Kierkegaard's Concept Research Articles

Sørena Kierkegaarda pojęcie lęku

In Either/Or Søren Kierkegaard introduced the concept of absolute choice, and them in Fear and Trembling he wrote a lot about the leap of faith, nevertheless neither Judge Wilhelm nor Johannes de Silentio gave the motive that could have brought a particular man to make the choice of his own self in order to have an authentic life. For this reason – as Vigilius Haufniensis – Kierkegaard wrote The Concept of Anxiety to answer the following questions: what prompts a man to choose himself? is it something that impels him “from the outside”? or maybe – some "internal" persecutory power? and what testifies to the man the possibility of making such a choice? Therefore, the purpose of this work is to analyze the Kierkegaard's concept of anxiety (in the context of his interpretation of the Fall of First Man) as the main condition and the explanation of the absolute choice.

Kierkegaard's concept of self-identity dynamics to awaken spiritual powers: Spiritual counseling perspective

Counselees who take part in spiritual counseling are usually those who are experiencing life impasses. Spiritual counseling offers intervention to reactivate the counselee's spiritual powers. This article aims to look at the possibility of using Soren Kierkegaard's thought of self-identity dynamics as a framework for spiritual counseling interventions. Kierkegaard, who is known as an existentialist philosopher, considers that human self-identity has three dimensions. First, the synthesis of two opposite poles: between the infinite and the finite, the mortal and the eternal, freedom and necessity. Second, internal relations: relations that connect oneself and one's individuality. The third is deep dependence on the transcendent. The three dimensions of human identity are in harmony with the main character of spiritual counseling. The method used to see this possibility is a literature study. The author reviews various literature related to spiritual counseling and Kierkegaard's concept of self-identity dynamics to produce a comprehensive discussion. There are ten journal articles that the author used for this research. Three main discussions of this paper are the definition of spiritual counseling, the concept of Kierkegaard's Self-identity dynamics, and the application of Kierkegaard's self-identity dynamics to spiritual counseling. The discussion concluded that Kierkegaard's thoughts on self-identity provided an adequate framework for the dynamics of spiritual counseling, especially to help counselees realize and actualize spiritual powers to build wholeness in freedom. This study will benefit spiritual counselors to deal with counselees experiencing life impasses and to broadenthe counselor's understanding in facilitating the counseling process.

Repetition as a Path to Authentic Existence in Kierkegaard’s Work

Thesis. The aim of the paper is to interpret Kierkegaard's concept of repetition as a way of creating and experiencing authentic existence in an environment that is set up to repeat this same, inauthentic content of consciousness. Concept. Repetition is associated with determinism and represents social stagnation. Repetition creates the conditions for an inauthentic existence. The article offers an interpretation of Kierkegaard's concept of repetition, which is the repetition of another and produces authentic existence. Results and conclusions. Repetition automatically produces of the same. The repetition of one's choice of oneself is a process of creating spirit and individuality, which is a fundamental principle of authentic existence. Creating an authentic personality is one of the ways to solve the current crisis in society, which is associated with an inauthentic experience of existence, abdication of responsibility and repetition of lies. Cognitive value. The postmodern society associated with the use of the media is not the cause of social disorientation. It is a means that an individual uses to repeat the same. The social environment and magic themselves are not negative, the negative is the inauthentic attitude of a person to them.

Strindberg's Representation of Anxiety in The Father: Between Naturalistic Determinism and Existential Indeterminism

Strindberg's Representation of Anxiety in <i>The Father</i>: Between Naturalistic Determinism and Existential Indeterminism

미래 불안에 대한 예측학으로서의 명리학 이해

The purpose of this study is to examine the Myonglihak as a predictive science for future anxiety through Kierkegaard's concept of anxiety. Myonglihak is a discipline that was born to reduce human anxiety about the future, and is thoroughly interested in predicting individual destiny. On the other hand, Kierkegaard, who has introduced the inner side of the existential human being as a fundamental problem of philosophy, attempts to analyze the existence of human beings through anxiety. Myonglihak tried to resolve the individual's anxiety about the future through the secularly method of Jaesung(財星, wealth) and Kwansung(官星, government service). On the other hand, Kierkegaard believed that escaping from anxiety depending on impermanent things such as wealth or government service is not ultimate, and that human being can only escape from anxiety when he establish himself as a individual in front of God. However, it is possible that overcoming anxiety through future prediction of Myeonglihak will serve as an opportunity to overcome Kierkegaard's ultimate anxiety.

Adorno leitor de Kierkegaard: ou, a estética de conteúdo como herança materialista

We intended in this paper (I) to show the elements that constitute Kierkegaard's critique of Hegel and (II) the implications of this criticism for a supposed aesthetic turn made by Adorno in his philosophy as a possibility to overcome the hegelian dialectic. The hypothesis that we will raise here is that in the criticism of Kierkegaard's conception of the aesthetic, Adorno realizes the possibility of building a notion of unrestricted rational experience that will make possible the effective exit of idealism, especially through what he will later call dialectical materialist aesthetics (materialistisch-dialektischen Ästhetik). We will try to show that when moving Kierkegaard's thought against Hegel (and vice-versa), what Adorno does, besides critically reconstructing the Hegelian idea of ​​dialectics, is to promote the implosion of the idealism present in both authors. In other words, he performs a materialist interpretation of the dialectic that brings to consciousness the mediated (necessary) character of the subject's real and concrete experience with the world, without subtracting one pole from the other, i.e., a dialectic that aims at the disintegration of the idealistic model constitutive subjectivity without eliminating subjectivity nor its opposite pole.

Abraham's Faith in Kierkegaard's Conception: An Analysis of the “Fear and Trembling” Book

The author of the article "Abraham's faith in Kierkegaard's conception: an analysis of the books 'Fear and Trembling,'" analyzes the theme of faith from the perspective of the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard. The philosopher was impressed by the adventure of the faith of Abraham who was challenged to sacrifice his son at the command of Yahweh (Gen. 22). The paper tries to find the explanations of philosophy, with reference to the acceptance of the divine challenge, by Abraham, who seems inhuman and irrational. We will analyze the expression used by Kierkagaard, who calls Abraham the "Knight of the Faith," in what sense, paradoxically, by faith did Abraham win Isaac? What is the significance of the knight of resignation, with reference to the one who refuses the act of faith, and wants to keep the temporality. We will see that from his point of view, the believer cannot accept advice, he will travel alone on this path. The logic of faith, the silence and the fear of faith are analyzed. The relationship between ethics and faith is also discussed. We will discuss the ethics that Kiergegaard refers to, as a set of moral rules shared by a human community - the moral consensus shared by a majority, which seems to be at odds with biblical faith. It also assesses the benefits of faith, in contrast to living by sight, and why Abraham became a guiding star.

'The Silent Tone of the Eternal': Søren Kierkegaard and John Climacus on Silence

'The Silent Tone of the Eternal':Søren Kierkegaard and John Climacus on Silence1 Christopher D. L. Johnson (bio) As historian Diarmaid MacCulloch has pointed out in his history of Christian silence, "every silence is different and distinctive… Silence is always contextual."2 While this is undoubtedly true, one should also add that some silences sound more alike than others. Nineteenth-century Danish philosopher and theologian Søren Aabye Kierkegaard is far removed from the world and thought of the seventh-century Abbot John Climacus or John of Sinai.3 Yet, despite the many differences in their circumstances and viewpoints, silence has a central role in the writings of both of these authors.4 Taking as a starting point their common preoccupation with silence as well as Kierkegaard's cryptic use of John Climacus' name in two of his pseudonyms, this article puts these authors into a "dialogue of silence" to determine what their silences have in common and what they can learn from each other. I argue that both authors affirm the necessity of positive silence as both the beginning and goal of religious life and a learned practice that can be distinguished from potentially harmful forms of silence, that it is linked to the nature of self and God, and leads to inner knowledge and unitive experience with God. The authors speak a common "language of silence" which is inherited from the ongoing conversation on contemplative silence in Christianity, but their respective emphases reveal two distinct accents: they differ in their advice on how to acquire silence, how closely one can approach divine silence, whether one can look to others for guidance, and the nature and role of asceticism in cultivating silence. The article does not claim to discover a secret sympathy unique to Climacus and Kierkegaard but views the authors as important representatives of Christian silence whose "dialects" of silence are both distinctive and consonant. Their distinctiveness helps to mutually illuminate their thought and their consonance can help contribute to a general understanding of what unites various forms of Christian silence into a single harmonious chord. The theme of silence is so persistent throughout Kierkegaard's corpus that it has led some to suggest that "Kierkegaard remains obsessed with notions of silence (tavshed) and quiet or stillness (stilhed) throughout his writings"5 and "the fundamental tone sounded throughout the authorship is communication of silence."6 The origins of Kierkegaard's emphasis on silence have been traced [End Page 199] to several sources, including Madame Guyon's Quietism as filtered through the writings of Fénelon,7 Gehard Tersteegen's Neo-Platonism,8 Thomas à Kempis,9 and Romantic authors like Johann Gottlieb Fichte and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe.10 It is likely that earlier Christian mystics also had direct and indirect influences on Kierkegaard but this topic has so far been left mostly unexplored. In general, Kierkegaard's earlier pseudonymous works deal with the demonic or ambiguous nature of silence and the necessity of indirect communication, while his later signed writings explore positive religious silence. A comparison of Kierkegaard's early writings on silence with early monastic authors such as Climacus would be a worthwhile endeavor but the primary focus in the present article will be on Kierkegaard's later writings on positive religious silence. There are many features of Kierkegaard's views of silence. This article will highlight four themes: 1) the various stages of silence; 2) silence as divine ground of self; 3) silence as necessary for confession; and 4) silence as receptivity. First, Kierkegaard's conception of silence is multiform. There are a number of "varieties of silence," each corresponding to a different stage in life.11 The framework of these stages is laid out in his 1845 work Stages on Life's Way.12 Kierkegaard describes three stages of life: aesthetic, ethical, and religious, each of which corresponds to its own form of silence and has its own norms (stages that also roughly correspond to the stages of Kierkegaard's own writing).13 In his early and middle works, Kierkegaard considers silence mostly as an aesthetic and ethical problem, while his later writing deals extensively with the possibility and necessity of religious silence...

Finding the Unlovable Object Lovable: Empathy and Depression in David Foster Wallace

Finding the Unlovable Object Lovable:Empathy and Depression in David Foster Wallace Mikkel Krause Frantzen (bio) The spirit of justice and truth is nothing else but a certain kind of attention, which is pure love. Simone Weil In some oft-quoted lines from his famous 1993 interview with Larry McCaffery, David Foster Wallace declares, "We all suffer alone in the real world. True empathy's impossible. But if a piece of fiction can allow us imaginatively to identify with a character's pain, we might then also more easily conceive of others identifying with their own. This is nourishing, redemptive; we become less alone inside. It might just be that simple."1 It is indeed well known that Wallace who died by suicide in 2008 after suffering from episodes of severe depression for most of his adult life, spent his career trying to work out the relation between empathy and fiction. It comes as no surprise, then, that the question of empathy in Wallace's fiction, as Aili Petterson Peeker writes, "is a recurring and recently flourishing subject across the field of Wallace studies."2 What these studies often appear to forget or neglect, however, is the connection between psychopathology and empathy in the literature of Wallace.3 In particular, Wallace's depictions of depression make it all too clear that one of the primary symptoms of depression is a total loss of empathy. Or so I argue in the first part of this article by analyzing the short story "The Depressed Person" from the collection Brief Interviews with Hideous Men (1999). In this story, the depressed female protagonist is so caught up in what Franco Berardi calls the [End Page 259] "obsessive rhythm of depression" that she has lost any sense of the other.4 This is indeed Wallace's diagnosis here (and elsewhere), but it is crucial to remember that for Wallace, a critical diagnosis is never enough in itself; literature must take the form of some kind of cure. Accordingly, his work can be perceived as a literary attempt to restore or repair the relation to the other, that is, as an attempt to carry out what he famously called "fictional CPR" in his interview with McCaffery.5 "The Depressed Person," however, offers no such CPR; it provides no remedy, no resynchronized rhythm, no recovery of the other. In the second part of the article I thus turn to the brutal story "B.I. #20 12–96: New Haven CT"—the penultimate tale in Brief Interviews with Hideous Men. It is a story about a man who tells a story about a woman he met who told him a story about a time when she was hitchhiking and got picked up by a man who turned out to be psychopath and a rapist and who could have ended up killing her. In the end, the woman saves her life by way of a radical act of empathy. As I aim to demonstrate, the empathy evinced in this story goes beyond any conventional understanding of the term. Though some readers of Wallace—and even Wallace himself—at times seem satisfied with viewing empathy, quite trivially, as the affective and imaginative operation of putting oneself in the proverbial other's shoes, the story demonstrates that it is more complicated.6 It is not "that simple" after all: empathy is not simply an operation through which you try to feel or imagine what another person feels. Thus, my take is quite different from, for example, Martha Nussbaum's conceptualization of the relation between literature and empathy.7 Instead, I claim that empathy in Wallace is much closer to the paradoxical logic of Kierkegaard's conception of love. In fact, I read "B.I. #20" as a radicalized and even perverted version of Kierkegaard's interpretation of the Good Samaritan (in Works of Love specifically), arguing that this particular story by Wallace is not about practicing a love of or an empathy for the other but about presupposing the capacity for love and empathy in the other. The conclusion I arrive at may thus seem troubling and disturbing at first: that Wallace asks his readers to consider the victim's empathy...

The Googled and Googling Analyst.

Kierkegaard's concept of leveling is applied to the dynamics of envy, particularly as they come into play among psychoanalysts doing clinical analytic work. This is illustrated in two clinical vignettes. The technocultural surround of the digital age impinges on analytic identity in ways that can evoke fantasied retreats into sameness and erasure of distinction. The "digital reality principle" is introduced as a way of conceptualizing an aspect of the hatred of thinking and certain envious responses to distinction. Charisma is considered as a possible release from sameness and the prevalent homogenization of experience. Among analysts, an internalized leveling process can sometimes function as a bulwark of homogenization.

Nonsense and Irony: Wittgenstein's Strategy of Self-Refutation and Kierkegaard's Concept of Indirect Communication

In his preface to the Tractatus Wittgenstein states that the question of nonsense has to do with drawing the limits of language. Nonsensical expressions go beyond the limits of meaningful language and reside “on the other side” of what can be said. Yet, at the end of the book he declares that his own propositions are, strictly speaking, nonsensical. The present paper aims at analyzing early Wittgenstein’s self-refuting strategy as a mode of transcending the limits of language, comparing his concept of “nonsense” (Unsinn) with Kierkegaard’s view of indirect communication and Socratic irony.

The Demonic Comedy of Thomas Bernhard

Relating the works of Austrian author Thomas Bernhard to Soren Kierkegaard's concept of despair as presented in The Sickness Unto Death , this article claims that Bernhard's body of work is to be understood as a demonic comedy. For Kierkegaard, demonic despair emerges when a person in despair clings to his or her own despair. The despairer loves to stay close to things he hates and would rather be right than be redeemed. Th is is the paradoxical and comical logic of demonic despair and also the essence of the literature of Th omas Bernhard. Th e article att empts to discuss the issue of comedy as it relates to demonic despair, in the Kierkegaardian sense just indicated—the central argument being that the structure of that form of despair is precisely a comic structure. In this way I hope to correct the prevalent conception, also among Bernhard scholars, of Bernhard as merely a misanthropic singer of darkness and death.

Kierkegaard's Concept of Faith

<i>Kierkegaard's Concept of Faith</i>

Kierkegaard's concept of faith

In this book renowned philosopher Merold Westphal unpacks the writings of nineteenth-century thinker Soren Kierkegaard on biblical, Christian faith and its relation to reason. Across five books Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, Sickness Unto Death, and Practice in Christianity and three pseudonyms, Kierkegaard sought to articulate a biblical concept of faith by approaching it from a variety of perspectives in relation to one another. Westphal offers a careful textual reading of these major discussions to present an overarching analysis of Kierkegaard s conception of the true meaning of biblical faith. Though Kierkegaard presents a complex picture of faith through his pseudonyms, Westphal argues that his perspective is a faithful and illuminating one, making claims that are important for philosophy of religion, for theology, and most of all for Christian life as it might be lived by faithful people.

Worshiping the Black Sun

Worshiping the Black Sun

Ética y Sinsentido. Kierkegaard y Wittgenstein

Aunque existen coincidencias entre las ideas de Kierkegaard y Wittgenstein con respecto a la ética, sus proyectos no son idénticos. El propósito principal de este artículo es subrayar que la concepción de Kierkegaard sobre la ética no tiene nada que ver con lo que el primer Wittgenstein entiende de ella. Mientras que en el Tractatus no es posible desarrollar una “teoría ética”, Kierkegaard nos permite discutir desde un punto de vista ético. Por lo tanto, la relación entre la comunicación indirecta y la noción de “mostrar” no representan una identidad.

Competing Philosophies in John McGahern's That They May Face the Rising Sun

This essay takes up the challenge of Joe Cleary's provocative characterisation of John McGahern's work as naturalism that retreats into pessimistic fatalism by instead considering Rising Sun as the end-point of a career-long journey fraught with Kierkegaardean implications. Kierkegaard's concept of infinite resignation in Fear and Trembling is noted in McGahern's characters Bill Evans and Johnny Murphy, but John Quinn raises ethical problems soluble only by considering the co-existent presence of precepts from Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. This Stoicism, it is argued, is Aurelian through the prism of O Criomhthain's An tOileanach, which McGahern greatly admired, so the characters are religiously Catholic and simultaneously philosophically Stoic in response to the harsh landscapes that order their lives. The inhabitants of this lakeside community lead messy spiritual lives that are Stoic and Kierkegaardean, with the Catholic Church continuing to be an important source of ritual. This eclectic but harmonious combination represents a hopeful new mode of life as play, exemplified by Jamesie, which is worth passing on. Rising Sun can thus be read as the end of a Kierkegaardean transition from infinite resignation to exulting in finitude through a vision of the absurd.

A Reading of King Lear from the Perspective of Kierkegaard's Concept of Anxiety and Three Stages of Existence

This essay interprets King Lear from the perspective of Kierkegaard’s concept of anxiety and three stages of existence. Kierkegaard evaluates Shakespeare’s genius, especially for his representation of life as it is, including its absurdities and incomprehensibilities. The audience or readers are likely to shudder at the absurdities of human life represented in King Lear. Lear’s sudden decision to divide his kingdom based on his daughters’ love for him, his misperception, and the controversial ending have especially been the focus of critics. My purpose is to show that Kierkegaard’s philosophical concepts could help understand the argumental issues and thus may enrich the meaning of the play. Before arguing the issues, I investigate Kierkegaard’s concept of anxiety as a fundamental human feeling, including its origin, its derivation, and its augmentation. Although Kierkegaard based the origin of anxiety on Adam’s fall in Genesis, his argument of anxiety is psychological rather than religious. For him, human anxiety is not an automatic byproduct of Adam’s breach of God’s prohibitory decree. Rather, it draws from Adam’s liberty to keep or breach it. His liberty engenders “a possibility” of disobedience, and the possibility simultaneously produces anxiety in him, in turn motivating him to disobey the order. From this point in the fall, all human sins and anxieties are derived and augmented. The anxiety from “possibility” especially accounts for Lear’s sin, that is, his rash decision to divide his kingdom and disown Cordelia. The spiraling interaction of anxiety and sin drives him even to the point of madness. However, Kierkegaard argues that human recognition from suffering does not help free humans from the vicious cycle, unless they have momentum when they commit to God. Kierkegaard’s three types of human existence, namely, the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious, are applied to understand King Lear in relation to Kierkegaard’s concept of anxiety. Lear, as a man dependent on immediacy in the earlier part of the play, can be classified as an aesthete. However, as he suffers, he changes inwardly and becomes ethical. Nonetheless, Lear’s repentance and recognition do not bring him justice or freedom from anxiety and suffering. In other words, Lear does not leap into what Kierkegaard calls the religious stage, where one can commit oneself to God and thereby be free from all human absurdities. Shakespeare perhaps suggests the difficulties and limits of solving absurdities within the human dimension by showing Lear’s ordeal and unfulfilled poetic justice in King Lear.

Memory and the Metaphysics of Music: Battersby's Move Away from Deleuze and Guattari

This essay seeks to further elucidate and critically assess the distinct philosophical position of Christine Battersby through examining in closer detail her critique of Deleuze and Guattari. It begins by discussing Battersby's reading of Deleuze and Guattari's materialist metaphysics, which focuses on their evocation of the ‘refrain’ in A Thousand Plateaus. Through tracing their account of the material processes of repetition within the world of sound and music, Battersby acknowledges that Deleuze and Guattari offer an enticing alternative to the ‘top-down’ Kantian metaphysics of form over matter. However, she argues, the key problem is that Deleuze and Guattari seek to ‘bypass memory’, and end up establishing a false dichotomy between memory and repetition. In consequence, Deleuze and Guattari's ‘rhizomatics’ and ‘surface becomings’ block any investigation into the long-term patterns of repetition and memory that constitute specifically sexed, embodied modes of existence. Battersby turns instead to Kierkegaard's concept of repetition, which, she claims, brings memory and repetition together, showing that ‘repetition can mark out depths as well as surfaces’. The essay goes on to reassess Battersby's critique. It suggests a possible route for defending Deleuze against Battersby's charge that he seeks to ‘bypass memory’ by pointing out the pivotal role occupied by Bergson's concept of memory within Deleuze's solo-authored work. The essay concludes, however, by arguing that Battersby's critique of Deleuze as a resource for feminist philosophy nevertheless remains valid. This is because Deleuze's reworking of Bergson's concept of ‘virtual’ memory takes us no further towards the deeply ingrained material and historical patternings of female existence that Battersby seeks to give priority in her quest to overturn the androcentrism of western metaphysics.

KIERKEGAARD'S ANTHROPOLOGY OF THE SELF: ETHICO‐RELIGIOUS AND SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF SELFHOOD

It is sometimes argued that the concept of the self is the unifying thread that ties together the rich diversity of philosophical and theological themes in Kierkegaard's works.1 In his conception of the self he provides us with a coherent and unified view of human existence. For Kierkegaard the self is not a static entity but a dynamic and unfolding reality, something I must strive to become. One is not a self but becomes a self as an ethico‐religious task to be actualized. The purpose of this paper is to outline Kierkegaard's anthropology of the self with particular emphasis on the ethical and religious dimensions of selfhood. I will first elucidate the structure and dynamic character of the self, and then will examine the dialectical development of the self in the ethical and religious stages of existence. Finally I will address the widespread criticism of Kierkegaard's conception of the self as being radically individualistic and asocial.