ABSTRACT Faith for Kierkegaard is ‘beyond’ reason in some senses but not others. Faith is more specific and more subjective than concepts. On the other hand, Kant claims it is the faculty of reason that motivates us to make sense of anything and enables us to take something teleologically as a task, including faith. I begin from Kant’s account of the artistic genius to show how the faculties of imagination and understanding are related for Kant and how Kierkegaard’s description of (...) faith as a synthesis relies on the teleological structures established by Kant. While imagination can overwhelm understanding in works of artistic genius, a complex harmony nevertheless emerges that depends on the viewer (i.e. is ‘subjective’) but originates in the work. The free play between imagination and understanding in Kantian aesthetic judgments offers a way in which faith and understanding can be in tension for Kierkegaard without there being an absolute boundary that leaves reason behind. (shrink)

One of the most hotly contested debates in Kierkegaard studies concerns his sense of the relationship between faith and reason. Often caricatured as a proponent of irrational fideism, scholarship in recent decades has tried to present a more nuanced account of Kierkegaard’s position. Two likely interpretive options have emerged: supra‐rationalism and anti‐rationalism. On the former view, Kierkegaard believes that while the achievement of faith is beyond the capabilities of reason, there are still ways that reason can aid the maintenance of (...) faith once reason’s limits are recognized. On the latter view, faith is a constant struggle against rationalizing justification, and thus, any attempt to use reason to assist in the maintenance of faith is a mistake. Interestingly, a comparison with Pascal can help one arbitrate between these two responses to the dubious irrationalist reading of Kierkegaard. (shrink)

According to a traditional interpretation of Kierkegaard, he endorses a strong form of direct doxastic voluntarism on which we can, by brute force of will, make a “leap of faith” to believe propositions that we ourselves take to be improbable and absurd. Yet most leading Kierkegaard scholars now wholly reject this reading, instead interpreting Kierkegaard as holding that the will can affect what we believe only indirectly. This paper argues that Kierkegaard does in fact endorse a restricted, sophisticated, and plausible (...) version of direct doxastic voluntarism. On Kierkegaard’s view, when we take ourselves to be in an epistemically permissive situation, we have the ability to form outright beliefs (but not credences) at will in virtue of our ability to voluntarily 1) open or close inquiry and 2) determine our attitude towards epistemic risk. (shrink)

On the dominant contemporary accounts of how practical considerations affect what we ought to believe, practical considerations either encroach on epistemic rationality by affecting whether a belief is epistemically justified, or constitute distinctively practical reasons for belief which can only affect what we ought to believe by conflicting with epistemic rationality. This paper argues that Søren Kierkegaard offers a promising alternative view on which practical considerations can affect what we ought to believe without either encroaching on or (necessarily) conflicting with (...) epistemic rationality by determining which among the epistemically permitted outright doxastic attitudes one should all‐things‐considered adopt. (shrink)

According to a traditional interpretation of Kierkegaard, he endorses a strong form of direct doxastic voluntarism on which we can, by brute force of will, make a “leap of faith” to believe propositions that we ourselves take to be improbable and absurd. Yet most leading Kierkegaard scholars now wholly reject this reading, instead interpreting Kierkegaard as holding that the will can affect what we believe only indirectly. This paper argues that Kierkegaard does in fact endorse a restricted, sophisticated, and plausible (...) version of direct doxastic voluntarism. On Kierkegaard's view, when we take ourselves to be in an epistemically permissive situation, we have the ability to form outright beliefs (but not credences) at will in virtue of our ability to voluntarily 1) open or close inquiry and 2) determine our attitude towards epistemic risk. (shrink)