"... the most important contribution to Kierkegaard studies to be published in English in recent years.... Not only is it a fascinating, surprising, and perceptive study of Kierkegaard within his time and world, Kirmmse has produced a research resource, a reference work, that is simply without parallel or equal." —Michael Plekon "It is a rare work of philosophy that not only clarifies its subject but also places it within an intellectual and historical context. In his study of 19th-century Danish philosopher (...) Kierkegaard, Kirmmse accomplishes both, setting a standard... " —Library Journal "... an outstanding contribution to Kierkegaard research... The book is intellectual history of the highest calibre." —So[slash]ren Kierkegaard Newsletter "This excellent book is recommended for all collections on Kierkegaard... For all readers." —Choice "This richly researched and readable book supplies an important contribution to the widespread reappropriation of Kierkegaard’s thought currently taking place."—Theology Today "This book is a tour de force in intellectual history." —Review of Metaphysics "Kirmmse's book is a major work of scholarship that confers on Kierkegaard's social and intellectual universe a depth and a richness of detail that will permanently alter the familiar stereotypes about Kierkegaard's isolation from his fellow Danes and his supposedly fanatical campaign against philistine Denmark and its corrupt state church." —American Historical Review Against the background of Denmark’s evolution from a mercantile economy to a broad-based agricultural economy, Kirmmse reinterprets Kierkegaard’s thought as a reaction to the tensions within his society. (shrink)

Within recent years, an increasing number of people and researchers in the Global North have become interested in psychedelic substances and their therapeutic application. While much of the current media attention and research effort mainly concentrate on the therapeutic potential and actions of the individual's acute psychedelic experience, this article explores the user-perceived, therapeutic dynamics of psychedelics in a more long-term perspective by charting the lived experiences and practices of ‘integration’ among psychedelic users in Denmark. Based on ethnographic fieldwork (...) from November 2020 to June 2021, I offer a dual typology of self-related integration as narrative and experiential-somatic. Combining the two, I argue that psychedelic integration in contemporary Denmark can be viewed as a processual self-transformation of the users' experiential orientation where understandings and/or modes of being from the acute psychedelic experience are woven into, prolonged, and/or embodied in their everyday existence. (shrink)

This book is a tour de force in intellectual history. Kirmmse has brilliantly unearthed and synthesized the diverse social, political, ethical, and religious background of nineteenth-century Denmark from the onset of agrarian reforms to the shift from absolute monarchy to constitutional government. Kirmmse provides interesting chapters on such Golden Age cultural figures as Oehlenschlager, Mynster, Heiberg, Martensen, Grundtvig, Clausen, and others, and the romantic, Hegelian, elitist, populist themes and tensions elicited from their respective views. My brief review cannot possibly (...) do justice to the elaborate historical detail and interpretation found in Kirmmse's book. (shrink)

This article addresses the sacredness of Ayahuasca from the perspective of the global shamanic vocation. If encounters with Ayahuasca are said to revitalize forms of sacredness in contemporary societies, this is perhaps clearest in cases where individuals understand themselves to be called to lead ceremonies. Recognizing the global scale of Ayahuasca shamanism, we compare facilitators of ceremonies in two societies to discern differences and similarities in how Ayahuasca vocations exist in differently modernized societies: Peru, a predominantly Catholic society with a (...) substantial Indigenous Amazonian population and an active Ayahuasca shamanism tourism sector, and Denmark, a secular society in Northern Europe, where Ayahuasca is illegal. Building on recent reappraisals of Weber’s reflection on vocation and Durkheim’s theory of the sacred, we argue that being called by Ayahuasca to follow shamanic vocations in contemporary societies leads to tensions around the need to both justify and resist the rationalization of Ayahuasca. (shrink)

The Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden are similar in many respects, not least with regards to the basic administrative set-up: a non-federal task-related division between state, counties and municipalities. In all three countries, counties and municipalities raise a large share of their own revenue, which is then supplemented by government grants. In addition, central government redistributes large amounts of locally collected revenue between the municipalities and the counties respectively, severely hampering local budgetary autonomy. Tax matters are generally (...) centralised, although local governments to a varying degree play a role in the collection of taxes as well as in the setting of local tax rates. In Denmark, Norway, and Sweden alike, the administrative set-up has not been able to prevent a massive increase in local public expenditure in the latter part of the 20th century.Les pays scandinaves, Danemark, Norvège et Suède présentent des similitudes sur beaucoup de points et notamment sur le plan de l’organisation de la base administrative : une division sans relation utilitaire fédérale entre l’Etat, les régions et les municipalités. Dans ces trois pays, les régions et les municipalités lèvent une large part de leurs propres revenus qui sont alors augmentés par les subventions du gouvernement.De plus, le gouvernement central redistribue de larges sommes de revenus collectés localement entre les municipalités et les régions respectivement, ce qui gêne sérieusement l’autonomie budgétaire locale. Les questions fiscales sont généralement centralisées, bien que les gouvernements locaux, à des degrés divers, jouent un rôle dans la collecte des impôts aussi bien que dans la fixation des taux d’impositions locales. Au Danemark et en Norvège tout comme en Suède, l’organisation administrative n’a pas été capable de prévenir une augmentation massive des dépenses publiques locales dans les dernières années du 20ème siècle. (shrink)

During the past decade, several governmental reports have discussed how information technology can transform Danish society. Most important among these reports is Digital Denmark from 1999.In this article, the authors examine how to analyze Digital Denmark by considering two strategies for engaging reports. The first aims at uncovering and making explicit hidden assumptions or ideologies in the text. This approach is called “reading against the text.” The second approach—inspired by science, technology, and society studies—considers where a text goes (...) and what it does rather than how to critically interpret it. Texts may be read as material-semiotic actors, having effects on their environment that exceed or bypass discussions of content or motivation. This approach is called “reading with the text,” and the authors argue that traveling with Digital Denmark makes visible the limitations of critical analyses, while adding agency to the report as it moves in between practices. (shrink)

This article examines two current debates in Denmark—assisted suicide and the prioritization of health resources—and proposes that such controversial bioethical issues call for distinct philosophical analyses: first-order examinations, or an applied philosophy approach, and second-order examinations, what might be called a political philosophical approach. The authors argue that although first-order examination plays an important role in teasing out different moral points of view, in contemporary democratic societies, few, if any, bioethical questions can be resolved satisfactorily by means of first-order (...) analyses alone, and that bioethics needs to engage more closely with second-order enquiries and the question of legitimacy in general. (shrink)

Burial in the forest is a recent, non-confessional alternative to the established cemeteries owned and run by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Denmark. Danish forest burials fulfil common criteria for non-religion and they are an example of institutionalized non-religion. Their non-confessional character is emphasized in the information material directed towards potential buyers of forest burial plots. Forest burials appeal to both non-members and members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church; in fact, nearly two-thirds of those who had a forest burial (...) by the end of 2021 were members of the church. I have participated in seven tours conducted at different forest burial sites, and I have interviewed nearly fifty participants about their motives for considering buying a forest burial plot. In my analyses, I structure the interviews along the three dimensions, knowing, doing, and being. I found that the motives for people to choose a forest burial reflected both non-religious and religious/spiritual considerations. Forest burials exemplify a religious complexity where nature, non-religion, religion, and spirituality intersect. In this complexity, I see the institution of forest burial as a non-religious vessel, which the buyers fill with their individual thoughts and acts. (shrink)

This reply to Martyn Evans's support for a cardiac-centered concept of death attempts to meet some objections to the brainstem definition of death. Evans's appeal to Wittgenstein's philosophy is also criticised.

In the 1970s, both Denmark and Norway passed abortion legislation that is still the basis for the regulation of abortion in these countries. The legislation was fairly liberal with abortion on demand until 12 weeks of gestation and a permission system for later abortions. This article provides a brief history of the developments leading up to these political compromises and an analysis of the reasons why they have proved remarkably stable. It ends by looking at some factors that may (...) now destabilize 50 years of stable compromise about abortion. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 189-202 [Access article in PDF] Spinoza in Denmark and the Fall of Struensee, 1770-1772 John Christian Laursen * Baruch (Benedict) de Spinoza was the arch-heretic of the late seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. He was denounced in half a dozen languages from the time he began to publish until at least the 1780s, when Lessing's allegiance to Spinoza became the heart (...) of a literary scandal. 1 In time-honored fashion, some of these denunciations led to the burning of books and the imprisonment or banning of authors. The most spectacular case, however, led to the trial of a prime minister, the cutting off of his right hand and of his head, and the drawing and quartering of his body in full public ceremony. The year was 1772, the prime minister was Johann Friedrich Struensee, and the country was Denmark.Late eighteenth-century Denmark was not known for barbarities of the type represented by Struensee's execution. Previously disgraced prime ministers had merely been imprisoned, and other political enemies of the ruling powers had [End Page 189] merely been exiled. 2 Why such harshness with Struensee? What was at stake in the fall of Struensee?The answers to these questions are complex, but an important element of those answers lies in Struensee's public image, which made it seem both necessary and justifiable to treat him with such harshness. In turn, public opinion about Struensee was closely tied to the reputation of Spinoza. This essay will show that charges of Spinozism were part of the campaign that poisoned public opinion against Struensee. This was an unusually clear case of a theological and philosophical debate having direct political effects.Before getting to the role of Spinozism and anti-Spinozism in eighteenth-century Denmark, let us fill in important points of the story. The charge against Struensee was lèse majesté, for plotting the death of the King and for usurping power in violation of the constitution. Behind these charges was a further element which encouraged outrage: sleeping with Queen Caroline Matilda. That much was true, as both the Queen, a sister of George III of England, and Struensee admitted, each in order to save the other. The King knew about it all along but did not care. He did not care because he had become a libertine, going out to whorehouses most nights with rowdy friends, and he figured that what was good for the gander was good for the goose. He was also schizophrenic and easily manipulable by those around him, so that Struensee and the Queen encountered no disapproval from him until he fell under other people's influence. After Struensee and the Queen were taken into custody, the King was forced to divorce the Queen and she was sent to live in a Hannoverian castle in Celle because her brother did not want the embarrassment of having her back in England. She died there a few years later. 3It is an irony that we owe our knowledge of the state of public opinion in Denmark in this period to Struensee. Until shortly before the fatal events mentioned above, the Danish press had been subject to censorship that might have prevented the expression of many of the subsequent attacks on Struensee. But in September 1770 Struensee persuaded the king to declare freedom of the press in all his realms (consisting of the kingdoms of Denmark and Norway, the Duchies of Slesvig and Holsten [Schleswig and Holstein in German], Greenland, Iceland, the Faroes, and colonies in India, Africa, and the Caribbean). 4 It is not widely [End Page 190] known that Denmark was the first country to declare unlimited freedom of the press as official public policy. For much of the century England and the Netherlands had effective freedom of the press, but it had never been declared official policy. The next to do so was rebellious Virginia, in the Virginia Declaration of Rights (1776), followed by other colonies and then the Bill of Rights of the new... (shrink)

Does it matter that the hearts of 'brainstem dead' patients may persist in beating spontaneously? Hostile reactions, to the Danish inclusion of cardiac criteria in the determination of death, betray reductionist views of human life at the core of 'brainstem' conceptions of death. Such views (whether centred on neurological function or on abstractions concerning 'personhood') supplant the richness of human life and death with the poverty of essentialism: and mask the lethal nature of beating-heart organ retrieval. The affirmation of cardiac (...) criteria for death is not an alternative form of essentialism as some critics suppose, but part of an understanding of human life and death which rejects essentialism altogether. The spontaneously persistent heartbeat does not constitute human life, but most certainly counts for it. (shrink)

Responding to serious environmental problems, requires urgent and fundamental shifts in our day-to-day lifestyles. This paper employs a qualitative, cross-cultural approach to explore people’s subjective self-reflections on their experiences of pro-environmental behavioral spillover in three countries; Brazil, China, and Denmark. Behavioral spillover is an appealing yet elusive phenomenon, but offers a potential way of encouraging wider, voluntary lifestyle shifts beyond the scope of single behavior change interventions. Behavioral spillover theory proposes that engaging in one pro-environmental action can catalyze the (...) performance of others. To date, evidence for the phenomenon has been mixed, and the causal processes governing relationships between behaviors appear complex, inconsistent and only partly understood. This paper addresses a gap in the literature by investigating accounts of behavioral spillover in three diverse cultural settings using qualitative semi-structured interviews. The analysis shows that while around half of participants overall who were questioned recalled spillover effects, the other half had not consciously experienced spillover. There were few significant differences across cultures, though some forms of spillover effects were reported more in some cultures than others. More environmentally-engaged participants across all three countries were significantly more likely to experience spillover than those who were less engaged. Accounts of within-domain spillovers were most commonly reported, mainly comprising waste, resource conservation and consumption-related actions. Accounts of between-domain spillover were very rare. Recollection of contextual and interpersonal spillover effects also emerged from the interviews. Our findings suggest that more conscious behavioral spillover pathways may be limited to those with pre-existing environmental values. Behavioral spillover may comprise multiple pathways incorporating conscious and unconscious processes. We conclude that targeting behavioral catalysts that generate more socially diffuse spillover effects could offer more potential than conventional spillover involving a single individual. (shrink)

In Denmark and Sweden sperm donation is the most debated and contested of the reproductive technologies that are currently in use. Although the two countries are neighbouring welfare states with public healthcare in common, policies and practices of sperm banking and sperm donation differ strongly. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, this article explores how the sperm used for donor insemination is narrated, chosen, produced and consumed at sperm banks in Denmark and Sweden.The analysis illustrates that marginalization and stigmatization of (...) infertile men, donors, single women, lesbians and donor children not only takes place in the media and during debates in the Danish and Swedish parliaments where the technology has historically been contested, but also at the sperm banks and fertility clinics. This article therefore calls for more inclusive stories on sperm donation to be narrated. (shrink)

In the debate concerning the education of nurses that is currently taking place in Denmark, two widely differing views are apparent regarding the best way of training nurses such that the ethical aspect of their work is adequately considered. The first of these is based on the premise that practical care is fundamental to and justified by theories on nursing, care and ethics, which is why the theoretical part of nurse education deserves a higher priority. The second view is (...) based on the premise that social care cannot be taught by means of theories, but can be learnt only through practice. The master-apprentice principle of ancient Greece is stressed in connection with this as being a viable alternative to the theoretical model of education. These two very different views can be traced back to Plato’s and Aristotle’s ideas on ethics and teaching respectively; indeed, those engaged in the debate make specific reference to these philosophers. In Denmark, a third fundamental viewpoint exists, known as ‘ontological ethics’. Phenomenologist KE Løgstrup is one of the best-known representatives of this view. Basing the line of argument on Løgstrup’s ethics and the view of education associated with this, this article questions the relevance of ancient Greek thought to today’s world by illustrating a number of problems that are connected with the theoretical model of nurse education and with the master-apprentice principle. Løgstrup associates ethics with the aesthetic principle that ‘the useless is the most useful’ in human life and with the view we also see in Kierkegaard’s and NFS Grundtvig’s writings that ethics can be imparted only by indirect means. Løgstrup bases his understanding of ethics on the Judaeo-Christian concept of Genesis and the view that human beings were created with an ethical potential that is best nourished by aesthetic impressions. (shrink)

In 2014, the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights ranked Denmark as the European Union country with the highest occurrence of male physical violence and sexual assault against women. This report was described as ‘grotesque’, ‘misguided’ and ‘untrustworthy’ in the Danish mainstream media, which cited a number of prominent political commentators and expert researchers who debunked these findings. Using this case of overt public rejection of violent and white masculinity as a central analytical thread, this article explores how the (...) invisiblization of Danish male violence, as well as the projection of sexual aggression onto minority communities, produces a peculiar politics of denial and denialism in Denmark. The authors argue that the nationalist myth of gender equality branded within the Danish mainstream media and society is a variety of gender exceptionalism; which in turn generates racist, reactionary and suppressive ideologies on violence, racial discrimination and social inequality. (shrink)

The primary question addressed in this article is how to understand and produce praxis development in the complex and contentious field of street communities of young marginalized men, an area highlighted almost on a daily basis in the Danish media under headlines with terms such as ‘foreigner problems’, ‘ghetto problems’, ‘gang conflicts’ and ‘gang war’. Since 2009, activists and professionals related to this field have gathered at Grundtvigs Højskole where they initiated and inspired community building activities in relation to the (...) recent gang conflicts in the Copenhagen area of Denmark. The article explores these practices and changes, including some of the communal initiatives arising in response to the escalating gang conflicts. The conflict and community building activities are contextualized in terms of broader tendencies and changes in Danish society, from enduring struggles with ethnic othering of young minority men since the late 1990s, to other societal changes escalating ‘gang-conflicts’ to ‘gang-war’. The article examines how these changes produce new dynamics, tensions and dimensions of binary thinking, which in turn creates new dilemmas in the everyday lives of the people involved in social work practice, community building activities and praxis research. (shrink)

We analyze Denmark’s COVID-19 containment policies. We argue that, despite the precautionary principle being explicitly appealed to by decision-makers at the highest political level, it is neither clear whether Danish COVID-19 policies did in fact constitute a genuine application of the precautionary principle, nor is it clear that the particular restrictions implemented ought indeed to count as precautionary when seen from a perspective that transcends the short-term emergency. Finally, we point at evidence suggesting that lock down policies had the (...) effect of saving the primarily older group of potential COVID-19 victims while causing severe problems of loneliness, mental illness, loss of education and loss of life opportunities for children and young people. This raises serious questions of social and intergenerational injustice in relation to lock down policies. (shrink)

The aim of the article is to present the application of the lean management method as appropriate for the management of the organizational system of psychiatric care in the Zealand region of Denmark. The organizational solutions of the Danish psychiatric care system presented in this paper are individualized and adapted to the regional needs of the residents. In Denmark, there are five administrative regions, in which each independently organizes its own system of medical (psychiatric) care. This means that (...) the regions have considerable independence in choosing the acceptable and necessary methods of management, including – as is clear from the conducted research – the use of methods put-upon other areas of economy. Although the national laws in Denmark define certain conditions and guidelines for the functioning of psychiatric care (e.g. regarding the use of direct coercion/restrains for patients treated in the centres), there is a distinct separation of structures and methods of functioning throughout the whole country, which constitutes unique observation material – from the cognitive point of view. The authors of this paper conduct extensive research and analyse the systems of psychiatric care organizations in various countries (including Spain, Italy and Japan) and, as a result, the obtained results may lead to the selection of the best models from other systems (good organizational practices and management, the management methods in use), which can be applied in the currently reorganised system of the Polish psychiatric care. The choice of Denmark for the observational study is not accidental and is related not only to the fact that there is a large degree of systemic identity within the country and between the regions, but also because the country applies solutions addressed to patients with very different cultural conditions and needs, resulting from their descent, religion, and (world)-views. Denmark is one of those European countries that express a significant acceptance of diversity and tolerance, which is why communities with very different imponderables, denominations, and worldviews co-exist. In the area related to the organization of the psychiatric system, these conditions are of key importance. In the period from January 2015 to December 2017 the authors participated in study visits in Denmark, conducting research aimed at identifying the key success factors of the psychiatric care organization system in the country. The conducted analysis is also based on the analysis of literature and own and participant observations. The conclusions concerning this subject are also the result of interviews conducted with employees of the visited hospitals and system users, both professionals and patients. As the search for an optimal organizational model of psychiatric care is currently an ongoing concern in Poland, it seems justified to review the existing solutions in Europe and perform their critical analysis. A comparison of the adopted solutions was performed, in the context of, above all, the improvement of the quality of these services, their availability, and the satisfaction of patients and their families from the proposed organizational changes. The economic benefits of these solutions are also significant. (shrink)

Biomedical ethics requires that clinical trial participants be accurately informed of the potential risks associated with investigational medical products. We found that the vaccine manufacturer Merck made false statements to the trial participants about the safety of Gardasil in its Future II HPV vaccine trial in Denmark. The clinical study protocol specified that safety testing was one of the trial’s primary objectives, but the recruitment brochure given to trial participants stated this was not the case, as allegedly the vaccine (...) had already been proven safe in previous trials. The advertising material for the trial and the informed consent forms stated that the comparator was saline or an inactive substance, when, in fact, it contained Merck’s proprietary aluminum adjuvant which is highly immunogenic. Several trial participants experienced long-term disabling symptoms during the trial, also some randomized to the adjuvant “placebo” control group. In all cases, their serious adverse events were dismissed as unrelated to the study treatment by Merck’s clinical investigators. We demonstrate that Merck’s published statements about the safety of their proprietary aluminum adjuvant is contradicted by the research evidence. The use of adjuvants as “placebos” in vaccine clinical trials is unethical as it makes it difficult to discover serious vaccine harms. (shrink)

As the title of the article suggests, “The Burqa Ban”: Legal Precursors for Denmark, American Experiences and Experiments, and Philosophical and Critical Examinations, the authors embark on a factually investigative as well as a reflective response. More precisely, they use The 2018 Danish “Burqa Ban”: Joining a European Trend and Sending a National Message (published as a concurrent but separate article in this issue of INTERNATIONAL STUDIES JOURNAL) as a platform for further analysis and discussion of different perspectives. These (...) include case-law at the international level while focusing attention on recent rulings and judicial reasoning by the ECtHR and the ECJ; critical thought-experiments in religion, morality, human rights, and the democratic public space; a contextualized account of burqa-wearing interventions by federal and state governments and, moreover, various courts in the United States; and philosophical commentary and, in some instances, criticism of the Danish and/or European (French, etc.) approach. The different contributions have different aims. The section on case-law at the international level reports on those central judgments that, in effect, helped to pave the path for the Kingdom of Denmark’s burqa ban. Concerning the concurring judges at the ECtHR, the opinions served to uphold a preexisting ban and to grant a wide margin of appreciation to the national authorities, thereby limiting the Court’s own review. -/- As regards to the ECJ, the legality of company rules that contain a policy of neutrality for the workplace was examined, with a similar outcome. The authors who discuss religion, morality, human rights and the democratic public space are endeavoring to, respectively, appeal to ethics as a testing stone for law and to both challenge and address several forms of “expressivist worry” in connection with face veils. In doing so, the authors ask a number of thought-provoking questions that hopefully will inspire public policymakers to careful analysis. While the section that is devoted to American perspectives highlights a comprehensive survey of political and legal responses to, in particular, full-face veils like the burqa, the relevant author also incorporates public perceptions and, in the course of examining these, draws a parallel to “the fate” of the hoodie. The constitutionality of burqa-wearing in America, so it also appears, is partially an open question, but differentiating between religious, political, or personal reasons is a de jure premise. Given that the Danish legislators who drafted law L 219 to ban burqa-wearing in public places rely on a reference to political Islam, they relegate religious and personal reasons to the private domain, thereby also adopting secularism as a premise. This is explored in the last author response of the article, more precisely, in an account of the underlying materialism that, in turn, is applied to Muslim women. If policymakers and legislators engaged in Thinking Things Through exercises, they could, as a minimum, avoid law-making strategies that are not in the spirit of the theory they themselves invoke, albeit tacitly. While the aim of, as it were, arresting culturally self-contradicting legislators is unique for the section in question, all the authors who contribute to the joint research project have one end-goal in common, namely to inform about important perspectives while at the same time opening up for parameters for (more) fruitful, constructive and (if need be) critical debate in the future. With this in mind, four recommendations are presented by the research director for the project. Legally, politically, socially and culturally, conflict-resolution should not translate the relationship between rulers and the ruled into a separation ideology, an instance of controllers versus the controlled. All things being equal, that is the objective limit for a democratic society. (shrink)

This paper attempts to uncover some of the factors that may have influenced the choice of model for the systematic training of nurses in Denmark. From a historical analysis of selected historical literature, nursing magazines, and archival documents, three themes emerge: the interest from (and of) the medical profession, the strategy on nurse training of the Danish Nurses’ Organization, and the societal context of the time. Despite there being a Deaconess Institution in Copenhagen from 1863, it was ultimately the (...) Nightingale model that formed the basis for the training programme. Findings suggest that the Nightingale influence within the medical establishment and among leaders in Danish nursing played a vital role in this choice. As well, the Danish Nurses’ Organization actively promoted their preferred 3‐year training model, which had strong similarities to the Nightingale model. Changes in family and social life after the 1864 defeat in the Prussian war fostered a growing demand for the liberalization of women's rights and a need for increased professionalization in the nursing and caring function. (shrink)