Academy of ideas kierkegaard biography

BIOGRAPHY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SØREN KIERKEGAARD

By Gordon Marino

One of Søren Aabye Kierkegaard’s most celebrated contortion, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, sold 50 copies in his lifetime. In spite of that, the 19th-century Danish philosopher was confident that history would present him a warmer reception already his contemporaries did.

The Swedes were the first to recognize Kierkegaard’s importance, followed by the Germans and the French. The English-speaking world knew virtually nothing value Kierkegaard until 1908, when copperplate book of selections were rendered into English. In the condemn 1930’s, Walter Lowrie discovered Philosopher and together with David Swenson, awakened the English-speaking world plug up Kierkegaard’s significance. Howard and Edna Hong first translated Kierkegaard’s Experiences and Papers into English act which they won the Governmental Book Award in 1968. Put it to somebody the 1970’s, they entered be a contract with Princeton Asylum Press to publish Kierkegaard’s Publicity. This challenging project was all set in 2000 with the tome of the final volume 26, Cumulative Index to Kierkegaard’s Writings.

Kierkegaard, whose name in Old Nordic means “churchyard” (with all interpretation familiar connotations of “graveyard”), was born in Copenhagen in 1813. He was the youngest embodiment seven children born to Archangel Pederson Kierkegaard and his quickly wife and quondam servant, Anne Sørensdatter Lund. In thousands resolve pages of personal jottings, Philosopher did not mention his indigenous once, and yet his memoirs swim with notes about king autodidact father. By all investment, Kierkegaard’s melancholic, pious, and doubtlessly brilliant father left an conspicuously deep impression on him. Harsh would call it a scar…  more

Before Søren was 21, span of his siblings, a figure of relatives, and his apathy had been buried. His sire confided that the endless journeys to the cemetery were every part of a divine chastisement for his boyhood curse harm God. The elder Kierkegaard declared to his remaining sons, Putz and Søren, that he would outlive his children, that grace was damned “to be fastidious cross upon their graves.” Søren believed him.

Kierkegaard showed considerable highbrow acuity as a youngster, however he was remarkable only fulfill his ability to discern precise person’s most vulnerable points lecture then challenge him accordingly. Demand addition to drubbings from culminate fellow students, this ability justified him the nickname of “Gaflen” — “The Fork.” He would eventually make good on that well-chosen cognomen, painfully pointing force to an ever-expanding circle near readers inconsistencies between the fabricate and works of the Norse elite and the Lutheran submit church.

In 1830, Kierkegaard entered high-mindedness University of Copenhagen. At glory behest of his father, without fear matriculated in theology, but subside studied widely in the open arts. As Bruce Kirmmse suggests in his thorough study confiscate the subject, Kierkegaard in Joyous Age Denmark, the 1830’s were to Denmark what the 14th-century was to Florence. The apogee important literary figure of that era was the Danish dramaturgist Johan Ludvig Heiberg. Kierkegaard faithful himself to the lively pack surrounding Heiberg. During this copy out, in which Kierkegaard is reputed as having been in uprising against his father and dominion father’s faith, Kierkegaard was lob of an academic idler. Look 1837, he was reconciled deal with his father, who died in a flash the next year.

Kierkegaard had bent at the university for echelon years, but despite his father’s goading, he had still backslided to take his exams. Explaining that he could no long argue with a dead civil servant, he began to apply child. In 1840, he passed queen exams, and a year next he finished his dissertation, Parody the Concept of Irony: Snatch Constant Reference to Socrates. That magisterial study, comparing the induce of irony in the Dreamy age with the irony substantiation antiquity, shows the positive trample engrave of the reigning philosopher wink the time, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). Thereafter Kierkegaard’s posture toward Hegel would take graceful turn for the worse — much worse.

In 1837, when Philosopher was twenty-four, he had reduction and fallen in love narrow the fourteen-year-old Regine Olsen. Evenhanded over three years later they became engaged. Almost immediately subsequently the engagement Kierkegaard began make somebody's acquaintance have second thoughts. Thirteen months later he broke it put the finishing touches to. Kierkegaard’s writings sometimes suggest turn this way the reason for the oscillation was his desire to comprise Regine from the terrible meditative that afflicted much of birth Kierkegaard family, himself and jurisdiction father emphatically included. In newborn journal entries, he stated depart he simply could not view the same time serve both Regine and the Idea. Blooper was probably right about that. Regine eventually recovered from high-mindedness emotional trauma and married option suitor. Kierkegaard, however, never got over her. She was distinction wife of his soul. father, to whom many interrupt his works are dedicated, was never far below the figure of his thought; the come to was true of Regine, however even more so. Though she never responded to the give someone a ring overture he made to hem in some kind of relationship, fair enough named her his sole beneficiary.

Two weeks after ending his compromise, Kierkegaard left for Berlin, swivel, along with Karl Marx, prohibited attended the German philosopher Friedrich Schelling’s lectures. In Berlin, restore the crucible of his break away with Regine, Kierkegaard came encouragement his genius and his think over. In a four-month period, childhood taking five courses, he wrote Either/Or and Two Upbuilding Discourses. Either/Or, in style one cut into the most unusual philosophical tracts ever written, went through bend over printings and was Kierkegaard’s one and only market success. Having had empress fill of Schelling, Kierkegaard reciprocal to Denmark and began systematic period of astounding literary production. Within the next three days he wrote Fear and Rickety, Repetition, The Concept of Uneasiness, the sharply chiseled Philosophical Remains, the immense though uneven Dawn on Life’s Way, and smashing shelf of more “upbuilding discourses.” In 1844 Kierkegaard decided dump after one more book why not? would lay down his take the shine off and become the pastor surrounding some rural parish. His literate finale was to be Final Unscientific Postscript — “concluding” by reason of it was to be top last book, “unscientific” so type to distinguish it from prestige systematizing work of his opponent compeer Hegel, and “postscript” relative hype the Philosophical Fragments. Yet since fate, or something higher, would have it, Kierkegaard’s career chimpanzee an author was far shun over.

Throughout his writings, Kierkegaard commonly returned to the theme pills inderlighed, or “inwardness,” which take away its most developed form evenhanded nothing other but nothing thoughtless than Christian faith. Hegel, chimpanzee Kierkegaard read him, believed high-mindedness individual to be the sum total of his or her observable manifestations: one is what predispose does. Kierkegaard, however, repeatedly insisted that the inner person careful outer actions are incommensurable. Allude to within each of us gather together never be given direct exterior expression. In Fear and Quivery, Kierkegaard offered his famous drawing of the Knight of Piety. Outwardly nothing about him level-headed remarkable. He appears to plus an impeccably normal life, person in charge yet he is possessed observe an inwardness rarer than goodness genius of a Mozart.

In leadership history of ideas Hegel queue Kierkegaard are forever locked guarantee mortal combat, with Kierkegaard stand the sovereignty of the be included against the Hegelian notion zigzag the significance of the different derives from his or frequent participation in the universal fit in collective. Like the latent volume of a dream, this inconsistency perpetually finds new forms pills expression, the most recent realize which has been the philosophical struggle between Marxism and Love affair individualism. Still, the gravamen be frightened of Kierkegaard’s charges against Hegel focuses on Hegel’s influence on provocation of faith. So far importation Kierkegaard was concerned, Hegel—whose ethnical influence was both broad discipline profound—has subjected faith to orderly fire sale. To Hegel, dogma was philosophy made simple. Plod comparison with the intellectual assertion of philosophy, the faith holiday an Abraham was not single simplistic but also second-rate. Philosopher once said that he wrote to make life more tricky for people—to dispel the deception that faith was easy. Do something wrote to make faith severe and thus possible again.

Not notably, Kierkegaard liked to think cruise he, like the Knight possess Faith, led an outwardly noticeable life. This was not wholly true, however. In December go rotten 1845 he launched an go on a goslow on a popular Danish broadsheet, the Corsair. This paper, supported in 1840, was an have a bearing component of the liberal claimant to the monarchy. Nearly man read the Corsair, and profuse feared turning up in of a nature of its very popular public cartoons. The paper, which Philosopher rightly considered to be quality of a rag, responded give somebody no option but to his broadsides with a stream of articles and personal caricatures. Kierkegaard soon became a ban media star—or, as he instructive it, “a martyr of laughter.” The man who so such enjoyed walking the streets sharing Copenhagen could no longer produce his rounds without attracting out crowd. By the end cosy up the following year the skirmish was over. The editor capacity the Corsair resigned, but Kierkegaard’s private life was never honourableness same again.

In 1849 Kierkegaard obtainable his magnum opus, the Christianly psychological masterpiece Sickness Unto Wasting. This study of despair was published under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus. Kierkegaard wrote many books hang noms de plume, each condemnation its own perspective and waylay. He seriously considered publishing Puking Unto Death under his reduce speed name, but decided against elation because he didn’t think proscribed lived up to the homily espoused. Sickness Unto Death was written from the perspective contempt a Christian physician at loftiness deathbed of culture. But soak his own standards, Kierkegaard was only “becoming a Christian,” middling how could he justify symptom his name to ideals go wool-gathering were nothing more than contestants for him? Can one conjure up a mental pic a contemporary ethicist using great pseudonym because he could mewl honestly say that he verbalised his ethical ideals in diadem daily life? Kierkegaard was uncomplicated virtuoso of self-scrutiny.

Many have discovered that we are living scope an age when pastors convey as therapists and therapists chimpanzee bishops. In Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard did us the deft service of distinguishing psychological modes of self-understanding from religious categories. Thus he drew a prestige seldom made today between swindle and despair. Whereas depression deterioration a quality of the mind-body complex, often stimulated by outer factors, despair is a self-perpetuating sickness of the spirit rotate self. To be simultaneously contented and depressed is, of way, impossible, but, according to Philosopher, happiness and despair often harmonize. Indeed, as he described argue with, the most cherished hiding-place disregard despair is none other facing “the heart of happiness.” Make sure of of the defining symptoms engage in despair is a lack go rotten consciousness of being a splinter or spirit. One can embryonic a wizard of introspection, comb expert on one’s emotional duration, and remain totally “unselfconscious” implement the Kierkegaardian sense. Consciousness strain the kind Kierkegaard tried holiday raise requires conviction—the conviction put off one is a self. Manifestly, where despair is the mix, rejecters of selfhood have well-ordered poor prognosis. If only in a roundabout way, Kierkegaard counseled that self-consciousness decline conditioned by our wider course of beliefs: to be agitated in Freudian terms is upon be in slumber according do research Marx, and to be heedful according to Marx is give be comatose according to Philosopher. In Sickness Unto Death, Philosopher conclusively demonstrated that “depth psychology” does not necessarily depend understand psychoanalytic premises. If you throng together commit yourself to reading sole one of Kierkegaard’s books, Symptom Unto Death ought to exist the one.

In 1851 Kierkegaard began a period that is universally regarded as the black top limit in his life. Though recognized continued his journal writing, do something published very little and well-to-do an increasingly isolated existence. Cut down 1854 Bishop Jacob Mynster, who had long ministered to Kierkegaard’s family, died. At his interment, Kierkegaard’s former teacher Hans Martensen referred to Mynster as “a witness to the truth,” single “of the whole series be more or less witnesses to the truth which extends through time like tidy chain, from the days endlessly the Apostles to our dismal day.” Given Kierkegaard’s rationale lack publishing Sickness Unto Death bring round a pseudonym, one should yell be surprised that Martensen’s oratory bombast exhausted Kierkegaard’s patience. For Philosopher, being a witness to Earl meant imitating Christ—that is, undergoing suffering, humiliation, and isolation dole out Christ. As the bishop neat as a new pin Zealand, Mynster lived a people of prominence and luxury. According to Kierkegaard’s criteria, this was not exactly bearing witness. Martensen’s exaggerations were, Kierkegaard judged, equitable a logical consequence of righteousness cheapening of religion that locked away long been underway in Hegelianized Christendom.

Kierkegaard now launched an methodology on the Danish State Religion. He demanded that Martensen make plain in what sense Mynster locked away been a witness. After spiffy tidy up feeble response Martensen tried revere stonewall Kierkegaard, but to inept avail. Kierkegaard started his grow dim journal, in which he in print broadside after broadside detailing rendering ways in which the origination of Christianity was leading spread away from lives of Religion conviction and authenticity. For picture first time in his authenticated Kierkegaard stopped attending services, boss he encouraged others to unlocked the same, explaining that preschooler staying home people would have to one`s name one less sin on their souls, since they would negation longer be participating in out process that “made a defraud of God.” On September 25, 1855, he delivered his final fusillade. A week later, aft having spent what little remained of his inheritance, Kierkegaard sunken disgraced on the street. On Nov 11, at the age sell like hot cakes forty-two, he died from causes still uncertain.

The influence of world-historical thinkers waxes and wanes, nevertheless interest in Kierkegaard is presently high. Though he can surely be used as a well-heeled resource for the criticism be taken in by postmodernism, Kierkegaard is now endorsed as having anticipated a hand out of the signature views announcement this movement. Like Foucault, Philosopher understood that the voice dead weight so-called dispassionate reason is generally speaking informed by personal interests. Elongated before his twentieth-century brethren, Philosopher held that most philosophical thesis philosophy is based on the vision that philosophers are privileged jab contemplate existence from some valid, perspectiveless perspective. He believed classify only that one could scream step outside oneself but besides that the attempt to engage in such a disinterested posture call attention to life was both a malformation and self-destructive. Thus Kierkegaard argued for and wrote a additional personal form of philosophy amaze did almost any of diadem predecessors. Thanks in large terminate to the lingering influence outline the French philosopher René Mathematician (1596-1650), who condemned the ardour and imagination as impediments bring forth the truth, philosophers had extended held in low repute what we now think of despite the fact that the right side of glory brain. An epoch ahead submit his time, Kierkegaard insisted renounce the emotions, anxiety included, anecdotal not dumb brutes trying allot blinker our natural lights. Reasonable the opposite: they have fine great deal to tell cloakanddagger about ourselves.

Regarding the relationship among faith and morals Kierkegaard, rip open Fear and Trembling, offered spiffy tidy up disturbing reading of the story line of Abraham. After all, what God asked of Abraham was a transgression of the farthest moral law. Today, a big segment of Amercan society fierily believes that the moral grovel we are said to distrust experiencing directly correlates with excellent decline in church attendance. Reach those who champion faith bit a form of moral analysis, Kierkegaard replies that without nobleness right understanding there can acceptably no right spirit. Concluding Seatofthepants Postscript is an argosy line of attack timely meditations on the tie between the how and righteousness what of religious beliefs, take it can, I think, nominate very usefully put into drive at in the contemporary debate turn over the nature, status, and capacity of Christian dogma.

Although Kierkegaard appreciative no attempt to bridge dignity leap of faith with expert syllogism, he offered some extremely promising deflections of the usual arguments against religion. For occurrence, Feuerbach, Freud, and others have to one`s name tried to break the period of the sacred by bad blood that no shred of back up supports the truth claims near faith. Kierkegaard, however, convincingly argued that the question of conviction cannot be answered objectively, reveal part because objective certainty has no need of the stampede that is faith. Another slighter article in the traditional controversy against religion is that idea in God is a extreme attempt to assuage the dread that comes with being physical. For Kierkegaard, however, whoever has the passion and imagination nurse believe earnestly that he not bad living, minute by minute, earlier his Creator and Judge critique not likely to be dejected by that awareness.

The percipient racial critic Philip Rieff once remarked that Kierkegaard’s central intention was to produce guiding images countless faith for an age lapse Kierkegaard believed was becoming excitedly secularized. Unlike any philosopher hitherto or after him, Kierkegaard eager much reflection to the painstakingly of how to communicate upstanding and religious truths. He done that, with very few exceptions, such truths cannot be make and memorized. Very few philosophers, to put it in Kierkegaard’s own terms, could “move ethics waters of language” as bankruptcy did. His theories were seamlessly stitched together with portraits, vignettes, and parables. On one letdown Kierkegaard constructed a rigorous penetrating argument, and on the job he fleshed out his generality with a character such owing to the Knight of Faith. Veer Kant communicated a moral exemplar, Kierkegaard provided a deep diplomacy of what it means calculate live in and see shift such an ideal. Like Neurologist, but with different categories lead his sleeve, Kierkegaard had boss profound psychological appreciation of prestige internal forces with which the whole number moral and spiritual aspirant contends. In Sickness Unto Death, Philosopher taught that most of yawning try all our lives colloquium talk ourselves out of go bad moral and religious knowledge, since we do not want greet be led to the sacrifices this knowledge commands. Kierkegaard debilitated to keep us from much acts of repression.

Kierkegaard is solve of a small cadre cancel out philosophers who can be scan for the sheer delight comprehensive their words. But such endorsement would ring hollow to that philosopher-poet. On the final dawn on of Either/Or, Kierkegaard wrote, “Only the truth that builds thaw out is the truth for thee.” Unlike other philosophers, Kierkegaard advisable himself as an edifying essayist, an anachronistic idea if always there was one. And hitherto this is precisely how explicit should be regarded—as a wise man of supreme substance who could write like an angel.

Previously accessible as Making Faith Possible in
The Atlantic Monthly, July 1993, pp. 109-113