In this article, I examine the possible thought experimenting qualities of Soren Kierkegaard's novel Fear and Trembling and in which way it can be explanatory. Kierkegaard's preference for pseudonyms, indirect communication, Socratic interrogation, and performativity are identified as features that provide the narrative with its thought experimenting quality. It is also proposed that this literary fiction functions as a Socratic-theological thought experiment due to its influences from both philosophy and theology. In addition, I suggest three functional levels of the fictional (...) narrative that, in different ways, influence its possible explanatory force. As a theoretical background for the investigation, two accounts of literary cognitivism are explored: Noel Carroll's Argument Account and Catherine Elgin's Exemplification Account. In relation to Carroll's proposal, I conclude that Fear and Trembling develops a philosophical argumentation that is dependent on the reader's own existential contribution. In relation to Elgin's thought, the relation between truth and explanatory force is acknowledged. At the end of the article, I argue that it is more accurate to see the explanatory force of Fear and Trembling in relation to its exploratory function. (shrink)

Authorship is a complicated subject in Kierkegaard's work, which he surely recognized, given his late attempts to explain himself in On My Work as an Author. From the use of multiple pseudonyms and antonyms, to contributions across a spectrum of media and genres, issues of authorship abound. Why did Kierkegaard write in the ways he did? Before we assess Kierkegaard's famous thoughts on faith or love, or the relationship between 'the aesthetic,' 'the ethical,' and 'the religious,' we must approach how (...) he expressed them. Given the multi-authored nature of his works, can we find a view or voice that is definitively Kierkegaard's own? Can entries in his unpublished journals and notebooks tell us what Kierkegaard himself thought? How should contemporary readers understand inconsistencies or contradictions between differently named authors? We cannot make definitive claims about Kierkegaard's work as a thinker without understanding Kierkegaard's work as an author. This collection, by leading contemporary Kierkegaard scholars, is the first to systematically examine the divisive question and practice of authorship in Kierkegaard from philosophical, literary and theological perspectives. (shrink)

I examine the Kierkegaardian intellectual vice of thoughtlessness (Tankeløshed) and its opposite, the Aristotelian intellectual virtue of phronēsis, or practical wisdom. I argue that thoughtlessness is primarily an intellectual problem rather than a moral one. My emphasis on intellectual virtue in Kierkegaard contrasts with more typical characterizations of passion, will, and action as Kierkegaard’s main concerns and reliance on intellect as an obstacle to be overcome. Drawing on Aristotle’s account of phronēsis as the intellectual virtue related to action, I show (...) that Kierkegaard offers a rich account of practical wisdom and a critique of its opposite, thoughtlessness. I conclude that, since there are different kinds of wisdom, Kierkegaard can say that faith is not a form of knowledge in the sense of epistēmē, or scientific knowledge, while preserving a central role for intellect in the task and life of faith. (shrink)

I argue that Kierkegaard has an account of thought experiment. While his contemporary Ørsted’s contributions to the early history of the concept of ‘thought experiment’ have been recently acknowledged, Kierkegaard’s contributions remain largely unrecognized. I argue that Kierkegaard’s method of ‘imaginary construction’ [Tanke-Experiment] aims at identifying underlying invariants in objects of experience. I outline similarities between Ørsted’s pursuit of invariants in the sciences and Kierkegaard’s fictional variations in Repetition. One implication is that Kierkegaard’s view is more scientific and methodological than (...) is standardly thought by Kierkegaard scholars, who more commonly treat imaginary construction as a literary device. A further implication is that Kierkegaard, like Ørsted, is interested in the success or failure of mental acts, rather than (or in addition to) practical action, as is more standardly associated with Kierkegaard. One original development, beyond what Kierkegaard inherits from Ørsted, is the role of thought experiments as exceptions. An exception is a case that falls outside a rule without breaking it. Exceptions can neither establish a rule nor refute its necessity; however, they turn attention to relevant principles and further determine their content. I highlight similarities between Ørsted’s account of thought experiments and Kierkegaard’s as a method of variation. (shrink)

The meaning of Kierkegaard’s concept of self-becoming is not obvious and it fundamentally depends on how one approaches his body of work and how one understands his vocation and creative impulse as a philosopher. There is strong evidence for a non-teleological reading of him, according to which his creative impulse is to be found in his category of repetition. However, this requires a refutation of the reliability of his autobiographical narrative from 1848. An explanation of Kierkegaard’s conception of self-becoming requires (...) an analysis of his notion of the self, as well as his notion of the process of becoming. Language acquisition marks the beginning of selfhood. The self can be viewed in context of a struggle between the first self-element and the deeper one, which can be compared to the tension between the ego and the superego in the structural model of Freud. The self can also be viewed in a way in which one’s self-determining agency constitutes and upholds a synthesis between sets of opposites, where psychical factors are on one side and the physical factors are on the other side. The agency gradually actualises possibilities and makes ideals concrete, by the so- called movements of infinitude and finitude, in which an imagined possibility is chosen and brought in line with necessity. The self is forged through the subjective repetition involved in the process, both its inwardness and its character. The process of becoming is a process of change, where new qualities come into existence through freedom, in contrast to qualities that merely unfold in an organic or logical way. An anxiety and pathos motivate the task of becoming. The framework of the existence-spheres is a venue of becoming, but it should not be understood as a teleological system of subjectivity. An existence-sphere is a horizon of meaning, linked to the struggle between the self-elements. They can be compared to a form of life, and the transitions between them can be compared to an aspect-dawning. In addition to the everyday repetition involved in actualisation of possibilities, there is a transformative repetition which signifies an advancement of the self-determining agency and which can be associated with an openness to the abyssal ground of freedom. Moreover, the paradigm of repetition is aligned with the concept of self-becoming, including a time-consciousness where the focus is on the present while the orientation is towards the future, pressing for- ward, in contrast to the mentality of recollection. This time-consciousness makes one properly attuned to temporal existence and is part of the process of becoming in its thick sense. Self-becoming terminates in death. Immortality is to be understood as judgment and to think about death in earnest generates the time-consciousness of repetition. (shrink)

This companion explores Søren Kierkegaard's theological importance, offering a comprehensive reading of his work through a distinctly theological lens, including interpretative concerns, his approach to specific doctrines, and theological trajectories for thinking beyond his work. -/- Beginning with essays on key interpretative factors involved in approaching Kierkegaard's complex corpus, there are also historical accounts of his theological development, followed by – for the first time in a single volume – focused expositions of Kierkegaard's approach to particular doctrinal themes, from those (...) oft-discussed in his work (e.g. Christology) to those more understated (e.g. Pneumatology). The book concludes with theological trajectories for Kierkegaard's thought in the twenty-first century. This volume helps not only to situate Kierkegaard's theology more firmly on the map, but to situate Kierkegaard more firmly on the theological map, as one who has much to offer both the form and content of the theological task. (shrink)

This book is an attempt to write about Kierkegaard's philosophy in the style of Kierkegaard's philosophy: energetic, playful, free spirited, surprising, and joyous. It is a deliberately crumby book in the sense that it seeks out the fragments, scraps, and crumbs of philosophical arguments that are generally ignored or swept away, like so much rubbish, but that are actually the most interesting parts of the meal. The Anti-Assistant-Professor Method that this book follows adopts Kierkegaard's many excellent jokes about assistant professors (...) as a guide to how not to write about Kierkegaard's philosophy; specifically: - Don't cease to be human. - Don't be a parasite, merely feeding off other people's creations and never creating anything new. - Don't reduce or simplify or systematize Kierkegaard's ideas in order to make life easier for everyone (because that was never the point). - Don't kill Kierkegaard's philosophy by lecturing on it, thereby turning it into a collection of dead ideas for nonhumans rather than subjective truths that need to be lived. Following these guidelines, the book attempts to extend and amplify some of Kierkegaard's most important ideas in a way that combats the persistent problem of nihilism--a disease that even Kierkegaard succumbed to at the end of his life. (shrink)

This article investigates the literary weight of Søren Kierkegaard in modern theatre, and particularly his influence on Eugene O’Neill, the canonical American tragedian. My main hypothesis is that O’Neill, in the construction of his dramatic characters and in the technique of writing, owes a lot not only to August Strindberg – as he declared himself –, but also to Kierkegaard, through his own (re)readings and through the crucial influence that Kierkegaard has had on Strindberg, Ibsen and Nietzsche. In this regard, (...) the strange and obscure relation between woman and truth, anxiety and mourning is examined via three types of femininity: Nina Leeds (from Strange Interlude, 1928) who, in search of her femininity, fears losing what she could never have had; Lavinia Mannon (from Mourning Becomes Electra, 1929) who, as the ancient Antigone, commits herself to a form of death-in-life, beyond the generic guilt without sin. Lastly, Mary Tyrone (from Long Day’s Journey into Night, 1940), a substitute of the playwright’s mother, the most anguished woman of O’Neill’s feminine characters, is a living dead who prematurely began the mourning for her not-ended-life, since commemoration is associated with the utmost painful. (shrink)