Kierkegaard, the Self, Authenticity and the Teleological Suspension of the Ethical

Critical Horizons 11 (1):75-97 (2010)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

In Fear and Trembling Kierkegaard outlines and defends a faith-based religious ethic, belief in which justifies transgressing the universal ethical norms of the community. In contrast to certain commentators who maintain that Kierkegaard’s argument is about the individual’s relation to God, I understand that this aspect of Kierkegaard’s argument is only important because he maintains that faith in God is a necessary aspect of authentic being. Thus, I argue that Kierkegaard’s argument is about the role faith plays in the formation and transformation of individual identity. To defend my argument, I pay particular attention to: 1) why he maintains that authenticity is found in the faith-based religious ethic; 2) what transformative impact the individual's adoption of the faith-based religious ethic can have on his/her existence; and 3) what the structural relation is between the authentic faith-based religious ethic and the universal ethic of the community. I conclude by showing that Kierkegaard’s failure to differentiate between the contents of different faith-based actions leads his faith-based religious ethic to fall into an ethical antinomy

Links

PhilArchive



    Upload a copy of this work     Papers currently archived: 90,221

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

The Moral Argument for the Existence of God and Immortality.Roe Fremstedal - 2013 - Journal of Religious Ethics 41 (1):50-78.
Faith and the suspension of the ethical in fear and trembling.Andrew Cross - 2003 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 46 (1):3 – 28.
Ii. introduction to a reappraisal of fear and trembling.Paul Dietrichson - 1969 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 12 (1-4):236 – 245.
Kierkegaard and the 'teleological suspension of the ethical'.James Bogen - 1962 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 5 (1-4):305-317.
Kierkegaard's "Fear and Trembling" in Logical Perspective.Edmund N. Santurri - 1977 - Journal of Religious Ethics 5 (2):225 - 247.
Kierkegaard and Camus: either/or? [REVIEW]Daniel Berthold - 2013 - International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 73 (2):137-150.
Kierkegaard on Faith, Reason, and Passion.Merold Westphal - 2011 - Faith and Philosophy 28 (1):82-92.
Kierkegaard and Evans on the problem of Abraham.R. Zachary Manis - 2011 - Journal of Religious Ethics 39 (3):474-492.
Kierkegaard and confucius: The religious dimensions of ethical selfhood.George B. Connell - 2009 - Dao: A Journal of Comparative Philosophy 8 (2):133-149.
Reading Kierkegaard.Patrick Goold - 1990 - Faith and Philosophy 7 (3):304-315.

Analytics

Added to PP
2010-09-22

Downloads
115 (#142,581)

6 months
10 (#134,868)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Gavin Rae
Universidad Complutense de Madrid

Citations of this work

No citations found.

Add more citations

References found in this work

Fear and trembling.Søren Kierkegaard - 1939 - Garden City, N.Y.,: Doubleday. Edited by Søren Kierkegaard.
Fear and trembling.Søren Kierkegaard - 1986 - New York: Cambridge University Press. Edited by C. Stephen Evans & Sylvia Walsh.

View all 15 references / Add more references