The right to revolt is a central concept in political philosophy, denoting when it is justified to replace a corrupt government with a new one. As such, it is a normative concept that would-be revolutionaries should consult in order to determine the justness of a possible revolution. However, this article argues that within Kierkegaard’s thought lies a wholly new conception of revolution that does not look to describe when it might be just to revolt but that instead sees revolution as (...) an act we are sometimes obligated to enact. Consequently, revolt transforms from a right to a responsibility, with important ethical and political consequences. (shrink)

The issue of anxiety has been thoroughly debated in Kierkegaardian scholarship from multiple standpoints and traditions, but not so much when it comes to the hermeneutic undertone. This article is primarily concerned with tackling the concept of anxiety as a hermeneutical concept, or working with it through hermeneutical lenses; nevertheless, the implications go deeper—making a case for an original hermeneutic anxiety, an agonistic trait of hermeneutics. By exploring the hermeneutical dimensions of the Kierkegaardian anxiety we unravel a whole genealogy of (...) the agonistic phenomena—a hermeneutical way that thrives in the paradox. The scope of it all is to break with the conciliatory ways of an epistemic hermeneutics, by regaining the Kierkegaardian hermeneutics of anxiety: preferring the fertile struggle over the passionless synthesis, paradox over soundness and agony over apathy. (shrink)

In the opening of The Sickness unto Death, Anti-Climacus establishes the essential relation to otherness that characterizes the human self. He also defines two different modes of failing to live in accordance with this relation, which are subsequently described as “feminine” and “masculine” despair. Starting from this somewhat surprising gendering of despair, the article compares Kierkegaard’s understanding of self and other to that of psychoanalysis. It is claimed that psychoanalysis offers a fruitful reinterpretation of the meaning of “the Other,” while (...) Anti-Climacus, on the other hand, gives new inspiration to the analysis of the despair of being a sexed being. (shrink)

This paper aims to portray the human being as spirit, in dialogue with Levinas’ first philosophy. The relation between time and eternity is addressed in the work of both Kierkegaard and Levinas. However, in Kierkegaard’s notion of spirit there lies a discernible further development of the relation between the subject and that which transcends it. In Kierkegaard’s authorship, the absolute exteriority of the eternal does not break or suspend the finite structure of the subject. Contrary to Levinas’ critique of the (...) Danish philosopher, the possibility of a life is opened in which neither the external world nor the relation with the others is disdained. (shrink)

Nineteenth-century Lutheran giants C.F.W. Walther and Søren Kierkegaard both stressed over the application of Martin Luther’s doctrine of Law and Gospel. Both viewed Law and Gospel as concepts to be distinguished and as concepts that dialectically belong together. To his Pelagian audience tempted to abuse the Law and abolish the Gospel, Walther stressed the distinction of Law and Gospel. To his Antinomian audience tempted to abuse the Gospel and abolish the Law, Kierkegaard stressed the dialectic of Law and Gospel. Walther (...) and Kierkegaard’s contrasting Law and Gospel emphases are clearly seen in their contrasting accounts of the Rich Young Ruler in the Synoptic Gospels. (shrink)

In a now classic paper, Karen Carr argues that Kierkegaard is a religious “anti-rationalist”: He holds that reason and religious truth exist in necessary tension with one another. Carr maintains that this antagonism is not a matter of the logical incoherence of Christianity, but rather the fact that genuine submission to Christ precludes approaching him through demonstration. In this essay, we argue that while Kierkegaard is in fact an anti-rationalist, the literature has failed to appreciate the full strength of his (...) position. It is not just that reason and obedience are in tension; rather, Kierkegaard holds the stronger view that reason is actively offended by Christianity’s primary claims. Not only is reason incapable of generating any positive evidence for the truth of Christianity, more radically, it provides evidence against it. In order to make this case, we offer a close reading of Practice in Christianity, developing a typology of Kierkegaard’s account of Christ’s “offense.” Finally, having motivated Kierkegaard’s strong anti-rationalism, we consider why, on his account, anyone would want to be a Christian. (shrink)

By analyzing prefaces and other short excerpts written by different pseudonyms, this paper explores the pseudonymous authors’ relation to their spouses. It assumes that recurring motifs in the prefaces, such as ‘voice’ and the metaphor of ‘fertility,’ reveal, often in ironic tones, general gender-related aspects of identity in Kierkegaard’s works. The paper thus explores how the seemingly stereotyped and archaic conception of gender in the prefaces, such as the pseudonymous author’s assertion of superiority of reasoning through writing over the immediacy (...) represented in voice, reflect aspects of the individual’s disposition before God. (shrink)

In this article, I investigate Either/Or’s generic affinity with the Bildungsroman. I demonstrate that it both imitates the topological structure of this genre and that it is likewise composed of a number of formation narratives and tropes that mirror the Bildungsroman. This is documented by following the development of an often-overlooked textual figure at the conclusion of the second part of Either/Or and through a reading of “The Seducer’s Diary” as a demonic Bildungsroman with maieutic implications. Finally, I examine the (...) relationship between the Bildungsroman and the Entwicklungsroman [novel of development] with particular attention to Kierkegaard’s late authorship. (shrink)

This article revisits the existing accounts of the early Czech Kierkegaard reception. It argues that Kierkegaard has had a greater reception than previously assumed and that one must take into account the cultural and historical contexts. Two major points are made: first, the earliest Kierkegaard reception was closely related to the Czech national political struggles and Kierkegaard was used as a political argument supporting the need for a Czech national reformed Church. Second, we provide evidence for a surprising politicized Catholic (...) reception of Kierkegaard: Kierkegaard’s critique of the Danish Lutheran Church was appropriated to attack Protestantism and support the Roman Catholic Church. (shrink)

This paper seeks to consider the similarities between Kierkegaard’s life stages and Lacan’s orders to demonstrate that we can understand each description in a structurally similar way to the other. Accordingly, a reading of Kierkegaard is developed that uses his life stages to describe a metapsychology, and a reading of Lacan is developed that shows how his orders can be conceived of progressively. All this leads to a further analysis of the different ways in which each stage relates to repetition (...) and a culmination in which the achievement of faith in Kierkegaard is thought together with the analytic cure in Lacan. (shrink)

It can be unnerving to read and teach Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling in a world plagued by religious violence. The book’s praise of Abraham as the “father of faith” precisely for his willingness to kill his son Isaac, combined with its suggestion that through faith one could “suspend” ethics, seems to provide a defense and even an endorsement of religiously motivated violence. In order to see why this is a misreading of the text, we will need to go beyond arguments (...) based on the book’s pseudonymous or symbolic nature. Only by considering in detail what Fear and Trembling says about Abraham’s faith can we see that, far from endorsing religious violence, the book provides an insightful contrast between true Abrahamic faith and the orientation of hatred, bigotry, ideological blindness behind today’s religious violence. (shrink)

Near the end of Practice in Christianity, Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Anti-Climacus denies that progress occurs within history. We are not getting better every day, in every way. According to Anti-Climacus, we are the same as we have always been. This essay sets Anti-Climacus’s denial of progress in its historical context, arguing that he develops a counter-philosophy of history which combats the prevailing Hegelianism of his age. The essay also draws connections between Anti-Climacus’s philosophy of history and the themes of imitation and (...) contemporaneity, showing how a denial of history’s progress enables contemporary humans to interact with the same world Christ faced. (shrink)

There are several reasons to explore the role theater played in the life of Søren Kierkegaard and in the inspiration for his works. There are probably more reasons to analyze the role Kierkegaard played for theater, both as a source of inspiration and as a thinker reflecting on different facets of drama, performance, and acting. In the present study I focus on the diversity and complexity of Kierkegaard’s views on theater to elaborate on the possible connections and types of influence (...) he exercised on stage artists and theorists, shaping our contemporary theater theories. Approaches include literature, philosophy, theology, staging, acting, audience, and the history of theater, both in Kierkegaard’s times and later. (shrink)

In this paper we wish to analyze how Kierkegaard understood the art of writing novels, that is, as a way to express and develop the life-view of the author. We would like to argue that this notion, presented for the first time in From the Papers of One Still Living, was put into practice in the short novel Repetition, in which Kierkegaard used the biblical story of Job to explain the development of selfhood through the existential category of repetition. According (...) to Kierkegaard, true repetition—which is the central category of the life-view he is trying to convey—helps the individual “recollect” the past correctly so he or she can reconcile with the present and grow into the future. (shrink)

This article provides an introduction to Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s “On the Principle of the Beginning of History” from 1843. The Danish poet, playwright and critic attended Hegel’s lectures in Berlin in 1824 and returned to Copenhagen a convinced Hegelian. He spent the next two decades pursuing a campaign to spread the word about Hegel’s philosophy in the Kingdom of Denmark. His little-known article on history draws substantially on Hegel’s Lectures on the Philosophy of History, which had been published by Heiberg’s (...) acquaintance Eduard Gans in 1837 as a part of the complete works edition of Hegel’s writings. Kierkegaard makes Heiberg’s article the object of criticism in The Concept of Anxiety and a draft of Prefaces. In the former he claims that Heiberg’s occupation with the beginning of world history trivializes the issue of sin. In the latter he charges Heiberg with plagiarism. The present article introduces Heiberg’s article and gives an account of Kierkegaard’s criticism. (shrink)

This article provides an English translation of Johan Ludvig Heiberg’s “On the Principle of the Beginning of History,” which was published in Heiberg’s journal the Intelligensblade in 1843. This is the first translation of this article into any language. A general introduction to this work is provided in the article that follows “Heiberg’s Article on History and Kierkegaard’s Critique.”.

In this paper, I argue that the debate in the environmental humanities about the reconceptualization of the human being as one vs. many in light of the Anthropocene, resembles the very structure of Kierkegaard’s notion of the public as a compound object composed of individuals. Further, I argue that the public provides not only a model for understanding the ontological makeup of the Anthropos but also serves as an early version of it. Hence, the public plays a role in the (...) very emergence of the Anthropocene itself. (shrink)

The concept of the corrective is among Kierkegaard’s pivotal categories of self-interpretation. Situated mainly in his journals, it is used by Kierkegaard for the purpose of specifying his task as a religious author. The overall goal of the present article is systematically to develop the concept and its relation to and relevance for Kierkegaard’s entire oeuvre. In doing so, it will contextualize the term and its use by invoking related concepts, such as the martyr, the fool in Christ or the (...) reformer, in order to shed new light on the corrective’s meaning and function/s. In particular, four motives for the usage of the „corrective“ will be distinguished; they help to identify those elements and parts of Kierkegaard’s authorship which are obviously supposed to function as a corrective to „the established order.“ The identification of these parts allows for making sense of and for critically evaluating Kierkegaard’s viewpoints, in particular those which appear to be one-sided and/or exaggerated. After all, a corrective is meant to do its job in the service of an existing order, not as its opposition or enemy. Hence, according to Kierkegaard, the task of a corrective is deeply dialectical, both affirmative and critical at the same time. And yet, considering the latter, the historical and cultural context is paramount and as such must not be overlooked; for otherwise a corrective is erroneously taken as an absolute norm—a mistake, which fatally repeats the very flaw that it is supposed to correct. (shrink)

The subject of this two-part article is the bearing of Søren Kierkegaard’s writings, and of their reception, upon the development of Religionswissenschaft or the comparative study of religion. This first part opens by taking account of Kierkegaard’s own awareness of, and relationship to, “non-Christian” religions, including his late reading of Schopenhauer; then considers Kierkegaard in juxtaposition with his contemporary F. Max Müller, the Sanskritist and foundational pioneer of comparative religion, and the two men’s contrasting relations to F.W.J. Schelling; and finally (...) examines the interest taken in Kierkegaard by William James, Max Weber, and Gerardus van der Leeuw as early twentieth-century contributors through three different disciplines to the study of comparative religion. (shrink)