This essay tries to show that there exist several passages where Kierkegaard (and his pseudonyms) sketches an argument for the existence of God and immortality that is remarkably similar to Kant's so-called moral argument for the existence of God and immortality. In particular, Kierkegaard appears to follow Kant's moral argument both when it comes to the form and content of the argument as well as some of its terminology. The essay concludes that several passages in Kierkegaard overlap significantly with Kant's (...) moral argument, although Kierkegaard ultimately favors revealed faith over natural theology in general and Kant's moral faith in particular. Whereas Kant uses the moral argument to postulate the existence of God and immortality, Kierkegaard mainly uses it as a reductio ad absurdum of non-religious thinking. (shrink)

The present paper suggests to consider Kierkegaard’s use of Abraham’s story in Fear and Trembling in regulative terms, that is, to consider it as a model – not for our moral behaviour but rather for our religious behaviour. To do so, I first rely on recent literature to argue that Kierkegaard should be regarded as a distinctively post-Kantian philosopher: namely, a philosopher who goes beyond Kant in a way that is nevertheless true to the spirit of Kant’s original critical philosophy. (...) Then, I present a post-Kantian reading of Fear and Trembling, focusing on the problematic implications that result from comparing this text with Hegel’s theory of recognition. Finally, I submit that sacrifice in Fear and Trembling is a regulative notion in a Kantian sense. This interpretation addresses some of the most problematic aspects of the text. I conclude that the regulativity of sacrifice may be regarded as an important and perhaps an essential component of Kierkegaard’s overall philosophical strategy. (shrink)

There is a remarkable and surprising connection to be found between an argument of Søren Kierkegaard’s and one of Zhuangzi’s—what I call the ‘social misfit’ critique. I will argue that this connection highlights a hitherto unacknowledged parallel between the moral thought of their respective targets: Hegel in the case of Kierkegaard and Confucius in the case of Zhuangzi. Specifically, it reveals a significant parallel between Hegel’s movement from Moralitat to Sittlichkeit and Confucius’ position on the central and irreducible role of (...) li (ritual or propriety) in morality. I will begin by briefly tracing the ‘social misfit’ critique as it is found in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling and in the Zhuangzi. In Section 2, I will sketch Hegel’s argument for the indispensability and irreducibility of social norms (Sittlichkeit) for morality, and reflect on the implications of this move for the possibility of social criticism. Finally, I will argue that Confucius can be understood as articulating a vision of morality and of social criticism very close to Hegel’s. (shrink)

If the rhetorical and economic investment of educators, policy makers and the popular press in the United States is any indication, then unbridled enthusiasm for the introduction of computer mediated communication (CMC) into the educational process is wide-spread. In large part this enthusiasm is rooted in the hope that through the use of Internet-based CMC we may create an expanded community of learners and educators not principally bounded by physical geography. The purpose of this paper is to reflect critically upon (...) whether students and teachers are truly linked together as a``community'' through the use of Internet-based CMC. The paper uses the writings of Kierkegaard, and Hubert Dreyfus's exploration of Kierkegaardian ideas, to look more closely at the prospects and problems embedded in the use of Internet-based CMC to create "distributed communities" of teachers and learners. It is argued that from Kierkegaard's perspective, technologically mediated communications run a serious risk of attenuating interpersonal connectivity. Insofar as interpersonal connectivity is an integral component of education, such attenuation bodes ill for some, and perhaps many instances of Internet-based CMC. (shrink)

This chapter deals with German philosophy from Leibniz to Fichte, which formed an important part of Kierkegaard's intellectual background. In this period German philosophy came to dominate Danish philosophy. However, Kierkegaard's attitude toward his German predecessors is generally ambivalent, involving both critique and admiration. Although Kierkegaard was fluent in German and very familiar with classic German philosophy, his use of this philosophy is somewhat eclectic and assimilated to his own ends. Kierkegaard uses his German predecessors to develop a distinction between (...) the spheres of existence and thought and to reinforce what he took to be genuine Christian faith. (shrink)

In the present paper we address the criticism of the Hegelian doctrine of mediation developed by Kierkegaard in the second volume of the book Enten-Eller. First we analyze the kind of opposition that Kierkegaard is not willing to relativize through the use of the dialectical mediation. For that purpose the contributions made by Shannon Nason to the understanding of relative opposites in Hegel and in Kierkegaard are applied. Next we indicate the place where the concept of mediation is located in (...) Kierkegaard’s approach, namely, within the “sphere of thought”. Afterwards we approach Theodor W. Adorno’s criticism of the Kierkegaardian attempt to develop a “dialectics without mediation”. In the last section we approach both the criticism and the limitation of the concept of mediation made by Kierkegaard as well as the objections raised by Adorno against them. We also present some reflections on the criticism of mediation made by Kierkegaard and the young Marx as an expression of social critique which remains implicit in the former and that is explicit in the latter. (shrink)

Next SectionBecause of the radically incarnational nature of the Christian understanding of ethics and bioethics, according to Kierkegaard, there has always been an infinite gulf between Christian bioethics and secular bioethics. However, the process of the secularization of the public square has made this gulf more apparent and salient for the current ethical debates in biomedicine and the culture more generally.

Helping more than “a little”: recent books on Kierkegaard and philosophy of religion Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s11153-012-9345-6 Authors J. Aaron Simmons, Department of Philosophy, Furman University, 3300 Poinsett Hwy, Greenville, SC 29613, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.