from complications from a fall he had taken from a tree in his youth. He was interred in the Assistens Kirkegrd in theNrrebro section of Copenhagen. At Kierkegaard's funeral, his nephew Henrik Lund caused a disturbance by protesting Kierkegaard's burial by the official church. Lund maintained that Kierkegaard would never have approved, had he been alive, as he had broken from and denounced the institution. Lund was later fined for his disruption of a funeral. [22] In Kierkegaard's pamphlets and polemical books, including The Moment, he criticized several aspects of church formalities and politics.[85] According to Kierkegaard, the idea of congregations keeps individuals as children since Christians are disinclined from taking the initiative to take responsibility for their own relation to God. He stressed that "Christianity is the individual, here, the single individual."[86] Furthermore, since the Church was controlled by the State, Kierkegaard believed the State's bureaucratic mission was to increase membership and oversee the welfare of its members. More members would mean more power for the clergymen: a corrupt ideal.[87] This mission would seem at odds with Christianity's true doctrine, which, to Kierkegaard, is to stress the importance of the individual, not the whole.[37] Thus, the state-church political structure is offensive and detrimental to individuals, since anyone can become "Christian" without knowing what it means to be Christian. It is also detrimental to the religion itself since it reduces Christianity to a mere fashionable tradition adhered to by unbelieving "believers", a "herd mentality" of the population, so to speak.[88] In the Journals, Kierkegaard writes:

"If the Church is "free" from the state, it's all good. I can immediately fit in this situation. But if the Church is to beemancipated, then I must ask: By what means, in what way? A religious movement must be served religiouslyotherwise it is a sham! Consequently, the emancipation must come about through martyrdom bloody or bloodless. The price of purchase is the spiritual attitude. But those who wish to emancipate the Church by secular and worldly means (i.e. no martyrdom), they've introduced a conception of tolerance entirely consonant with that of the entire world, where tolerance equals indifference, and that is the most terrible offence against Christianity. [...] the doctrine of the established Church, its organization, are both very good indeed. Oh, but then our lives: believe me, they are indeed wretched."[89]

[edit]Reception
Sren Kierkegaard has been interpreted and reinterpreted since he published his first book. Some authors change with the times as their productivity progresses and sometimes interpretations of an author change with each new generation. The interpretation of Sren Kierkegaard is still evolving.

[edit]19th

century reception

In September 1850, the Western Literary Messenger wrote: "While Martensen with his wealth of genius casts from his central position light upon every sphere of existence, upon all the phemomena of life, Sren Kierkegaard stands like another Simon Stylites, upon his solitary column, with his eye unchangeably fixed upon one point. Upon this he places his microscope and examines its minutest atoms; scrutinizes its most fleeting movements; its innermost changes, upon this he lectures, upon this he writes again and again, infinite volumes. Everything exists for him in this one point. But this point is-the human heart: and as he ever reflects this changing heart in the eternal unchangeable, in that which became flesh and dwelt among us, and as he amidst his wearisome logical wanderings often says divine things, he has found in the gay, lively Copenhagen not a small public, and that principally of the ladies. The philosophy of the heart must be near to them."[90] In 1855, the Danish National Church published his obituary. Kierkegaard did have an impact there judging from the following quote from their article: "The fatal fruits which Dr. Kierkegaard show to arise from the union of Church and State, have strengthened the scruples of many of the believing laity, who now feel that they can remain no longer in the Church, because thereby they are in communion with unbelievers, for there is no ecclesiastical discipline. Thus, the desire of leaving the Church becomes increasingly strengthened among them. They wish to see J. Lursen (the reader) ordained. One of his friends has lately declared in their journal, that pious laymen are more fit to ordain ministers than the unbelieving priests. An independent Lutheran Church was formed at Copenhagen last December."[90][91]

Changes did occur in the administration of the Church and these changes were linked to Kierkegaard's writings. The Church noted that dissent was something foreign to the national mind. On 5 April 1855 the Church enacted new policies: every member of a congregation is free to attend the ministry of any clergyman, and is not, as formerly, bound to the one whose parishioner he is. In March 1857, compulsory infant baptism was abolished. Debates sprang up over the King's position as the head of the Church and over whether to adopt a constitution. Gruntvig objected to having any written rules. Immediately following this announcement the agitation occasioned by Kierkegaard" was mentioned. Kierkegaard was accused of Weigelianism and Darbyism, but the article continued to say, One great truth has been made prominent, viz (namely): That there exists a worldly-minded clergy; that many things in the Church are rotten; that all need daily repentance; that one must never be contented with the existing state of either the Church or her pastors. But there is no truth in the assertion that Christianity does not aim at the formation of the Church, or Christianizing the world; that the Church is a mere Babel: that where there is no suffering for Christs sake, the Gospel of the New Testament is at an end.[90][92] Hans Martensen wrote a monograph about Kierkegaard in 1856, a year after his death.[93] (untranslated) and mentioned him extensively in Christian Ethics, published in 1871.[94] "Kierkegaard's assertion is therefore perfectly justifiable, that with the category of "the individual" the cause of Christianity must stand and fall; that, without this category, Pantheism had conquered unconditionally. From this, at a glance, it may be seen that Kierkegaard ought to have made common cause with those philosophic and theological writers who specially desired to promote the principle of Personality as opposed to Pantheism. This is, however, far from the case. For those views which upheld the category of existence and personality, in opposition to this abstract idealism, did not do this in the sense of an eitheror, but in that of a bothand. They strove to establish the unity of existence and idea, which may be specially seen from the fact that they desired system and totality. Martensen accused Kierkegaard and Alexandre Vinet of not giving society its due. He said both of them put the individual above society, and in so doing, above the Church.[90][95] Another early critic was Magns Eirksson who criticized Martensen and wanted Kierkegaard as his ally in his fight against speculative theology. Otto Pfleiderer in The Philosophy of Religion: On the Basis of Its History (1887), claimed that Kierkegaard presented an anti-rational view of Christianity. He went on to assert that the ethical side of a human being has to disappear completely in his one-sided view of faith as the highest good. He wrote, "Kierkegaard can only find true Christianity in entire renunciation of the world, in the following of Christ in lowliness and suffering especially when met by hatred and persecution on the part of the world. Hence his passionate polemicagainst ecclesiastical Christianity, which he says has fallen away from Christ by coming to a peaceful understanding with the world and conforming itself to the worlds life. True Christianity, on the contrary, is constant polemical pathos, a battle against reason, nature, and the world; its commandment is enmity with the world; its way of life is the death of the naturally human.[90][96]

An article from an 1889 dictionary of religion revealed a good idea of how Kierkegaard was regarded at that time. Having never left his native city more than a few days at a time, excepting once, when he went to Germany to study Schelling's philosophy. He was the most original thinker and theological philosopher the North ever produced. His fame has been steadily growing since his death, and he bids fair to become the leading religiophilosophical light of Germany, not only his theological, but also his aesthetic works have of late become the subject of universal study in Europe. (...) Sren Kierkegaards writings abound in psychological observations and experiences, great penetration and dexterous experimentations, all of which enable him to speak of that which but few know and fewer still can express, his diction is noble, his dialectics refined and brilliant; scarcely a page of his can be found which is not rich in poetic sentiment and passionate though pure enthusiasm. It is generally conceded that his literary productions overflow with intellectual wonders, still it must be said that he is often more fascinating and seductive than convincing. He defined his task to be 'to call attention to Christianity', to make himself an instrument to summon people to the truly Human. Ideal or true Christianity, so little known, as he claimed, and to which he wanted to call attention, is neither a theory, scientific or otherwise, but a life and a mode of existence; a life which nature can neither define nor teach. It is an existence rooted wholly in the beyond, though it must be realized in actual life. Christian truth is not and cannot be the subject of science, for it is not objective, but purely subjective. He does not deny the value of objective science; he admits its use and necessity in a real world, but he utterly discards any claims it may lay to the spiritual relations of the Christian relations which are and can be only subjective, personal, and individual. Defined, his perception is this, "Subjectivity is the truth"a doubtful proposition, and only true with regard to the One who could say about himself, "I am the truth." Rightly understood, it is the speculative principle of Protestantism; but wrongly conceived, it leads to a denial of the church idea. The main element of this philosophy would not have met with any determined opposition had Kierkegaard moderated his language. As it was he defiantly declared war against all speculation as a source of Christianity, and opposed those who seek to speculate on faithas was the case in his day and beforethereby striving to get an insight into the truths of revelation. Speculation, he claimed, leads to a fall, and to a falsification of the truth."[90][97] The dramatist Henrik Ibsen became interested in Kierkegaard and introduced his work to the rest of Scandinavia.

[edit]Early

20th century reception

The first academic to draw attention to Kierkegaard was fellow Dane Georg Brandes, who published in German as well as Danish. Brandes gave the first formal lectures on Kierkegaard in Copenhagen and helped bring him to the attention of the European intellectual community.[98] Brandes published the first book on Kierkegaard's philosophy and life. Sren Kierkegaard, ein literarisches Charakterbild. Autorisirte deutsche Ausg (1879) [99] and compared him to Hegel in Reminiscences of my Childhood and Youth[100] (1906). (He also introduced Friedrich

Nietzsche to Europe in 1914 by writing a biography about him.[101]) Brandes opposed Kierkegaard's ideas.[102] He wrote elegantly about Christian doubt. "But my doubt would not be overcome. Kierkegaard had declared that it was only to the consciousness of sin that Christianity was not horror or madness. For me it was sometimes both. I concluded there from that I had no consciousness of sin, and found this idea confirmed when I looked into my own heart. For however violently at this period I reproached myself and condemned my failings, they were always in my eyes weaknesses that ought to be combatted, or defects that could be remedied, never sins that necessitated forgiveness, and for the obtaining of this forgiveness, a Saviour. That God had died for me as my Saviour,I could not understand what it meant; it was an idea that conveyed nothing to me. And I wondered whether the inhabitants of another planet would be able to understand how on the Earth that which was contrary to all reason was considered the highest truth."[90][103] On 11 January 1888 Brandes wrote the following to Nietzsche, There is a Northern writer whose works would interest you, if they were but translated, Soren Kierkegaard. He lived from 1813 to 1855, and is in my opinion one of the profoundest psychologists to be met with anywhere. A little book which I have written about him (the translation published at Leipzig in 1879) gives me exhaustive idea of his genius, for the book is a kind of polemical tract written with the purpose of checking his influence. It is, nevertheless, from apsychological point of view, the finest work I have published. (p. 325) Nietzsche wrote back that he would tackle Kierkegaards psychological problems (p. 327) and then Brandes asked if he could get a copy of everything Nietzsche had published. (p. 343) so he could spread his propaganda. (p. 348, 360-361) [104] He also mentioned him extensively in volume 2 of his 6 volume work, Main Currents in Nineteenth Century Literature.[90] "In Danish Romanticism there is none of Friedrich Schlegel's audacious immorality, but neither is there anything like that spirit of opposition which in him amounts to genius; his ardour melts, and his daring moulds into new and strange shapes, much that we accept as inalterable. Nor do the Danes become Catholic mystics. Protestant orthodoxy in its most petrified form flourishes with us: so do supernaturalism and pietism; and in Grundtvigianism we slide down the inclined plane which leads to Catholicism; but in this matter, as in every other, we never take the final step; we shrink back from the last consequences. The result is that the Danish reaction is far more insidious and covert than the German. Veiling itself as vice does, it clings to the altars of the Church, which have always been a sanctuary for criminals of every species. It is never possible to lay hold of it, to convince it then and there that its principles logically lead to intolerance, inquisition, and despotism. Kierkegaard, for example, is in religion orthodox, in politics a believer in absolutism, towards the close of his career a fanatic. Yetand this is a genuinely Romantic traithe all his life long avoids drawing any practical conclusions from his doctrines; one only catches an occasional glimpse of such a feeling as admiration for the Inquisition, or hatred ofnatural science.[105]

During the 1890s, Japanese philosophers began disseminating the works of Kierkegaard, from the Danish thinkers.[106] Tetsuro Watsujiwas one of the first philosophers outside of Scandinavia to write an introduction on his philosophy, in 1915. Harald Hffding wrote an article about him in A brief history of modern philosophy (1900).[90] Hffding mentioned Kierkegaard inPhilosophy of Religion 1906, and the American Journal of Theology[107] (1908) printed an article about Hoffding's Philosophy of Religion. Then Hffding repented of his previous convictions in The problems of philosophy (1913).[90] Hffding was also a friend of the American philosopher William James, and although James had not read Kierkegaard's works, as they were not yet translated into English, he attended the lectures about Kierkegaard by Hffding and agreed with much of those lectures. James' favourite quote from Kierkegaard came from Hffding: "We live forwards but we understand backwards".[108] This was, however a misquote, in that Kierkegaard actually wrote, "It is quite true what philosophy says; that life must be understood backwards. But then one forgets the other principle: that it must be lived forwards. Which principle, the more one thinks it through, ends exactly with the thought that temporal life can never properly be understood precisely because I can at no instant find complete rest in which to adopt a position: backwards."[109] The Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics had an article about him in 1908. The article began: The life of Sren Kierkegaard has but few points of contact with the external world; but there were, in particular, three occurrencesa broken engagement, and attack by a comic paper, and the use of a word by H. L. Martensenwhich must be referred to as having wrought with extraordinary effect upon his peculiarly sensitive and high-strung nature. The intensity of his inner life, againwhich finds expression in his published works, and even more directly in his notebooks and diaries (also published)cannot be properly understood without some reference to his father.[90][110] Theodor Haecker wrote an essay titled, Kierkegaard and the Philosophy of Inwardness in 1913 and David F. Swenson wrote a biography of Sren Kierkegaard in 1920.[90] Lee M. Hollander translated parts of Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Stages on Life's Way, andPreparations for the Christian Life (Practice in Christianity) into English in 1923,[111] with little impact. Swenson said, It would be interesting to speculate upon the reputation that Kierkegaard might have attained, and the extent of the influence he might have exerted, if he had written in one of the major European languages, instead of in the tongue of one of the smallest countries in the world."[112]

[edit]German and English translators of Kierkegaard's works

Hermann Gottsche published Kierkegaard's Journals in 1905. It had taken academics 50 years to arrange his journals.[113]Kierkegaard's main works were translated into German by Christoph Schrempf from 1909

onwards.[114] Emmanuel Hirsch released a German edition of Kierkegaard's collected works from 1950 onwards.[114] Both Harald Hoffding's and Schrempf's books about Kierkegaard were reviewed in 1892.
There are two volumes from the pen of H. Hoffding, both of which are to be praised on account of the fresh and rich language and the clear, incisive exposition. They treat of Soren Kierkegaard, the poet-philosopher of melancholy, of abrupt transitions, of paradoxes, the preacher of the true Christianity, full of suffering, and to which the world is a stranger; andRousseau, the herald of humanity, good as it is by nature, the despiser of men, bad, artificial, and over refined as culture had made them. In both these men, the dependence of philosophical thinking upon the individual personality andexperience of the thinker is strongly marked. An understanding of either one, therefore, must be based upon an analysis of his personality; and the historian must above all things-as is the case with Hoffding in a high degree-possesspsychological insight and the ability to enter into anothers personality and to feel and think from his standpoint. But it is just this which makes the subjectivity of the historian paramount, and thereby increases the probability of contradiction. That which is to one psychologically possible, or seems absolutely necessary, is unthinkable to another on account of his mental peculiarity. Thus, for instance, Chr. Schrempf, takes an entirely different standpoint in regard to Kierkegaard. He thinks that, if one regards him only from the point of view which Hoffding adopts, the great Dane can neither be rightly understood nor appreciated. Schremph-in opposition to Hoffding-agrees with Kierkegaard in the position that melancholy,dread of oneself, of the world, and of God is the dominating frame of mind of every man who has become intensivelyconscious of himself. I, for my part, must take exception to the characterization of Rousseau. The pathological element in him is much too little emphasized. Kierkegaard may have been more strongly encumbered in a certain sense by the influence of heredity, still he possesses what Rousseau completely lacks, namely, a great strength of will and a strong power of concentration. The Philosophical Review, Volume I, Ginn and Company 1892 p. 282-283
[115]

In the 1930s, the first academic English translations,[116] by Alexander Dru, David F. Swenson, Douglas V. Steere, and Walter Lowrie appeared, under the editorial efforts of Oxford University Press editor Charles Williams, one of the members of the Inklings.[2][117]Thomas Henry Croxall, another early translator, Lowrie, and Dru all hoped that people would not just read about Kierkegaard but would actually read his works.[118] Dru published an English translation of Kierkegaard's Journals in 1958;[119] Alastair Hannay translated some of Kierkegaard's works.[43] From the 1960s to the 1990s, Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong translated his works more than once.[120][121] The first volume of their first version of the Journals and Papers (Indiana, 19671978) won the 1968 U.S. National Book Award in category Translation.[120][122] They both dedicated their lives to the study of Soren Kierkegaard and his works, which are maintained at the Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library.

[edit]Later

20th century reception

Kierkegaard's comparatively early and manifold philosophical and theological reception in Germany was one of the decisive factors of expanding his works' influence and readership throughout the world. [123][124] Important for

the first phase of his reception in Germany was the establishment of the journal Zwischen den Zeiten (Between the Ages) in 1922 by a heterogeneous circle of Protestant theologians: Karl Barth, Emil Brunner, Rudolf Bultmann and Friedrich Gogarten.[125] Their thought would soon be referred to asdialectical theology.[125] At roughly the same time, Kierkegaard was discovered by several proponents of the Jewish-Christianphilosophy of dialogue in Germany,[126] namely by Martin Buber, Ferdinand Ebner, and Franz Rosenzweig.[127] In addition to thephilosophy of dialogue, existential philosophy has its point of origin in Kierkegaard and his concept of individuality.[128] Martin Heideggersparsely refers to Kierkegaard in Being and Time (1927),[129] obscuring how much he owes to him.[130][131][132] In 1935, Karl Jaspersemphasized Kierkegaard's (and Nietzsche's) continuing importance for modern philosophy.[133] Walter Kaufmann discussed Sartre, Jaspers, and Heidegger in relation to Kierkegaard, and Kierkegaard in relation to the crisis of religion. [134]

[edit]Philosophy

and Theology

Main article: Philosophy of Sren Kierkegaard Kierkegaard has been called a philosopher, a theologian,[135] the Father of Existentialism, both atheistic and theistic variations,[136] a literary critic,[71] a social theorist,[137] a humorist,[138] a psychologist,[9] and a poet.[139] Two of his influential ideas are "subjectivity",[140] and the notion popularly referred to as "leap of faith".[2] However, the Danish equivalent to the English phrase "leap of faith" does not appear in the original Danish nor is the English phrase found in current English translations of Kierkegaard's works. Kierkegaard does mention the concepts of "faith" and "leap" together many times in his works. [141]

Kierkegaard's manuscript ofPhilosophical Fragments.[74]

The leap of faith is his conception of how an individual would believe in God or how a person would act in love. Faith is not a decision based on evidence that, say, certain beliefs about God are true or a certain person is worthy of love. No such evidence could ever be enough to completely justify the kind of total commitment involved in true religious faith or romantic love. Faith involves making that commitment anyway. Kierkegaard thought that to have faith is at the same time to have doubt. So, for example, for one to truly have faith in God, one would also have to doubt one's beliefs about God; the doubt is the rational part of a person's thought involved in weighing evidence, without which the faith would have no real substance. Someone who does not

realize that Christian doctrine is inherently doubtful and that there can be no objective certainty about its truth does not have faith but is merely credulous. For example, it takes no faith to believe that a pencil or a table exists, when one is looking at it and touching it. In the same way, to believe or have faith in God is to know that one has no perceptual or any other access to God, and yet still has faith in God.[142] Kierkegaard writes, "doubt is conquered by faith, just as it is faith which has brought doubt into the world".[143][144] Kierkegaard also stresses the importance of the self, and the self's relation to the world, as being grounded in self-reflection and introspection. He argued in Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments that "subjectivity is truth" and "truth is subjectivity." This has to do with a distinction between what is objectively true and an individual's subjective relation (such as indifference or commitment) to that truth. People who in some sense believe the same things may relate to those beliefs quite differently. Two individuals may both believe that many of those around them are poor and deserve help, but this knowledge may lead only one of them to decide to actually help the poor.[145] This is how Kierkegaard put it: "Since I am not totally unfamiliar with what has been said and written about Christianity, I could presumably say a thing or two about it. I shall, however, not do so here but merely repeat that there is one thing I shall beware of saying about it: that it is true to a certain degree. It is indeed just possible that Christianity is the truth; it is indeed just possible that someday there will be a judgment in which the separation will hinge on the relation of inwardness to Christianity. Suppose that someone stepped forward who had to say, Admittedly I have not believed, but I have so honored Christianity that I have spent every hour of my life pondering it. Or suppose that someone came forward of whom the accuser has to say, He has persecuted the Christians, and the accused one responded, Yes, I acknowledge it; Christianity has so inflamed my soul that, simply because I realized its terrible power, I have wanted nothing else than to root it out of the world. Or suppose that someone came forward of whom the accuser had to say, He has renounced Christianity, and the accused one responded, Yes, it is true, for I perceived that Christianity was such a power that if I gave it one finger it would take all of me, and I could not belong to it completely. But suppose now, that eventually an active assistant professor came along at a hurried and bustling pace and said something like this, I am not like those three; I have not only believed but have even explained Christianity and have shown that what was proclaimed by the apostles and appropriated in the first centuries is true only to a certain degree. On the other hand, through speculative understanding I have shown how it is the true truth, and for that reason I must request suitable remuneration for my meritorious services to Christianity. Of these four, which position would be the most terrible?"[146] In other words he says:
"Who has the more difficult task: the teacher who lectures on earnest things a meteor's distance from everyday life-or the learner who should put it to use?" Kierkegaard, Soren. Works of Love. Harper & Row, Publishers. New York, N.Y. 1962. p. 62

Kierkegaard primarily discusses subjectivity with regard to religious matters. As already noted, he argues that doubt is an element of faith and that it is impossible to gain any objective certainty about religious doctrines such as the existence of God or the life of Christ. The most one could hope for would be the conclusion that it is probable that the Christian doctrines are true, but if a person were to believe such doctrines only to the degree they seemed likely to be true, he or she would not be genuinely religious at all. Faith consists in a subjective relation of absolute commitment to these doctrines.[147]

[edit]Philosophical

criticism

Kierkegaard's famous philosophical 20th century critics include Theodor Adorno and Emmanuel Levinas. Atheistic philosophers such asJean-Paul Sartre and Martin Heidegger supported many aspects of Kierkegaard's philosophical views, but rejected some of his religious views.[148][149] One critic wrote that Adorno's book Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic is "the most irresponsible book ever written on Kierkegaard"[150] because Adorno takes Kierkegaard's pseudonyms literally, and constructs a philosophy which makes him seem incoherent and unintelligible. Another reviewer says that "Adorno is [far away] from the more credible translations and interpretations of the Collected Works of Kierkegaard we have today."[61] Levinas' main attack on Kierkegaard focused on his ethical and religious stages, especially in Fear and Trembling. Levinas criticises the leap of faith by saying this suspension of the ethical and leap into the religious is a type of violence. He states: "Kierkegaardian violence begins when existence is forced to abandon the ethical stage in order to embark on the religious stage, the domain of belief. But belief no longer sought external justification. Even internally, it combined communication and isolation, and hence violence and passion. That is the origin of the relegation of ethical phenomena to secondary status and the contempt of the ethical foundation of being which has led, through Nietzsche, to the amoralism of recent philosophies."[151] Levinas pointed to the Judeo-Christian belief that it was God who first commanded Abraham to sacrifice Isaac and that an angel commanded Abraham to stop. If Abraham were truly in the religious realm, he would not have listened to the angel's command and should have continued to kill Isaac. "Transcending ethics" seems like a loophole to excuse would-be murderers from their crime and thus is unacceptable.[152] One interesting consequence of Levinas' critique is that it seemed to reveal that Levinas viewed God as a projection of inner ethical desire rather than an absolute moral agent.[153] Sartre objected to the existence of God: If existence precedes essence, it follows from the meaning of the term sentient that a sentient being cannot be complete or perfect. In Being and Nothingness, Sartre's phrasing is that God would be a pour-soi (a being-for-itself; a consciousness) who is also an en-soi (a being-in-itself; a

thing) which is a contradiction in terms.[148][154] Critics of Sartre rebutted this objection by stating that it rests on a false dichotomy and a misunderstanding of the traditional Christian view of God. [155] Sartre agreed with Kierkegaard's analysis of Abraham undergoing anxiety (Sartre calls it anguish), but claimed that God told Abraham to do it. In his lecture, Existentialism is a Humanism, Sartre wondered whether Abraham ought to have doubted whether God actually spoke to him.[148] In Kierkegaard's view, Abraham's certainty had its origin in that 'inner voice' which cannot be demonstrated or shown to another ("The problem comes as soon as Abraham wants to be understood"[156]. To Kierkegaard, every external "proof" or justification is merely on the outside and external to the subject.[157] Kierkegaard's proof for the immortality of the soul, for example, is rooted in the extent to which one wishes to live forever.[158]

[edit]Influence

The Sren Kierkegaard Statue in the Royal Library Garden in Copenhagen

Many 20th-century philosophers, both theistic and atheistic, and theologians drew concepts from Kierkegaard, including the notions of angst, despair, and the importance of the individual. His fame as a philosopher grew tremendously in the 1930s, in large part because the ascendant existentialist movement pointed to him as a precursor, although later writers celebrated him as a highly significant and influential thinker in his own right.[159] Since Kierkegaard was raised as a Lutheran,[160] he was commemorated as a teacher in the Calendar of Saints of the Lutheran Church on 11 November and in the Calendar of Saints of the Episcopal Church with a feast day on 8 September. Philosophers and theologians influenced by Kierkegaard include Hans Urs von Balthasar, Karl Barth,Simone de Beauvoir, Niels Bohr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Emil Brunner, Martin Buber, Rudolf Bultmann,Albert Camus, Martin Heidegger, Abraham Joshua Heschel, Karl Jaspers, Gabriel Marcel, Maurice MerleauPonty, Reinhold Niebuhr, Franz Rosenzweig, Jean-Paul Sartre, Joseph Soloveitchik, Paul Tillich, Malcolm Muggeridge, Thomas Merton, Miguel de Unamuno.[161] Paul Feyerabend'sepistemological anarchism in the

philosophy of science was inspired by Kierkegaard's idea of subjectivity as truth. Ludwig Wittgenstein was immensely influenced and humbled by Kierkegaard,[162] claiming that "Kierkegaard is far too deep for me, anyhow. He bewilders me without working the good effects which he would in deeper souls".[162] Karl Popper referred to Kierkegaard as "the great reformer of Christian ethics, who exposed the official Christian morality of his day as anti-Christian and anti-humanitarian hypocrisy".[163] "The comparison between Nietzsche and Kierkegaard that has become customary, but is no less questionable for that reason, fails to recognize, and indeed out of a misunderstanding of the essence of thinking, that Nietzsche as a metaphysical thinker preserves a closeness to Aristotle. Kierkegaard remains essentially remote from Aristotle, although he mentions him more often. For Kierkegaard is not a thinker but a religious writer, and indeed not just one among others, but the only one in accord with the destining belonging to his age. Therein lies his greatness, if to speak in this way is not already a misunderstanding." [164] Contemporary philosophers such as Emmanuel Lvinas, Hans-Georg Gadamer, Jacques Derrida, Jrgen Habermas, Alasdair MacIntyre, and Richard Rorty, although sometimes highly critical, have also adapted some Kierkegaardian insights.[165][166][167] Hilary Putnamadmires Kierkegaard, "for his insistence on the priority of the question, 'How should I live?'".[168] Kierkegaard has also had a considerable influence on 20th-century literature. Figures deeply influenced by his work include W. H. Auden, Jorge Luis Borges, Don DeLillo, Hermann Hesse, Franz Kafka,[169] David Lodge, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Rainer Maria Rilke, J.D. Salinger and John Updike.[170] Kierkegaard had a profound influence on psychology. He is widely regarded as the founder of Christian psychology[171] and of existential psychology and therapy.[9] Existentialist (often called "humanistic") psychologists and therapists include Ludwig Binswanger, Viktor Frankl, Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, and Rollo May. May based his The Meaning of Anxiety on Kierkegaard's The Concept of Anxiety. Kierkegaard's sociological work Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age critiques modernity.[71] Ernest Becker based his 1974 Pulitzer Prize book, The Denial of Death, on the writings of Kierkegaard, Freud and Otto Rank. Kierkegaard is also seen as an important precursor of postmodernism.[165] In popular culture, he was the subject of serious television and radio programmes; in 1984, a six-part documentary Sea of Faith: Television series presented by Don Cupitt featured a episode on Kierkegaard, while on Maundy Thursday in 2008, Kierkegaard was the subject of discussion of the BBC Radio 4 programme presented by Melvyn Bragg, In Our Time. Kierkegaard predicted his posthumous fame, and foresaw that his work would become the subject of intense study and research. In his journals, he wrote: "What the age needs is not a geniusit has had geniuses enough, but a martyr, who in order to teach men to obey would himself be obedient unto death. What the age needs is awakening. And therefore someday, not

only my writings but my whole life, all the intriguing mystery of the machine will be studied and studied. I never forget how God helps me and it is therefore my last wish that everything may be to his honour."[172] In 1784 Immanuel Kant challenged the thinkers of Europe to think for themselves.[173] "Laziness and cowardice are the reasons why so great a proportion of men, long after nature has released them from alien guidance (natura-liter maiorennes), nonetheless gladly remain in lifelong immaturity, and why it is so easy for others to establish themselves as their guardians. It is so easy to be immature. If I have a book to serve as my understanding, a pastor to serve as my conscience, a physician to determine my diet for me, and so on, I need not exert myself at all. I need not think, if only I can pay: others will readily undertake the irksome work for me. The guardians who have so benevolently taken over the supervision of men have carefully seen to it that the far greatest part of them (including the entire fair sex) regard taking the step to maturity as very dangerous, not to mention difficult. Having first made their domestic livestock dumb, and having carefully made sure that these docile creatures will not take a single step without the go-cart to which they are harnessed, these guardians then show them the danger that threatens them, should they attempt to walk alone. Now this danger is not actually so great, for after falling a few times they would in the end certainly learn to walk; but an example of this kind makes men timid and usually frightens them out of all further attempts." In 1854 Sren Kierkegaard wrote a note to My Reader of a similar nature. "When a man ventures out so decisively as I have done, and upon a subject moreover which affects so profoundly the whole of life as does religion, it is to be expected of course that everything will be done to counteract his influence, also by misrepresenting, falsifying what he says, and at the same time his character will in every way be at the mercy of men who count that they have no duty towards him but that everything is allowable. Now, as things commonly go in this world, the person attacked usually gets busy at once to deal with every accusation, every falsification, every unfair statement, and in this way is occupied early and late in counterattacking the attack. This I have no intention of doing. ... I propose to deal with the matter differently, I propose to go rather more slowly in counteracting all this falsification and misrepresentation, all these lies and slanders, all the prate and twaddle. Partly because I learn from the New Testament that the occurrence of such things is a sign that one is on the right road, so that obviously I ought not to be exactly in a hurry to get rid of it, unless I wish as soon as possible to get on the wrong road. And partly because I learn from the New Testament that what may temporally be called a vexation, from which according to temporal concepts one might try to be delivered, is eternally of value, so that obviously I ought not to be exactly in a hurry to try to escape, if I do not wish to hoax myself with regard to the eternal. This is the way I understand it; and now I come to the consequence which ensues for thee. If thou really has ever had an idea that I am in the service of something truewell then, occasionally there shall be done on my part what is necessary, but only what is strictly necessary to thee, in order that , if thou wilt exert thyself and pay due attention, thou shalt be able to withstand the falsifications and misrepresentations of what I say, and all the attacks upon my characterbut

thy indolence, dear reader, I will not encourage. If thou does imagine that I am a lackey, thou hast never been my reader; if thou really art my reader, thou wilt understand that I regard it as my duty to thee that thou art put to some effort, if thou art not willing to have the falsifications and misrepresentations, the lies and slanders, wrest from thee the idea that I am in the service of something true."[174]

[edit]Selected

bibliography

For a complete bibliography, see Sren Kierkegaard bibliography.

(1841) On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (Om Begrebet Ironi med stadigt Hensyn til Socrates)

(1843) Either/Or (Enten-Eller) (1843) Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 (To opbyggelige Taler) (1843) Fear and Trembling (Frygt og Bven) (1843) Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 (Tre opbyggelige Taler) (1843) Repetition (Gjentagelsen) (1843) Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1843 (Fire opbyggelige Taler) (1844) Two Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 (To opbyggelige Taler) (1844) Three Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 (Tre opbyggelige Taler) (1844) Philosophical Fragments (Philosophiske Smuler) (1844) The Concept of Anxiety (Begrebet Angest) (1844) Four Upbuilding Discourses, 1844 (Fire opbyggelige Taler) (1845) Stages on Life's Way (Stadier paa Livets Vei) (1846) Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift)

(1847) Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits (Opbyggelige Taler i forskjellig Aand), which included Purity of Heart is to Will One Thing

(1847) Works of Love (Kjerlighedens Gjerninger) (1848) Christian Discourses (Christelige Taler) (1848, published 1859) The Point of View of My Work as an Author "as good as finished" (IX A 293) ((Synspunktet for min Forfatter-Virksomhed. En ligefrem Meddelelse, Rapport til Historien))

(1849) The Sickness Unto Death (Sygdommen til Dden) (1849) Three Discourses at the Communion on Fridays (("Yppersteprsten" "Tolderen" "Synderinden", tre Taler ved Altergangen om Fredagen))

(1850) Practice in Christianity (Indvelse i Christendom)

[edit]Notes

1.

^ This classification is anachronistic; Kierkegaard was an exceptionally unique thinker and his works do not fit neatly into any one philosophical school or tradition, nor did he identify himself with any. His works are considered precursor to many schools of thought developed in the 20th and 21st centuries. See 20th century receptions in Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6.

a b c

Hannay & Marino 1997

^ The influence of Socrates can be seen in Kierkegaard'sSickness Unto Death and Works of Love. ^ Swenson, David F. Something About Kierkegaard, Mercer University Press, 2000. ^ Gardiner 1969 ^ Point of View Lowrie p. 41, Practice in Christianity, Hong 1991 Chapter VI p. 233ff, Works of Love IIIA p. 91ff

7. 8.

a b

Duncan 1976

^ Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments Hong pp. 1517, 555610 Either/Or Vol II pp. 14, 58, 216217, 250 Hong

9.

a b c

Ostenfeld & McKinnon 1972

10. ^ Howland 2006 11. ^ Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Hong, 1992 p. 131 12. ^ Philosophical Fragments and Concluding Postscript both deal with objectively demonstrated Christianity. It can't be done per SK. 13. ^ Works of Love 1847 Hong 1995 p. 145 See The Point of View of my Work as an Author, 1848 by Walter Lowrie pp. 133134 for more about the single individual 14. ^ Glimpses and Impressions of Kierkegaard, Thomas Henry Croxall, James Nisbet & Co 1959 p. 51 The quote came fromHenriette Lund's Recollections of Soren Kierkegaard written in 1876 and published in 1909 Soren was her uncle.http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/001396450 15. ^ Johannes Climacus, by Sren Kierkegaard p. 17 16. ^ See David F. Swenson's 1921 biography of SK, pp. 2, 13 17. ^ Kierkegaard's indebtedness to the Anti-Enlightenment author is explained in this book by SmithG Hamann 1730-1788 A Study In Christian Existence (1960) by Ronald Gregor Smith 18. ^ Concluding Unscientific Postscript p. 72ff Hong 19. ^ The Point of View of My Work as An Author: A Report to History, by Sren Kierkegaard, written in 1848, published in 1859 by his brother Peter Kierkegaard Translated with introduction and notes by Walter Lowrie, 1962 Harper Torchbooks pp. 4849

20. ^ Sren Kierkegaard by Johannes Hohlenberg, translated by T.H. Croxall, Pantheon Books, 1954 ISBN 53008941 21. ^ Watkin 2000 22. ^
a b c d

Garff 2005

23. ^ Johannes Climacus, by Sren Kierkegaard p. 29 24. ^ Kierkegaard's Journals Gilleleie, 1 August 1835. Either/Or Vol II pp. 361362 25. ^ Johannes Climacus, by Sren Kierkegaard pp. 2223, 2930, 3233, 6770, 7476 26. ^ Point of View Lowrie pp. 2830 27. ^ Johannes Climacus, by Sren Kierkegaard p. 23 28. ^ Point of View Lowrie p. 89, Practice in Christianity pp. 9091 29. ^ Muggeridge 1983 30. ^ Garff 2005, p. 113 Also available in Encounters With Kierkegaard: A Life As Seen by His Contemporaries, p. 225. 31. ^ Kierkegaard, by Josiah Thompson, Published by Alfred P. Knoff, inc, 1973 pp. 1415, 4344 ISBN 0-39447092-3 32. ^ Journals & Papers of Sren Kierkegaard IIA 11 August 1838 33. ^ Hathi Trust Libraryhttp://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008628564 34. ^ Soren Kierkegaard Papers and Journals, A Selection, translated by Alastair Hannay 1996 p. ix 35. ^ Bergmann 1991, p. 2 36. ^ Given the importance of the journals, references in the form of(Journals, XYZ) are referenced from Dru's 1938 Journals. When known, the exact date is given; otherwise, month and year, or just year is given. 37. ^
a b c d

Dru 1938

38. ^ Conway & Gover 2002, p. 25 39. ^ Dru 1938, p. 221 40. ^ (Sren Kierkegaard's Journals & Papers IA Gilleleie, 1 August 1835) 41. ^ Dru 1938, p. 354 42. ^ Journals & Papers of Sren Kierkegaard IIA 11 August 1838Naturalthinker.net 43. ^
a b c d

Hannay 2003

44. ^ Journals & Papers of Sren Kierkegaard IIIA 166 45. ^ Journals & Papers of Sren Kierkegaard IIA 11 May 13, 1839 46. ^ Kierkegaard 1989 47. ^ Tristram Hunt, Marx's General: The Revolutionary Life of Friedrich Engels (Henry Holt and Co., 2009: ISBN 0-8050-8025-2), pp. 4546.

48. ^ Johannes Climacus: or. De omnibus dubitandum est, and A sermon. Translated, with an assessment by T. H. Croxall 1958 B 4372 .E5 1958 49. ^ Kierkegaard's notes on Schelling's work are included in Hong's 1989 translation of the Concept of Irony 50. ^ Either/Or Vol I, Swenson p. 9 51. ^ Either/Or Vol I Preface Swenson pp. 36 52. ^ Either/Or Vol I Preface Swenson pp. 78, also see Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Hong, 1992 p. 555ff for a relationship of Religiousness A to Religiousness B 53. ^ Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses, The Expectancy of Faith pp. 910 Hong 54. ^ Fear and Trembling, Hong, 1983 Translator's introduction p. xiv 55. ^ Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Hong 1992 p. 243 56. ^ Carlisle 2006 57. ^ (The Point of View of My Work as An Author: Lowrie pp. 142143) 58. ^ See also Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments Volume I, by Johannes Climacus, edited by Sren Kierkegaard, Copyright 1846Edited and Translated by Howard V. Hong and Edna H. Hong 1992 Princeton University Press pp. 251300 for more on the Pseudonymous authorship. 59. ^ Journals & Papers of Sren Kierkegaard X 6 b 145 1851 60. ^ Adorno 1989 61. ^
a b

Morgan 2003

62. ^ Evans 1996 63. ^ (POV Lowrie pp. 133134) 64. ^ (POV Lowrie pp. 7475) 65. ^ (Either/Or Vol I Swenson, pp. 1314) 66. ^ Malantschuk, Hong & Hong 2003 67. ^ Kierkegaard, Sren. Dialectical Result of a Literary Police Action in Essential Kierkegaard. 68. ^ Kierkegaard 1978, pp. viixii 69. ^ Swensen, David F. "VII". In Web. Sren Kierkegaard. pp. 2732. 70. ^ Kierkegaard 2001, p. 86 71. ^
a b c

Kierkegaard 2001

72. ^ The Crowd is Untruth Ccel.org 73. ^ Kierkegaard 1992, pp. 4460 74. ^
a b

(Royal Library of Denmark, 1997)

75. ^ Point of View pp. 2024, 4142 76. ^ Kierkegaard 1992, p. 251ff 77. ^ Kierkegaard 1991, p. Editor's Preface

78. ^ Lowrie 1942, pp. 69, 24, 30, 40, 49, 7477, 89 79. ^ Lowrie 1968 80. ^ Either/Or Vol II Hong p. 171ff 81. ^ Attack Upon Christendom, by Soren Kierkegaard, 18541855, translated by Walter Lowrie, 1944, 1968, Princeton University Press 82. ^ Attack Upon Christendom Translated by Walter Lowrie 1944, 1968 introduction page xi 83. ^ For instance in "Hvad Christus dmmer om officiel Christendom. 1855. 84. ^ For instance: In Lindhardt: Vkkelser og Kirkelige Retninger i Danmark. Det Danske Forlag 1951, the attack is coined as pathological and in Danstrup and Koch's Danmarks Historie it is called sygeligt. Vol. 11, p. 398 85. ^ Kierkegaard 1998b 86. ^ Kirmmse 2000 87. ^ Walsh 2009 88. ^ Kierkegaard 1999b 89. ^ Dru 1938, p. 429 90. ^
a b c d e f g h i j k l

The Western literary messenger, Volume 13, Issue 1Volume 14, Issue 5, 1850 p. 182

91. ^ Evangelical Christendom: Christian Work and the News of the Churches (1855), The Doctrines of Dr Kierkegaard, p. 129 92. ^ Evangelical Christendom, Volumes 1112 J.S. Phillips, 1857 Denmark: Remarks on the State of the Danish National Church, by The Rev. Dr. Kalkar, Copenhagen, 1 August 1858. pp. 269274 quote from pp. 269270 93. ^ Archive.org 94. ^ Martensen 1871 95. ^ Christian ethics : (General part) Vol. XXXIX, by Hans Martensen, Translated by C. Spence pp. 206236 96. ^ The Philosophy of Religion: On the Basis of Its History, Otto Pfleiderer, 1887 p. 212 97. ^ The Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge and Gazetteer 1889, Kierkegaard, Sren Aaby, Edited by Talbot Wilson Chambers, Frank Hugh Foster, Samuel Macauley Jackson pp. 473475 98. ^ Hall 1983 99. ^ Archive.org 100. ^ Archive.org, pp. 98108 101. ^ Friedrich Nietzsche, by George Brandes Translated into English in 1914 102. ^ 1911 Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica/Sren Kierkegaard 103. ^ Reminiscences of My Childhood and Youth, By George Brandes September, 1906 p. 108

104. ^ Selected Letters of Friedrich Nietzsche 1st ed. edited, with a preface, by Oscar Levy; authorized translation by Anthony M. Ludovici Published 1921 by Doubleday, Page & Cohttp://www.archive.org/stream/selectedletterso00nietuoft#page/226/mode/2up/search/brandes 105. ^ Main Currents in Nineteenth, Century Literature Vol. 2 Georg Brandes, 1906 Introduction p. 11 106. ^ Masugata 1999 107. ^ American Journal of Theology 108. ^ (James) Essays in Radical Empiricism and Pragmatism. 109. ^ Journals IV A 164 (1843) See Kierkegaard: Papers and Journals, Translated by Alastair Hannay, 1996 P. 63 and 161 110. ^ Encyclopaedia of religion and ethics, Vol. 7 (1908), by James Hastings, John Alexander Sebie and Louis H. Gray p. 696 111. ^ See "Selections from the writings of Kierkegaard" in external links below. Also honorarium for Hollander Utexas.edu 112. ^ Scandinavian studies and notes, Volume 6 No. 7: Sren Kierkegaard, By David F Swenson, University of Minnesota, Editor A. M. Sturtevant, Feb 1920, p. 41 113. ^ Buch des Richters: Seine Tagebcher 18331855, (8 volumes) Hermann Gottsched (1905) the link is below in web 114. ^
a b

Bsl 1997, p. 12

115. ^ Arvhive.org 116. ^ An independent English translation of selections/excerpts of Kierkegaard appeared in 1923 by Lee Hollander, and published by the University of Texas at Austin. 117. ^ See Michael J. Paulus, Jr. From A Publishers Point Of View: Charles Williamss Role In Publishing Kierkegaard In English online -118. ^ Kierkegaard studies, with special reference to (a) the Bible (b) our own age. Thomas Henry Croxall, Published: 1948 pp. 1618 119. ^ The Journals Of Kierkegaard (1958) Archive.org 120. ^
a b

"Howard and Edna Hong". Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library. St. Olaf College.

Retrieved 11 March 2012. 121. ^ "Sren Kierkegaard's Journals and Papers ISBN 978-1-57085-239-8". Intelex Past Masters Online Catalogue. Retrieved 2012-03-11. (Explains the relation between this digital edition and two print editions by the Hongs.) 122. ^ "National Book Awards 1968". National Book Foundation. Retrieved 11 March 2012. 123. ^ Stewart 2009 124. ^ Bsl 1997, p. 13

125. ^

a b

Bsl, 1997 & p 14

126. ^ The German Wikipedia has an article on Dialogphilosophie. 127. ^ Bsl 1997, pp. 1617 128. ^ Bsl 1997, p. 17 129. ^ Heidegger, Sein und Zeit, Notes to pp. 190, 235, 338 130. ^ Bsl 1997, p. 19 131. ^ Beck 1928 132. ^ Wyschogrod 1954 133. ^ Jaspers 1935 134. ^ Audio recordings of Kaufmann's lectures Archive.org 135. ^ Kangas 1998 136. ^ McGrath 1993, p. 202 137. ^ Westphal 1997 138. ^ Oden 2004 139. ^ Mackey 1971 140. ^ Kierkegaard is not an extreme subjectivist; he would not reject the importance of objective truths. 141. ^ See Faith and the Kierkegaardian Leap in Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard. 142. ^ Kierkegaard 1992, pp. 2157 143. ^ Kierkegaard 1976, p. 399 144. ^ Elsewhere, Kierkegaard uses the Faith/Offense dichotomy. In this dichotomy, doubt is the middle ground between faith and taking offense. Offense, in his terminology, describes the threat faith poses to the rational mind. He uses Jesus' words in Matthew 11:6: "And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me". In Practice in Christianity, Kierkegaard writes: "Just as the concept of "faith" is an altogether distinctively Christian term, so in turn is "offense" an altogether distinctively Christian term relating to faith. The possibility of offense is the crossroad, or it is like standing at the crossroad. From the possibility of offense, one turns either to offense or to faith, but one never comes to faith except from the possibility of offense" (p. 80). In the footnote, he writes, "in the works of some psuedonymous [sic?] writers it has been pointed out that in modern philosophy there is a confused discussion of doubt where the discussion should have been about despair. Therefore one has been unable to control or govern doubt either in scholarship or in life. "Despair," however, promptly points in the right direction by placing the relation under the rubric of personality (the single individual) and the ethical. But just as there is a confused discussion of "doubt instead of a discussion of "despair, " So also the practice has been to use the category "doubt" where the discussion ought to be about "offense." The relation, the relation of personality to Christianity, is not to doubt or to believe, but to be offended or to believe. All modern philosophy, both ethically, and

Christianly, is based upon frivolousness. Instead of deterring and calling people to order by speaking of being despairing and being offended, it has waved to them and invited them to become conceited by doubting and having doubted. Modern philosophy, being abstract, is floating in metaphysical indeterminateness. Instead of explaining this about itself and then directing people (individual persons) to the ethical, the religious, the existential, philosophy has given the appearance that people are able to speculate themselves out of their own skin, as they so very prosaically say, into pure appearance." (Practice in Christianity, trans. Hong 1991, p. 80.) He writes that the person is either offended that Christ came as a man, and that God is too high to be a lowly man who is actually capable of doing very little to resist. Or Jesus, a man, thought himself too high to consider himself God (blasphemy). Or the historical offense where God a lowly man comes into collision with an established order. Thus, this offensive paradox is highly resistant to rational thought. 145. ^ Pattison 2005 146. ^ Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments Vol. I p. 231-232 147. ^ Kierkegaard 1992 148. ^
a b c

Sartre 1946

149. ^ Dreyfus 1998 150. ^ Westphal 1996, p. 9 151. ^ Emmanuel Levinas, Existence and Ethics, (1963) (as cited in Lippitt, 2003, p. 136) 152. ^ Katz 2001 153. ^ Hutchens 2004 154. ^ Sartre 1969, p. 430 155. ^ Swinburne Richard, The Coherence of Theism 156. ^ Fear and Trembling; Copyright 1843 Soren Kierkegaard Kierkegaards Writings; 6 copyright 1983 Howard V. Hong, p. 13-14 157. ^ Stern 1990 158. ^ Kosch 1996 159. ^ Weston 1994 160. ^ Hampson 2001 161. ^ Unamuno refers to Kierkegaard in his book The Tragic Sense of Life, Part IV, In The Depths of the Abyss Archive.org 162. ^
a b

Creegan 1989

163. ^ Popper 2002 164. ^ Heidegger: Nietzsche's Word, "God is Dead." p. 94 165. ^
a b

Matustik & Westphal 1995

166. ^ MacIntyre 2001 167. ^ Rorty 1989 168. ^ Pyle 1999, pp. 5253 169. ^ McGee 2006 170. ^ Updike 1997 171. ^ Society for Christian Psychology 172. ^ Dru 1938, p. 224 173. ^ see An Answer to the Question: What is Enlightenment? (1784) Upenn.edu 174. ^ Attack Upon Christianity, by Sren Kierkegaard, 18531854 Translated, with an Introduction and Notes by Walter Lowrie, New Introduction by Howard A. Johnson, Princeton University Press 1944, 1968 pp. 95 96