Continental Philosophy

Kierkegaard – The Individual

Primary Sources:

  • Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, “How Johannes Climacus Became an Author”, in Bretall, A Kierkegaard Anthology (KA), pp. 193-194
  • Kierkegaard, The Point of View for my Work as an Author, in KA, pp. 324-335
  • Kierkegaard, The Present Age, “The Individual and ‘The Public’”, in KA, pp. 260-269

Optional Sources:

  • Kierkegaard, The Concept of Irony, Part II, pp. 263-264, 270-271, 274-276, 278-281, 336-342 (Handout)
  • Kierkegaard, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, “An Edifying Divertissement”, in KA, pp. 231-252

Background:
From the Routledge Online Encyclopedia:

Kierkegaard held that the philosophy of his time, largely owing to the influence of Hegelian idealism, tended to misconstrue the relation of thought to reality, wrongly assimilating the second to the first; in doing so, moreover, it reflected an age in which habits of abstract reflection and passive response had blinded people to their true concerns as self-determining agents ultimately accountable for their own characters and destinies. He sought to counter such trends, exploring different approaches to life with a view to opening his reader’s eyes both to where they themselves stood and to possibilities of opting for radical change. He implied that decisions on the latter score lay beyond the scope of general rules, each being essentially a problem for the individual alone [this concern with individuality is the topic of the primary reading].

The primary sources shed light on why Kierkegaard believed he should write. This is tied to his concern with individuality. The optional reading sheds further light on these things. The sections from The Concept of Irony talk about how irony, when done properly, separates the individual from the crowd (or “the public”). The “Edifying Divertissement” from the Concluding Unscientific Postscript is an amusing (at least to philosophers, maybe not to you) look at how difficult religion really is – a thought noted by “Climacus” in “How Johannes Climacus Became an Author”.

Questions:

  • Why does Johannes Climacus become an author? What unique skill does he claim to have?
  • Why does Kierkegaard employ indirect communication (that is, using pseudonyms claiming to be other people) in his writing?
  • What is “the public” and how is it aversive to the individual?

 

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