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Abstract Kierkegaard and his pseudonym, Johannes Climacus, advance a ?theory? of indirect communication which designates it as the appropriate vehicle for ethico?religious discourse. This paper examines the justification for this claim, as it is elaborated in the Postscript, and traces the similarity between Climacus? account of indirect communication and his broader existential ethics. Both accounts locate the identity of the subject in the repeated renunciation of finitude. Just as the autonomy of the Kantian subject demands indifference to phenomenal incentives, so too the ?infinite possibility? of the Climacean subject is assured only through its repeated renunciation of finite determinants. The paper argues that this project of self?determination underlies both the theory of indirect communication and the Postscript's existential ethics, and both are critiqued by Kierkegaard under the rubric of ?Religiousness A?. The theory of indirect communication and the existential ethics of which it is a part demand that the individual's freedom be literally ?thought at every moment? ? a requirement which is as divorced from the circumstances of actual existence as Hegel's much maligned ?System?. The paper closes by considering the significance of Climacus? ?Absolute Paradox? for the subject's predicament and for Kierkegaard's authorship: does the notion of the Absolute Paradox represent an alternative to the subject's self?assertion, or is it merely its pre?eminent expression?

To date, there have been few attempts to compare the thought of Confucius and Kierkegaard, and these few attempts have focused on the contrast between Kierkegaard’s stress on the individual and Confucius’s emphasis on the social aspect of human existence. In this article, I point instead to substantial agreement between the analyses of ethical existence offered by Confucius and two of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous figures, Judge William of Either/Or and Johannes Climacus of The Concluding Unscientific Postscript . I seek to use this parallelism to better discern the specific character of Confucius’s religious consciousness.

‘An understanding with the reader’ which appears as an appendix to Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript has puzzled readers by apparently ‘taking back’ everything that the pseudonymous author Climacus has said in the text that precedes it. I agree with John Lippitt that this ‘revocation’ should be read as a humorous statement; however, I disagree with Lippitt's assessment that the tone of the revocation is essentially ‘non-urgent’ and ‘modest’. I propose that a fuller picture of Climacus's character is needed to understand the spirit of the revocation and its relationship to the rest of the text.

This volume is a study of the relationship between philosophy and faith in Søren Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments. It is also the first book to focus on the role of Socrates in this psuedonymous volume, and it illuminates the significance of Socrates for Kierkegaard's thought in general. Jacob Howland argues that in Fragments, philosophy and faith are closely related passions. A careful examination of the role of Socrates in Fragments demonstrates that Socratic, philosophical eros opens up a path to faith. At the same time, the work of faith - which holds the self together with that which transcends it, the finite with the infinite, and one's life in time with eternity - is essentially erotic in the Socratic sense of the term. Chapters on Kierkegaard's Johannes Climacus and on Plato's Apology and related dialogues shed light on the Socratic character of the pseudonymous author of Fragments and the role of 'the god' in Socrates' pursuit of wisdom. Howland also analyzes the Concluding Unscientific Postscript and Kierkegaard's reflections on Socrates and Christ in his unpublished papers.

According to James Conant, the 'revocations' made of the "Concluding Unscientific Postscript" and the "Tractatus" by their authors mean that we should view these texts as containing 'simple nonsense'. I firstly criticize the reading of the Postscript's 'revocation' which leads Conant to this conclusion. Next, I aim to show why we shall better understand the revocation's significance if we pay close attention to two factors: the pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus's description of himself as a 'humorist'; and, more importantly, what the text tells us about 'humour' as an entire existential life-view; one given much less attention in Kierkegaard scholarship than the much better-known 'aesthetic', 'ethical' and 'religious' views of life.

In this paper I defend the view that not only does Fear and Trembling espouse the teleological suspension of the ethical as a radical suspension and even possible violation of otherwise ethical duties, but also that Kierkegaard himself espouses it and carries the belief through his entire authorship. A brief analysis of Religiousness A suggests that Climacus made a dialectical error in Concluding Unscientific Postscript. This error is corrected by Anti-Climacus and Kierkegaard's own journals, and the correction makes possible a full-blooded affirmation of the teleological suspension where Climacus failed. This reaffirmation can explain the shift from Climacus to Anti-Climacus on the topic of hidden inwardness as well as the shift from Climacus to Kierkegaard on the topic of religious suffering. It can also provide a legitimate Kierkegaardian alterative to positing a stage Merold Westphal (and not Kierkegaard) has termed Religiousness C. What we are left with is an uncompromisingly radical religious dialectic that gives every appearance of being exactly what Kierkegaard intended.

In this paper I defend the view that not only does Fear and Trembling espouse the teleological suspension of the ethical as a radical suspension and even possible violation of otherwise ethical duties, but also that Kierkegaard himself espouses it and carries the belief through his entire authorship. A brief analysis of Religiousness A suggests that Climacus made a dialectical error in Concluding Unscientific Postscript. This error is corrected by Anti-Climacus and Kierkegaard's own journals, and the correction makes possible a full-blooded affirmation of the teleological suspension where Climacus failed. This reaffirmation can explain the shift from Climacus to Anti-Climacus on the topic of hidden inwardness as well as the shift from Climacus to Kierkegaard on the topic of religious suffering. It can also provide a legitimate Kierkegaardian alterative to positing a stage Merold Westphal (and not Kierkegaard) has termed Religiousness C. What we are left with is an uncompromisingly radical religious dialectic that gives every appearance of being exactly what Kierkegaard intended.

In Philosophical Fragments the pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus explored the question: What is required in order to go beyond Socratic recollection of eternal ideas already possessed by the learner? Written as an afterword to this work, Concluding Unscientific Postscript is on one level a philosophical jest, yet on another it is Climacus's characterization of the subjective thinker's relation to the truth of Christianity. At once ironic, humorous, and polemical, this work takes on the "unscientific" form of a mimical-pathetical-dialectical compilation of ideas. Whereas the movement in the earlier pseudonymous writings is away from the aesthetic, the movement in Postscript is away from speculative thought. Kierkegaard intended Postscript to be his concluding work as an author. The subsequent "second authorship" after The Corsair Affair made Postscript the turning point in the entire authorship. Part One of the text volume examines the truth of Christianity as an objective issue, Part Two the subjective issue of what is involved for the individual in becoming a Christian, and the volume ends with an addendum in which Kierkegaard acknowledges and explains his relation to the pseudonymous authors and their writings. The second volume contains the scholarly apparatus, including a key to references and selected entries from Kierkegaard's journals and papers.

Machine generated contents note: Introduction Rick Anthony Furtak; 1. The 'Socratic secret': the postscript to the Philosophical Crumbs M. Jamie Ferreira; 2. Kierkegaard's Socratic pseudonym: a profile of Johannes Climacus Paul Muench; 3. Johannes Climacus' revocation Alastair Hannay; 4. From the garden of the dead: Johannes Climacus on religious and irreligious inwardness Edward F. Mooney; 5. The Kierkegaardian ideal of 'essential knowing' and the scandal of modern philosophy Rick Anthony Furtak; 6. Lessing and Socrates in Kierkegaard's Postscript Jacob Howland; 7. Climacus on subjectivity and the system Merold Westphal; 8. Humor and irony in the Postscript John Lippitt; 9. Climacus on the task of becoming a Christian Clare Carlisle; 10. The epistemology of the Postscript M. G. Piety; 11. Faith and reason in Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript C. Stephen Evans; 12. Making Christianity difficult: the 'existentialist theology' of Kierkegaard's Postscript David R. Law; Bibliography; Index.