Kierkegaard's writings are interspersed with remarkable stories of love, commonly understood as a literary device that illustrates the problematic nature of aesthetic and ethical forms of life, and the contrasting desirability of the life of faith. Sharon Krishek argues that for Kierkegaard the connection between love and faith is far from being merely illustrative. Rather, love and faith have a common structure, and are involved with one another in a way that makes it impossible to love well without faith. Remarkably, (...) this applies to romantic love no less than to neighbourly love. Krishek's original and compelling interpretation of the Works of Love in the light of Kierkegaard's famous analysis of the paradoxicality of faith in Fear and Trembling shows that preferential love, and in particular romantic love, plays a much more important and positive role in his thinking than has usually been assumed. (shrink)

Abstract In his discourses on ‘the lily of the field and the bird of the air,’ Kierkegaard presents faith as the best possible response to our precarious and uncertain condition, and as the ideal way to cope with the insecurities and concerns that his readers will recognize as common features of human existence. Reading these discourses together, we are introduced to the portrait of a potential believer who, like the ‘divinely appointed teachers’—the lily and the bird—succeeds in leading a life (...) that is full of care, but free of worry. Such a portrait, we claim, echoes Kierkegaard’s portrait of the knight of faith in Fear and Trembling . In this essay we suggest that faith, as characterized in the ‘lily and bird’ discourses, is a kind of existential trust that would allow us to overcome worry, while remaining wholeheartedly engaged in the finite realm of our cares and concerns. We claim that Kierkegaard’s goal in these discourses is not to belittle our earthly cares, but to invite us to develop a modified attitude toward all that we are susceptible to worry about. Content Type Journal Article Category Article Pages 1-19 DOI 10.1007/s11153-011-9322-5 Authors Sharon Krishek, Department of Philosophy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel Rick Anthony Furtak, Department of Philosophy, Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047. (shrink)

"Romantic love is a defining phenomenon in human existence, and an object of heightened interest for literature, art, popular culture, and psychology. But what is romantic love and why is it typically experienced as so significant to our existence? Using central ideas from the philosophy of S2ren Kierkegaard as well as engaging with contemporary discussions in the philosophy of love, this book explores the nature of romantic love and philosophically substantiates its meaningfulness to an individual's life. It does so by (...) developing a connection between love and selfhood, here explained in terms of one's distinct individuality. To be a self, it is claimed, is to possess a 'name,' that is, an individual essence. Further, the book argues, it is when we love that we regard people by their names; we respond to who they are. Accordingly, the idea anchoring the book is that love is a correspondence between essences: if Jane loves Edward, she responds to him being 'who he is,' by virtue of her being 'who she is.' The conception of being thus correspondent has important implications as to the moral and spiritual value of romantic love. Relying on Kierkegaard's analysis of the self, of faith, and of love - even if sometimes in a way that departs from Kierkegaard's explicit position - the book explores these implications. By doing this, it construes romantic love as a desirable phenomenon, emotionally, morally, and spiritually". (shrink)

The aim of this paper is to throw light on Kierkegaard’s neglected distinction between love and its works, and by doing so to resolve the ambivalence in his position with regard to preferential love in Works of Love. In this text Kierkegaard seems to fail to reconcile his insistence on neighbourly love’s demand for equality and self-denial, with his wish to affirm the centrality of preferential love to human existence. My claim is that neighbourly love and preferential love are two (...) distinct works of love that share the double structure of faith. This paradoxical structure, presented and discussed by Kierkegaard in Fear and Trembling, allows the two loves to be realized together, without requiring any compromise regarding their respective demands. (shrink)

In his major work on love, Works of Love, Kierkegaard clearly and robustly affirms the moral superiority of neighbourly love, and approves preferential love on one condition: that it serve as an instance of neighbourly love. But can an essentially preferential love be an instance of the essentially non-preferential neighbourly love? John Lippitt seems to think it can. In his paper “Kierkegaard and the problem of special relationships: Ferreira, Krishek, and the ‘God filter”’ he defends Kierkegaard’s position in Works of (...) Love against my criticism (as presented in my book Kierkegaard on Faith and Love); specifically, against my claim that in using Kierkegaard’s view of neighbourly love as a framework for understanding preferential love, one fails to account for the latter’s distinctive character. Lippitt claims that I misinterpret Kierkegaard’s position and, using what he calls ‘the God filter’, he attempts to show how adhering to Kierkegaard’s view of neighbourly love allows one to sustain the distinctiveness (and value) of preferential love. In what follows I will defend my interpretation of Kierkegaard’s position and explain why I take the view he presents in Works of Love to be problematic. Furthermore, in my aforementioned book I offer a Kierkegaardian model of love that does precisely what Lippitt seeks his ‘God filter’ model to do: namely, preserve the distinctiveness of preferential love while allowing its possible coexistence with neighbourly love. Thus, against the background of Lippitt’s criticism I will demonstrate this model again, in hope of clarifying the advantages this view offers. (shrink)

Kierkegaard's well‐known analysis of the self, in the first part of his work The Sickness unto Death (1849), presents, even if only in passing, the somewhat enigmatic notion of “divine name.” In this article I offer an interpretation of Kierkegaard's analysis and suggest that the notion of a divine name be understood as expressing the conception of human beings as possessing (what I call) “individual essence.” I further demonstrate that it is this quality that makes a human being a self, (...) namely, the individual that he or she is. In addition to defending the exegetical and substantial plausibility of this conception, I show how it opens the way to affirming the feasibility of universal love. (shrink)

The duty to love one's neighbor as oneself is at the core of Kierkegaard's Works of Love . In this book, Kierkegaard unfolds the meaning of neighborly love and claims that it is the only valid form of true love. He contrasts between neighborly love and preferential love (which includes romantic love and friendship) and criticizes the latter for being nothing but a form of selfishness. However, in some contexts, Kierkegaard seems to acknowledge the significance of preferential love relationships, and (...) does not disallow them. Therefore, his understanding of preferential love appears to be confused and inconsistent. My essay discusses the tension in Kierkegaard's position regarding preferential love, and by presenting recent readings of Works of Love , it asks whether this tension is resolvable and offers a suggestion for a possible solution. (shrink)

The Sickness unto Death is commonly regarded as one of Kierkegaard's most important works – but also as one of his most difficult texts to understand. It is a meditation on Christian existentialist themes including sin, despair, religious faith and its redemptive power, and the relation and difference between physical and spiritual death. This volume of new essays guides readers through the philosophical and theological significance of the work, while clarifying the complicated ideas that Kierkegaard develops. Some of the essays (...) focus closely on particular themes, others attempt to elucidate the text as a whole, and yet others examine it in relation to other philosophical views. Bringing together these diverse approaches, the volume offers a comprehensive understanding of this pivotal work. It will be of interest to those studying Kierkegaard as well as existentialism, religious philosophy, and moral psychology. (shrink)

It is widely agreed that the focus of love is ‘the beloved herself’—but what does this actually mean? Implicit in J. David Velleman’s view of love is the intriguing suggestion that to have ‘the beloved herself’ as the focus of love is to respond to her essence. However, Velleman understands the beloved’s essence to amount to the universal quality of personhood, with the result that the beloved’s particularity becomes marginalized in his account. I therefore suggest an alternative. Based on Søren (...) Kierkegaard’s analysis of the self, I demonstrate that the beloved being ‘herself’ is determined by a quality—selfhood—that is both essential and particular to her. To have as the focus of love ‘the beloved herself,’ I claim, is to respond to this quality, which is to respond to her individual essence. (shrink)