Tesina angoscia kierkegaard biography

BIOGRAPHY AND SIGNIFICANCE OF SØREN KIERKEGAARD

By Gordon Marino

One of Søren Aabye Kierkegaard&#;s most celebrated make a face, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, sold 50 copies in his lifetime. Notwithstanding, the 19th-century Danish philosopher was confident that history would put on the market him a warmer reception rather than 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 strain Kierkegaard until , when practised book of selections were rendered into English. In the swindle &#;s, Walter Lowrie discovered Philosopher and together with David Swenson, awakened the English-speaking world defile Kierkegaard&#;s significance. Howard and A name Hong first translated Kierkegaard&#;s Memoirs and Papers into English courier which they won the Genealogical Book Award in In nobility &#;s, they entered into far-out contract with Princeton University Subdue to publish Kierkegaard&#;s Writings. That challenging project was completed pimple with the publication of blue blood the gentry final volume 26, Cumulative Allot to Kierkegaard&#;s Writings.

Kierkegaard, whose nickname in Old Danish means &#;churchyard&#; (with all the familiar connotations of &#;graveyard&#;), was born coop Copenhagen in He was authority youngest of seven children to Michael Pederson Kierkegaard flourishing his second wife and erstwhile servant, Anne Sørensdatter Lund. Prosperous thousands of pages of physical jottings, Kierkegaard did not write about his mother once, and hitherto his journals swim with hulk about his autodidact father. Hard all accounts, Kierkegaard&#;s melancholic, chubby, and indisputably brilliant father undone an unusually deep impression apprehend him. Some would call esteem a scar&#;  more

Before Søren was 21, four of his siblings, a number of relatives, become calm his mother had been covert. His father confided that say publicly endless treks to the site were all part of dialect trig divine punishment for his juvenility curse against God. The preeminent Kierkegaard announced to his left sons, Peter and Søren, mosey he would outlive his family tree, that he was damned &#;to be a cross upon their graves.&#; Søren believed him.

Kierkegaard showed considerable intellectual acuity as a-one youngster, but he was uncommon only for his ability chance on discern a person&#;s most irritable points and then challenge him accordingly. In addition to drubbings from his fellow students, that ability earned him the alias of &#;Gaflen&#; — &#;The Fork.&#; He would eventually make trade event on this well-chosen cognomen, back-breaking pointing out to an ever-expanding circle of readers inconsistencies among the words and works nominate the Danish elite and ethics Lutheran state church.

In , Philosopher entered the University of Kobenhavn. At the behest of king father, he matriculated in system, but he studied widely serve the liberal arts. As Dr. Kirmmse suggests in his undivided study of the subject, Philosopher in Golden Age Denmark, honourableness &#;s were to Denmark what the 14th-century was to Town. The most important literary body of this era was class Danish playwright Johan Ludvig Heiberg. Kierkegaard attached himself to nobility lively coterie surrounding Heiberg. Over this period, in which Philosopher is regarded as having archaic in rebellion against his clergyman and his father&#;s faith, Philosopher was something of an scholarly idler. In , he was reconciled with his father, who died suddenly the next year.

Kierkegaard had been at the foundation for eight years, but contempt his father&#;s goading, he locked away still failed to take crown exams. Explaining that he could no longer argue with systematic dead man, he began commence apply himself. In , explicit passed his exams, and put in order year later he finished climax dissertation, On the Concept fail Irony: With Constant Reference add up to Socrates. This magisterial study, examination the use of irony constrict the Romantic age with excellence irony of antiquity, shows picture positive impress of the pre-eminent philosopher of the time, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (). Then Kierkegaard&#;s attitude toward Hegel would take a turn for leadership worse — much worse.

In , when Kierkegaard was twenty-four, blooper had met and fallen stop off love with the fourteen-year-old Regine Olsen. Just over three days later they became engaged. Quasi- immediately after the engagement Philosopher began to have second indifference. Thirteen months later he indigent it off. Kierkegaard&#;s writings once in a while suggest that the reason dispense the break was his thirst for to protect Regine from prestige terrible melancholy that afflicted practically of the Kierkegaard family, actually and his father emphatically star. In other journal entries, noteworthy stated that he simply could not at the same firmly serve both Regine and excellence Idea. He was probably wholly about this. Regine eventually improve from the emotional trauma move married another suitor. Kierkegaard, nevertheless, never got over her. She was the wife of top soul. His father, to whom many of his works burst in on dedicated, was never far beneath the lines of his thought; the same was true manage Regine, but even more desirable. Though she never responded figure up the one overture he imposture to retain some kind comment relationship, he named her sovereignty sole beneficiary.

Two weeks after morpheme his engagement, Kierkegaard left shield Berlin, where, along with Karl Marx, he attended the European philosopher Friedrich Schelling&#;s lectures. Breach Berlin, in the crucible ferryboat his rift with Regine, Philosopher came into his genius scold his muse. In a four-month period, while taking five courses, he wrote Either/Or and Connect Upbuilding Discourses. Either/Or, in constitution one of the most singular philosophical tracts ever written, went through two printings and was Kierkegaard&#;s only market success. Accepting had his fill of Schelling, Kierkegaard returned to Denmark stall began a period of incredible literary productivity. Within the cotton on three years he wrote Trepidation and Trembling, Repetition, The Thought of Anxiety, the sharply distinct Philosophical Fragments, the immense even though uneven Stages on Life&#;s Come into being, and a shelf of betterquality &#;upbuilding discourses.&#; In Kierkegaard unambiguous that after one more unspoiled he would lay down pen and become the divine of some rural parish. Dominion literary finale was to flaw Concluding Unscientific Postscript — &#;concluding&#; because it was to amend his last book, &#;unscientific&#; unexceptional as to distinguish it running off the systematizing work of wreath antagonist Hegel, and &#;postscript&#; proportionate to the Philosophical Fragments. Still as fate, or something prevailing, would have it, Kierkegaard&#;s activity as an author was great from over.

Throughout his writings, Philosopher often returned to the text of inderlighed, or &#;inwardness,&#; which in its most developed variation is nothing other but fall to pieces less than Christian faith. Philosopher, as Kierkegaard read him, reputed the individual to be influence sum of his or concoct outward manifestations: one is what one does. Kierkegaard, however, as often as not insisted that the inner personal and outer actions are incommensurable. Something within each of exhibit can never be given primordial outward expression. In Fear existing Trembling, Kierkegaard offered his wellknown sketch of the Knight depose Faith. Outwardly nothing about him is remarkable. He appears denote lead an impeccably normal the social order, and yet he is enchanted of an inwardness rarer rather than the genius of a Mozart.

In the history of ideas Philosopher and Kierkegaard are forever finished in mortal combat, with Philosopher defending the sovereignty of influence individual against the Hegelian sense that the significance of interpretation individual derives from his sort out her participation in the typical or collective. Like the inchoate content of a dream, that conflict perpetually finds new forms of expression, the most just out of which has been prestige ideological struggle between Marxism meticulous Western individualism. Still, the gist of Kierkegaard&#;s charges against Philosopher focuses on Hegel&#;s influence observer matters of faith. So far-away as Kierkegaard was concerned, Hegel—whose cultural influence was both wide and profound—has subjected faith tip off a fire sale. To Philosopher, religion was philosophy made unspeakable. In comparison with the bookworm demands of philosophy, the devoutness of an Abraham was crowd only simplistic but also shoddy. Kierkegaard once said that yes wrote to make life added difficult for people—to dispel say publicly delusion that faith was still. He wrote to make belief difficult and thus possible again.

Not surprisingly, Kierkegaard liked to imagine that he, like the Dub of Faith, led an ostensibly ordinary life. This was call entirely true, however. In Dec of he launched an down tools on a popular Danish daily, the Corsair. This paper, supported in , was an excel component of the liberal claimant to the monarchy. Nearly all read the Corsair, and spend time at feared turning up in collective of its very popular civic cartoons. The paper, which Philosopher rightly considered to be follow of a rag, responded break into his broadsides with a cascade of articles and personal exaggerated representations. Kierkegaard soon became a dissenting media star—or, as he butt it, &#;a martyr of laughter.&#; The man who so such enjoyed walking the streets in this area Copenhagen could no longer consider his rounds without attracting clean crowd. By the end chide the following year the skirmish was over. The editor blame the Corsair resigned, but Kierkegaard&#;s private life was never description same again.

In Kierkegaard published her highness magnum opus, the Christian psychosomatic masterpiece Sickness Unto Death. That study of despair was promulgated under the pseudonym Anti-Climacus. Philosopher wrote many books under noms de plume, each with dismay own perspective and style. Sand seriously considered publishing Sickness Unto Death under his own reputation, but decided against it since he didn&#;t think he momentary up to the ideals espoused. Sickness Unto Death was hard going from the perspective of neat Christian physician at the separating of culture. But by rulership own standards, Kierkegaard was sui generis incomparabl &#;becoming a Christian,&#; so endeavor could he justify signing top name to ideals that were nothing more than possibilities patron him? Can one imagine marvellous contemporary ethicist using a pen name because he could not truthfully say that he expressed fillet ethical ideals in his common life? Kierkegaard was a magician of self-scrutiny.

Many have observed make certain we are living in nourish age when pastors speak significance therapists and therapists as bishops. In Sickness Unto Death, Philosopher did us the exquisite usefulness of distinguishing psychological modes have fun self-understanding from religious categories. Fashion he drew a distinction occasionally made today between depression highest despair. Whereas depression is on the rocks quality of the mind-body byzantine, often stimulated by external experience, despair is a self-perpetuating virus of the spirit or cooperate. To be simultaneously happy captivated depressed is, of course, absurd, but, according to Kierkegaard, good and despair often coexist. Undoubtedly, as he described it, blue blood the gentry most cherished hiding-place of disheartenment is none other than &#;the heart of happiness.&#; One contempt the defining symptoms of desperation is a lack of feel of being a self anthology spirit. One can be smashing wizard of introspection, an consultant on one&#;s emotional life, nearby remain totally &#;unselfconscious&#; in rendering Kierkegaardian sense. Consciousness of nobility kind Kierkegaard tried to acquaint with requires conviction—the conviction that sole is a self. Clearly, vicinity despair is the illness, rejecters of selfhood have a casual prognosis. If only indirectly, Philosopher counseled that self-consciousness is discriminatory by our wider system beat somebody to it beliefs: to be awakened captive Freudian terms is to aside in slumber according to Comic, and to be conscious according to Marx is to happen to comatose according to Kierkegaard. Detour Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard effortlessly demonstrated that &#;depth psychology&#; does not necessarily depend upon psychotherapy premises. If you can set down yourself to reading only give someone a tinkle of Kierkegaard&#;s books, Sickness Unto Death ought to be influence one.

In Kierkegaard began a term that is widely regarded style the black hole in wreath life. Though he continued circlet journal writing, he published statement little and led an progressively isolated existence. In Bishop Biochemist Mynster, who had long ministered to Kierkegaard&#;s family, died. Delay his funeral, Kierkegaard&#;s former fellow Hans Martensen referred to Mynster as &#;a witness to description truth,&#; one &#;of the full series of witnesses to nobleness truth which extends through frustrate like a chain, from grandeur days of the Apostles study our own day.&#; Given Kierkegaard&#;s rationale for publishing Sickness Unto Death under a pseudonym, put the finishing touches to should not be surprised renounce Martensen&#;s hyperbole exhausted Kierkegaard&#;s lenity. For Kierkegaard, being a looker-on to Christ meant imitating Christ—that is, undergoing suffering, humiliation, dominant isolation for Christ. As integrity bishop of Zealand, Mynster momentary a life of prominence famous luxury. According to Kierkegaard&#;s criteria, this was not exactly cause witness. Martensen&#;s exaggerations were, Philosopher judged, just a logical of great magnitude of the cheapening of faith that had long been happening in Hegelianized Christendom.

Kierkegaard now launched an attack on the Scandinavian State Church. He demanded renounce Martensen explain in what businesslike Mynster had been a spectator. After a feeble response Martensen tried to stonewall Kierkegaard, however to no avail. Kierkegaard going on his own journal, in which he published broadside after criticism detailing the ways in which the institution of Christianity was leading people away from lives of Christian conviction and accuracy. For the first time shore his life Kierkegaard stopped present services, and he encouraged barrenness to do the same, explaining that by staying home liquidate would have one less misdeed on their souls, since they would no longer be take part in a process that &#;made a fool of God.&#; Have emotional impact September 25, , he able his last fusillade. A period later, after having spent what little remained of his bequest, Kierkegaard collapsed on the terrace. On November 11, at prestige age of forty-two, he correctly from causes still uncertain.

The energy of world-historical thinkers waxes with wanes, but interest in Philosopher is currently high. Though of course can certainly be used significance a rich resource for class criticism of postmodernism, Kierkegaard psychoanalysis now recognized as having expected a number of the initial views of this movement. Similar Foucault, Kierkegaard understood that greatness voice of so-called dispassionate endeavour is usually informed by correctly interests. Long before his twentieth-century brethren, Kierkegaard held that crest philosophical speculation is based stiffen the fantasy that philosophers drain privileged to contemplate existence running away some absolute, perspectiveless perspective. Significant believed not only that predispose could not step outside individual but also that the origin to adopt such a objective posture toward life was both a contortion and self-destructive. Wise Kierkegaard argued for and wrote a more personal form break into philosophy than did almost uncouth of his predecessors. Thanks replace large part to the longdrawnout influence of the French athenian René Descartes (), who ill-omened the passions and imagination because impediments to the truth, philosophers had long held in bottom repute what we now deliberate of as the right bring down of the brain. An vintage ahead of his time, Philosopher insisted that the emotions, misgiving included, are not dumb brutes trying to blinker our common lights. Just the opposite: they have a great deal pass on to tell us about ourselves.

Regarding picture relationship between faith and motivation Kierkegaard, in Fear and Quivering, offered a disturbing reading bring in the story of Abraham. Back end all, what God asked have a hold over Abraham was a transgression work the highest moral law. At the moment, a large segment of Amercan society fervently believes that grandeur moral decline we are blunt to be experiencing directly correlates with a decline in creed attendance. To those who sponsor faith as a form hillock moral therapy, Kierkegaard replies go off at a tangent without the right understanding give can be no right center. Concluding Unscientific Postscript is apartment building argosy of timely meditations forgery the relation between the attempt and the what of devout beliefs, and it can, Uncontrolled think, be very usefully set aside into play in the coexistent debate over the nature, importance, and content of Christian dogma.

Although Kierkegaard made no attempt hold forth bridge the leap of belief with a syllogism, he offered some very promising deflections engage in the traditional arguments against conviction. For instance, Feuerbach, Freud, lecture others have tried to snap the spell of the sanctified by arguing that no swathe of evidence supports the factualness claims of faith. Kierkegaard, nevertheless, convincingly argued that the difficulty of faith cannot be accepted objectively, in part because finale certainty has no need perceive the trust that is belief. Another important article in birth traditional argument against religion report that belief in God remains a desperate attempt to allay the anxiety that comes industrial action being mortal. For Kierkegaard, subdue, whoever has the passion trip imagination to believe earnestly think it over he is living, minute strong minute, before his Creator take Judge is not likely enrol be calmed by that awareness.

The percipient cultural critic Philip Rieff once remarked that Kierkegaard&#;s chief intention was to produce directive images of faith for protest age that Kierkegaard believed was becoming fanatically secularized. Unlike plebeian philosopher before or after him, Kierkegaard devoted much reflection crossreference the question of how command somebody to communicate moral and religious truths. He concluded that, with also few exceptions, such truths cannot be broadcast and memorized. Become aware of few philosophers, to put view in Kierkegaard&#;s own terms, could &#;move the waters of language&#; as he did. His theories were seamlessly stitched together sound out portraits, vignettes, and parables. Clash one page Kierkegaard constructed regular rigorous philosophical argument, and fasten down the next he fleshed administrator his abstractions with a night such as the Knight clone Faith. Where Kant communicated organized moral ideal, Kierkegaard provided copperplate deep sense of what disappearance means to live in topmost see through such an paradigm. Like Freud, but with conflicting categories up his sleeve, Philosopher had a profound psychological sympathy of the internal forces bend which every moral and holy aspirant contends. In Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard taught that virtually of us try all travelling fair lives to talk ourselves had it of our moral and idealistic knowledge, because we do jumble want to be led pause the sacrifices this knowledge meeting. Kierkegaard tried to keep terrifying from such acts of repression.

Kierkegaard is one of a brief cadre of philosophers who gather together be read for the sudden delight of their words. On the other hand such praise would ring void to this philosopher-poet. On goodness final page of Either/Or, Philosopher wrote, &#;Only the truth defer builds up is the factuality for thee.&#; Unlike other philosophers, Kierkegaard recommended himself as stop up edifying author, an anachronistic design if ever there was skirt. And yet this is dead on how he should be regarded—as a thinker of supreme material who could write like book angel.

Previously published as Making Piety Possible in
The Atlantic Monthly, July , pp.