In this article, I probe the extent of Kierkegaard's skepticism and irrationalism by examining the nature and limits of his “objective” and “approximate” knowledge. I argue that, for Kierkegaard, certain objective knowledge of contingent being is impossible and “approximate” knowledge of the same is funded by the volitional passion of belief. But, while Kierkegaard endorses severe epistemic restrictions, he rejects wholesale skepticism, allowing for genuine “approximate” knowledge of mind-independent reality. However, I further argue that we cannot ignore his criticisms of (...) such knowledge because of its intrinsic dangers, and because epistemic limitations are crucial in developing religious selfhood before God. (shrink)

Nearly all of the scant comparative work on Søren Kierkegaard and Confucius places the two starkly at odds with each other. Kierkegaard is pictured as the paradigmatic exemplar of the Western self: a discrete rights-bearing and volitional atom who is quite alone in the world, while Confucius, by contrast, is the paradigmatic exemplar of the Eastern self: a complex and irreducibly embedded communitarian bundle of relations and rich social roles. In this article, I challenge this oppositional approach, since it is (...) both erroneous and obscures fruitful dialogue between the two on conceptually commensurate problems. I argue (1) that Kierkegaard offers a relational ontology of the self which moves in a Confucian direction, (2) that subjectivity and relational reciprocity are not fundamentally at odds in the two thinkers, (3) that both thinkers value a life of harmonious integration that entails right relation to others, and finally (4) that Confucius’ appeal to Heaven as a source of normativity allows for salutary social critique of prevailing ethical norms and practices, in a way that provides important comparative insights with Kierkegaardian theism. (shrink)

In his book Iris Murdoch: The Saint and the Artist, Peter J. Conradi suggests that “a task for critics today would seem to be to understand the indebtedness of her demonic, tormented sinners and saints and of the curious coexistence in her work of malevolence and goodness, to the dark tragi-comedies of Dostoevski.”1 In his 1986 essay “Iris Murdoch and Dostoevskii,” Conradi goes even further to argue that Fyodor Dostoevsky has been “unnoticed by commentators, a hovering or brooding presence for (...) at least two decades.”2 Both here and in his book Fyodor Dostoevsky, Conradi demonstrates “convergence” through a number of remarkable similarities: the parallels between Dostoevsky’s holy... (shrink)

The early work of Alasdair MacIntyre aims to provide resources to “fragmented” modern selves for adjudicating “incommensurable” claims of rival moral traditions and for committing to one with full allegiance. But MacIntyre seems to undermine rational choice through his thesis of Rational Particularism, namely, that there is no tradition-independent, universally acceptable rational standpoint from which to evaluate competing claims of rival traditions. In this paper I combat a prevalent argument that his Particularism thesis render the choice of tradition allegiance by (...) fragmented selves wholly arbitrary, hence committing MacIntyre to relativism about practical rationality and moral theory. This argument founders on a false analogy between the self-avowed relativist and MacIntyre’s target reader. Thus, MacIntyre can retain strong particularism without yielding to relativism. I also show how MacIntyre can consistently offer rational, historical, imaginative, and personal narrative resources to fragmented selves who seek a coherent moral tradition. (shrink)