Kierkegaard's Writings Research Articles

Kierkegaard and Natural Law

AbstractAbstract: This essay addresses the relationship between Kierkegaard and natural law afresh. First, I exposit Thomas's natural law doctrine in the Summa, particularly its theological emphasis on the God‐human relationship, which often goes underappreciated. Then, I argue that natural law doctrine downstream from Thomas suffers from an acute vulnerability: its natural aspect is emphasised so much that the divine‐human relationship at the heart of natural law falls away. Next, I argue Problema II of Fear and Trembling deals with this same issue and theologically criticises ethics’ secularising tendency. I then argue that Fear and Trembling and other writings of Kierkegaard's corpus claim a universal law similar to Thomas's doctrine: each individual must relate absolutely to God. Thereby, Kierkegaard transforms natural law from a general norm prone to secularisation into a gift and theological task for everyone, grounding the possibility of ethics in the divine‐human relationship. For regular dogmatic purposes, I suggest this shifts natural law to the doctrines of justification and sanctification.

Reclaiming Icons for a Post-Pandemic Christian Pedagogy

This article posits a way forward for church-based Christian Education following the Covid-19 pandemic lockdowns. Drawing on the writings of Kierkegaard, it is proposed that both a “leap of faith” and an “interruption” of linear learning might establish a more authentic way of relating to children's spirituality. Including examples from practice, the icon is visited as a pedagogical tool that inspires possibility and wrestles with fixed ideas to inspire new meanings for children today.

Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation: A Soteriological Account of Forgiveness in the Religious Writings of Kierkegaard and Its Meaning for Immanent Ethics

Forgiveness as the Way to Salvation: A Soteriological Account of Forgiveness in the Religious Writings of Kierkegaard and Its Meaning for Immanent Ethics

Two Ships Passing in the Night? A Historical Analysis of Nietzsche’s Inauspicious ‘Non-Engagement’ with the Writings of Kierkegaard with Respect to Truth

Abstract Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) and Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) were two seminal 19th century thinkers, each of whom presented dramatically different theological and philosophical conceptions of Christianity and truth. Prior historical investigations into the relationship between these two individuals have problematised what was once a truism in Nietzsche (and Kierkegaard) studies whereby the younger Nietzsche was considered to have nil knowledge of the older Kierkegaard insofar as the former did not read the latter’s writings. Focusing on the topic of truth, this study canvasses the historical literature on Nietzsche’s reception of Kierkegaard to evidence the various ways in which Nietzsche indeed may be said to have ‘known’ Kierkegaard, or at least to have become conversant with Kierkegaard’s thought at some level of awareness. However, despite evidence of Nietzsche having encountered the thought of Kierkegaard in general and Kierkegaard’s theory of truth in particular, this study will contend that such evidence for Nietzsche’s knowledge of Kierkegaard generates as many questions as answers for the historical inquirer. Of note, as Nietzsche inauspiciously did not, in unequivocal writing, address Kierkegaard, this study concludes by illustrating a central challenge confronting historians and historiographers intent on tracking these thinkers’ influence on theological truth claims without recourse to a primary literature. That is, without recourse to a literature in which Nietzsche autonomously responded to Kierkegaard regarding the topic of truth.

Using the Medicine of Grace: Kierkegaard Reads Hugh of Saint Victor on Sanctification

In this article, I argue that Søren Kierkegaard's prefatory editorial remark in Practice in Christianity about resorting to and making use of grace has a medieval inheritance, which stems from his reading of Hugh of St Victor (1096–1142). Rather than grounding Kierkegaard's remark exclusively within the Lutheran tradition, I suggest that the medieval inheritance of the relationship between operative and cooperative grace contributed to a theological development in Kierkegaard's view of sanctification. Moreover, Kierkegaard's journal entries prior to the publication of Practice in Christianity provide the connection to Hugh of St Victor's theology of sanctification. I briefly survey the development of Kierkegaard's view of grace and examine Kierkegaard's commentary on Hugh of St Victor's Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then, I survey Hugh's distinction between restorative and cooperative grace against the wider backdrop of his theology of sanctification to highlight a structural affinity with Kierkegaard's writings. My aim is to identify and illuminate this unexplored Catholic source of Kierkegaard's distinction between grace and works that indicates a non-competitive relationship between divine and human agency.

Kierkegaard on Divine Grace, Human Agency, and Love

Kierkegaard's writings contain seemingly divergent pictures of the relation of God's grace and human works. The differences are evident in the ways that he portrays the connection of human beings’ natural loving capacities to God's gracious enabling of love. What is the relation of human affiliative dispositions, such as attachment to family and friends, to the more extraordinary forms of Christian love, such as loving strangers, enemies, and God? Kierkegaard sometimes stressed the continuity of natural loves and God's grace and sometimes their discontinuity because in different contexts he was pursuing different edifying purposes. On the one hand, he emphasized the continuity of the two when he was attempting to stimulate the appropriate yearning that is a precondition for welcoming God's grace. On the other hand, elsewhere he stressed the difference of the natural loves and Christian love in order to foster an appreciation for the uniqueness and gratuity of God's self-giving.

Existential Theodicy as a Response to the Limits of Classic Theodicy on the Basis of Kierkegaard’s Religious Writings

AbstractThe aim of this article is to reconstruct an existential vision of theodicy from the religious writings of Kierkegaard – one which could constitute a response to the limits of classic theodicy. As distinct from classic theodicy, which has an immanent and theoretical dimension, Kierkegaard’s considerations take a transcendent and practical form. Good and evil are not here objective and moral markers of a human’s life, but first and foremost determine the subjective and spiritual relationship of a human being with God. With this transcendent and spiritual account of good and evil it becomes possible to revalue their immanent vision and to show that what people consider good and evil in temporality constitutes not ultimate reality, but the possibility for spiritual reality – one in which what is ultimately good and evil for a human being is only decided in relation to God. Kierkegaard’s transcendent account of evil on the one hand provides a clear explanation of the problem of evil and suffering in the world, and on the other hand points out to the relativity of all immanent attempts to answer this question.

Kierkegaard and the Legitimacy of the Comic: Understanding the Relevance of Irony, Humor, and the Comic for Ethics and Religion by Will Williams

Reviewed by: Kierkegaard and the Legitimacy of the Comic: Understanding the Relevance of Irony, Humor, and the Comic for Ethics and Religion by Will Williams Ronald F. Marshall Kierkegaard and the Legitimacy of the Comic: Understanding the Relevance of Irony, Humor, and the Comic for Ethics and Religion. By Will Williams. New York: Lexington Books, 2018. xxi + 201 pp. H. V. Martin's classic, Kierkegaard the Melancholy Dane (1950), made it sound like Kierkegaard did not have a funny bone. Professor Williams of Le Tourneau University has now laid that to rest by showing that "it is an error to read Kierkegaard as solely listing a series of direct propositions, ignoring his irony entirely" (132). Williams adds that "the comic is not just illustrative of his edifying project, but [End Page 85] essential to it" (94). That is because "the comic can both prepare one for becoming a Christian and remind one of how a Christian is supposed to live" (185). Williams, however, does not jettison Kierkegaard's seriousness in the name of lightheartedness, because Kierkegaard is not about "the uproariously despairing play of an untamed irony" (132). Without that check Kierkegaard would be linked up with Jeremy Sisto as Jesus playing tag with his disciples in the movie, Jesus (1999). Williams first elucidates the concept of the comic in Kierkegaard's book, Concluding Unscientific Postscript, which he believes is Kierkegaard's best treatment of the subject. He then shows how this analysis is confirmed in three later works—Prefaces, Upbuildoing Discourses in Various Spirits, and The Corsair Affair. In the last part Williams shows how deconstructivist and theological appropriations of Kierkegaard's humor neglect his serious side (122, 177). Williams gives a Kierkegaardian definition of humor as a polemical incongruity that subverts a prominent norm (6, 7, 16, 34). He thinks this definition shows that Christianity is "the most humorous view of life in world-history"—in keeping with Kierkegaard's judgment, that Christianity is "the least conformed to the expectations and understandings of the world" (55n147). Even though Williams finds this definition useful, he concedes that it is a construct and that in the end Kierkegaard questioned all neat, composite definitions of humor (178). I wish Williams would have tested his key definition of Kierkegaardian humor by applying it to examples from Kierkegaard's writings—including 250 of them in Thomas Oden's The Humor of Kierkegaard: An Anthology (2004). One example has a wise man telling an unbeliever that praying for help in a storm at sea is no time, at long last, to start praying because "if heaven discovers that you are on board, the ship will capsize" (Oden, 134). This remark is in keeping with the definition's standards. They are also illustrated when Kierkegaard has a man say what he liked about Sunday's sermon—"Well, there were some really good things in it—for example, the Lord's Prayer" (Journals, ed, Hongs §2:1760). Another comment sees New Testament Christianity being related to the state church the way a most sorrowful melody is "played with the beat of dance music." [End Page 86] (Journals, §§3:3623). These examples prove Kierkegaard's point that "the wisdom of the secular mind is always relativism…. If I forget this relativity, then the comical appears. And no one will care about my acting out of fear and trembling before God. It is absolutely impossible, absolutely, for a Christian not to make himself laughable. For what is more laudable than the absolute in this world, which is a world of relativity" (Journals §1:492). Williams shows that Kierkegaard's humor undergirds the fact that he was not a "Nietzschean critic of traditional Christianity, nor a proud aesthete whose fine art is to be appreciated without understanding, nor a perverse self-torturer whose writings are primarily to be plumbed for their prurient biographical details, nor a Deconstructionist Mad Hatter who makes witty banter while important matters go unexamined, but a perceptive Christian who is concerned that the traditional faith is being mishandled and distorted in the name of fashionable philosophy and cultural complacency" (182). Ronald F. Marshall First Lutheran Church of West Seattle Seattle, Washington Copyright © 2022 Johns Hopkins...

Kierkegaard’s reading of reality

This study presents an interpretive understanding of Kierkegaard's perception of reality with respect to the authentic life of the individual living in the context of his own quest for self-realization in relation to eternity. In an effort to make an authentic statement about life, Kierkegaard oscillates in his reflections between a subjective and objective world, real and ideal, current and potential, possible and necessary, in order to grasp the nature of the existence of the individual in time and space. We present here such an interpretive view in which, rather than the alethic or epistemic modality traditionally applied to the hermeneutics of Kierkegaard's writings, an approach is offered according to which reality as an enigmatic entity emerges in time and space and man grasps it in his consciousness, so as to reflect it in terms, imaginary concepts and then communicated it to his surroundings. The horizontal aspect of all human contexts of philosophy, language, ethics and culture Kierkegaard intersects with its only vertical aspect and that is the absolute paradox – God in time.

The Tale of Two Seducers: Existential Entrapment in the Works of Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky

Abstract The present study poses a simple question, namely, what are the specific forces that might at times hinder rather than advance individual moral development? To answer this inquiry, I will investigate the writings of Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky, examining the two aesthetic protagonists found in their works—Johannes the Seducer and Dmitri Karamazov. I will utilise the Kierkegaardian framework of the three existential stages to illustrate that it is an over-reliance on gratification, coupled with an instrumental approach towards beings that not only prevents these two aesthetes from behaving morally, but also from even recognising the ethical perspective as a viable existential position.

Eliade et l’exemplarité de Kierkegaard dans Gaudeamus

"Eliade and the Exemplarity of Kierkegaard in Gaudeamus. Eliade's relationship with Kierkegaard began in his youth and has been the subject of serious studies. Those studies analyzed and interpreted passages, which were few in number, in which an explicit reference to the Danish thinker appeared in the scholarly production of the Romanian writer in both his Memoirs and Journals. Kierkegaard's underground influence on Eliade's literary work remained to be studied. In our article, we were interested in the strongly autobiographical novel, written in 1928, Gaudeamus, in which alongside an explicit reference to the Danish thinker, were important elements (in terms of structure, characters, thematic, symbolism, etc.) of the aesthetic writings of Kierkegaard that Eliade had discovered shortly before, notably The Seducer’s Diary and In vino veritas. Our interest focused on the reiteration in both the Kierkegaardian and Eliadian works of the myths of Pygmalion and the Eternal Feminine. It thus appeared to us that it was not only, at times of great existential choices, as he himself asserts, that the example of Kierkegaard was decisive, for Eliade, but also on the literary level. Keywords: Mircea Eliade, Gaudeamus, Kierkegaard, The Seducer’s Diary, Pygmalion "

Kierkegaard: Existence and Identity in a Post-Secular World by Alastair Hannay

Reviewed by: Kierkegaard: Existence and Identity in a Post-Secular World by Alastair Hannay Ronald F. Marshall Kierkegaard: Existence and Identity in a Post-Secular World. By Alastair Hannay. London and New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2020. ii + 116 pp. Alastair Hannay, professor emeritus at the University of Oslo and acclaimed translator and expositor of Søren Kierkegaard’s writings, has written a monograph to show how Kierkegaard’s conservative “polemic and missionary purpose . . . to enlighten contemporaries on the fact that they are not the Christians they comfortably assume they are” (86) has not been wasted in our secular age. Leaning on analyses of Herbert Marcuse (1898–1979) and Jürgen Habermas (b. 1929), Hannay sees our time as surprisingly ripe for Kierkegaard. He uniquely has the insights to liberate humanity “from the destructive impact of [our] oppressive social order,” and his teachings on inwardness can break “the entrenched divisiveness of traditional political loyalties” (79). Hannay points out that the Danish word for inwardness can mean “sincere, or heartfelt and warm, but also, profound” (80). [End Page 342] Pursuing the profound sense, Hannay sees how “sin is endemic to existence” and needs renewed appreciation when “the externals of religion” are being ruled “by politics, instead of politics being ruled by the hidden inwardness of singled-out politicians” (88–89). This is important in our time when “a personally felt void [is] now becoming familiar for increasing numbers of people [as well as] the imperfections highlighted by Christian ideals” (92). At the heart of this Kierkegaardian inwardness is not the rank subjectivism of self-made truths, but simple “self-abnegation” (89). This comes from the New Testament’s call to die to the world and hate yourself (74). It is not about self-denigration, but rather about being social outcasts, along with the biblical, outcast God who declared that “my king-ship is not of this world” (John 18:36) (33), and about “being an alien, being in exile” (91). We must not succumb to the temptation to “grab hold of finiteness to support” ourselves (18). Here Hannay could have added Kierkegaard’s words that God wants us to make “a clean break with this world,” and gradually have us “wean ourselves away” from it (Journals, ed. Hongs, §1399) (57). “Misery” helps bring this about (52). Hannay is worried that in this more receptive time for Kierkegaard, he will be watered down by his new popularity (1, 7). To ensure that this does not happen, we need to insist upon this profound sense of inwardness rooted in human imperfection. We cannot forget Kierkegaard’s critique of crowds, and the danger that collectives have for deluding us. “For Kierkegaard,” Hannay rightly argues, “the first-person plural pronoun is a cover under which we keep our individuality at bay” (2). In the stream of life we may go with the flow or, with Kierkegaard, go against it—“upstream as an outsider” (3). The “definitive rest” that we long for deep down cannot be found in this “world that seems so ill-equipped to adopt it” (77). So we must be outcasts, following the example of this Danish “social saboteur” (25). Prayer can help us establish this odd way of life, whereby we are weaned from the finite. For in prayer we are changed, being pushed to conform to God’s will (50). Hannay also thinks that the solitude of a home altar helps—“a room for ourselves at the back” of our residence (21, 27, 83). But Kierkegaard thinks a polemical coterie [End Page 343] would be better—something Hannay does not consider, but fits well with his notion of “singled-out individual selves” (2, 89). Like a “company of criminals . . . the Christian congregation,” Kierkegaard writes, “is a society consisting of qualitative individuals and that the intimacy of the society is . . . conditioned by [its] polemical stance against the great human society” (Journals §4175). If Hannay had made use of these words, his case would have been stronger for establishing this odd way of life underscored by his preferred social saboteur. Ronald F. Marshall First Lutheran Church of West Seattle Seattle, Washington Copyright © 2021 Johns Hopkins University Press and Lutheran Quarterly, Inc

La crítica de Kierkegaard a la fe cristiana del"Todo es posible" en Temor y temblor y El concepto de la angustia


 
 
 El pensamiento de Søren Kierkegaard ha sido vastamente trabajado, en torno al concepto de fe y, a su vez, aparece que es una fe ceñida a la interpretación bíblica del cristianismo. Por ello, es frecuente encontrar a Kierkegaard como un pensador cristiano-religioso que, lejos de tomar distancia crítica de la fe, la sigue hasta sus últimas consecuencias y justificación. Sin embargo, por medio de la conexión argumentativa entre dos escritos de Kierkegaard: Temor y temblor y El concepto de la angustia se articularán dos tesis que exponen críticas a la fe. En Temor y temblor, el cuestionamiento aparece cuando la religión cristiana parece desafiar al ser humano con la idea de que “todo es posible”, al transformar la muerte de la ética; es decir, la muerte de Isaac a manos de Abraham, en un sacrificio de fe. En El concepto de la angustia, la crítica sobreviene nuevamente cuando la premisa de la fe, según la cual para Dios todo es posible, quiere vivir en la inocencia de las categorías éticas del bien y del mal. En conclusión, la crítica de Kierkegaard se dirige a la fe del “todo es posible” y tiene como base presuposiciones éticas.
 
 

The “Lonely Game”: Baseball, Kierkegaard, and the Spiritual Life

This essay aims to show that baseball's time-honored emphases on physical and spiritual discipline follow from its metaphysical imaginary. In turn, it will reason that Christian life and thought are capable of illuminating baseball—and vice versa. The argument will proceed as follows: First, both Christianity and baseball frame their worlds in terms of emanation (exitus) and return (reditus): “players” leave home and aim to return home; second, though players belong to a team or community (ecclesia), the task of returning home is ultimately a solitary one; it has to be done by the individual player, even if the team, too, benefits from the individual's undertaking; and third, the spiritual or attitudinal development of the individual is thus crucial: players have to attend to how they approach the “game,” particularly in terms of their internal comportment. This last point will receive special attention: it will be reasoned that Søren Kierkegaard's spiritual writings, tendered for the existential “upbuilding” (Opbyggelse) of “the single individual” (den Enkelte), might likewise offer upbuilding insights for the individuals who play baseball—a sport that John Updike once called “an essentially lonely game.”

The Freedom to Become a Christian: A Kierkegaardian Account of Human Transformation in Relationship with God by Andrew B. Torrance

Reviewed by: The Freedom to Become a Christian: A Kierkegaardian Account of Human Transformation in Relationship with God by Andrew B. Torrance Walter Wietzke The Freedom to Become a Christian: A Kierkegaardian Account of Human Transformation in Relationship with God. By Andrew B. Torrance. London: Bloomsbury Press, 2016. 217 pp. In his book The Point of View for My Work as an Author, Kierkegaard wrote that the central issue of his authorship had been to explain what it meant for a person to become a Christian. This remark has captivated readers ever since, and numerous arguments have been offered for how Kierkegaard understands Christian religious transformation (i.e., conversion), including religious, social, and psychological explanations. It is also the subject of Torrance's book. Torrance argues that, for Kierkegaard, God's assistance is essential for Christian conversion. The book has five chapters. Chapter one is an exposition of the moral and psychological concepts in Kierkegaard's writings relevant to religious conversion. Chapter two elucidates the theme ofxy [End Page 230] reconciliation in Kierkegaard's writings, describing the various parables and metaphors Kierkegaard uses to explain how God brings about salvation for humans. Chapters three and four explain the human side of this process—specifically, the kinds of beliefs and values that facilitate the reception of divine assistance. Chapter five concludes with more discussion of how humans relate to God, as well as some critical analysis of scholarship that minimizes how Kierkegaard understands God's role in conversion. In general, Torrance's analysis is illuminating and innovative. This book is not written for the beginning student of Kierkegaard, but it will be very helpful to those looking for an analytical account of a Christian conversion experience. It also distinguishes itself with a deeper incorporation of Kierkegaard's religious writings into a discussion that usually focuses on his philosophical works. Yet, on this note, an abiding concern of mine has to do with the fact that Kierkegaard's main philosophical positions conflict with some of the dogmatic Christian views expressed in the religious writings, a fact that raises some questions about Torrance's main thesis. For example, Concluding Unscientific Postscript (arguably Kierkegaard's most important philosophical work) treats Christian dogma as a hypothetical issue: if the claims of God's intervention in human history through the person of Jesus Christ are true, then it must be true that Christian doctrine is absurd, paradoxical, and offensive to reason. Christianity is incommensurate with a naturalistic explanation of human nature, and several important claims follow. Crucially, in this view human beings lack the epistemic ability to know whether God really exists, whether Jesus was truly the Son of God, or even if the individual aspiring to become a Christian ever succeeds. Belief in these matters is a matter of faith, not knowledge. If they were objects of our knowledge their status would shift to that of objective, historical facts, and this would invalidate one of the central arguments of the Postscript. That is, once religious beliefs become objective facts, they can no longer support the subjective conditions necessary for religious faith. It is the uncertainty of religious dogma that generates the passion that is the defining characteristic of religious faith. To be sure, Torrance acknowledges all these points in Kierkegaard's work, but [End Page 231] granting them requires having a more nuanced account of God's role in our religious life. The Sickness Unto Death provides an important perspective on this issue. In this work Kierkegaard explains how the concept of sin draws a line between the naturalistic, non-Christian explanations and Christian explanations of human existence. Sin attributes a human being's failure to achieve moral or religious goals to a fundamentally flawed constitution. Kierkegaard is also clear that the concept of sin strictly belongs to Christian religious faith; no secular, purely psychological explanation for how human beings are so constitutionally flawed is possible. The result is that an individual will understand her experience of moral failure differently depending on whether or not she believes in sin. Torrance provides helpful exposition of these issues, but he does not draw out their implications for the subject of conversion. As with belief in sin, once...

Trump, Kierkegaard, and a nation divided

AbstractThis article depicts the United States as a nation divided, as it suffers from two major deficiencies: in societal income equality and in individual formation of selves. It offers reflections on how Søren Kierkegaard's writings and those of Kierkegaard‐world are a resource for critiquing Donald Trump and addressing the disruption and divisiveness he and Trump‐world are bringing to America's national life. Contours of a theological ethic focusing on the formation of ethical selves are delineated and examples of practicing resurrection are given.

How to cross the rubicon without falling in: Michel Henry, Søren Kierkegaard, and new phenomenology

ABSTRACTThroughout his published work, Michel Henry expresses a deep appreciation for the writings of Kierkegaard, using them as an inspirational foundation for much of his own thought. However, Henry claims to be far more Kierkegaardian than he really is. Henry’s peers have identified several philosophical and theological deficiencies in Henry’s thought. These places of weakness also happen to be his most obvious points of departure from Kierkegaard. A Kierkegaardian confrontation with Henry demands a retrieval of the Infinite Qualitative Difference (IQD) between God and man as key to exploring the structure of the self. Kierkegaard’s texts correct Henry’s assumption that the ontological difference established in the act of creation would separate the self from God. They suggest instead that the IQD provides the necessary conditions for the truly theological self to emerge.

Søren Kierkegaard as Library User

ABSTRACT This article argues that the Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813–55) evolved as a library user over the course of his life and career. Whereas the libraries of Copenhagen were initially only collections of books for Kierkegaard (for his academic and, later, literary projects), by the end of his days, in the midst of his attack on the People's Church of Denmark, Kierkegaard began to conceive of the library (or, to be more precise, the reading rooms of the Athenæum Society) as a performative political space in which he could existentially realize the steps he had counseled in his polemics; by appearing conspicuously in the Athenæum on Sunday mornings, Kierkegaard modeled resistance against the institutionalized Christianity of Denmark. Included is a comprehensive analysis of Kierkegaard's explicit references to Copenhagen's libraries and their materials in his journals and papers, as they appear in Søren Kierkegaards Skrifter (Søren Kierkegaard's writings).

The Wound That Heals: Disability and Suffering in the Thought of Søren Kierkegaard

ABSTRACTThe author draws attention to the crucial role that suffering and disability play in the writings of Kierkegaard's “Second Authorship.” In these writings he appealed to persons with disabilities as a critique and a challenge to the bourgeois values of able-bodied society. He discussed a figure called the “useless sufferer” to argue that any person—no matter his or her capabilities or impairments—can fulfill the requirements of Christianity, the challenge of making one's suffering transparent to the love of God, and loving oneself as one is created to be.

КАТЕГОРІЯ СУБ’ЄКТИВНОСТІ У ТВОРЧОСТІ СЬОРЕНА К’ЄРКЕГОРА

This article provides basic research into the construction of the category of subjectivity in Soren Kierkegaard's writings. Throughout his writings subjectivity does not acquire a solid definition, however, it may be inferred to roughly mean a person’s individual continuous dialogue with one’s own consciousness with the purpose of learning the ultimate truth (God as an absolute within oneself). The Danish philosopher addresses the afore mentioned category to place a person into the center of philosophical thought which marks the turn to the non-classical rational philosophy of the second half of the 19th century. Testing the limits of both philosophy and literature Kierkegaard resorts to multiple authorship by splitting the narrators of his texts with the purpose of introducing several points of view of the same issue. Kierkegaard’s novel approach to explaining the way subjectivity functions within an interpersonal dimension relies heavily on the methodology developed by “the wisest man alive” – ancient Greek philosopher Socrates. Among other things, Kierkegaard incorporates the notions of irony, aporia, maieutic, and uses them as valid tools in his search for the truth.