Søren Kierkegaard
Each person faces their choices alone, and the anxiety of being free can only be answered by a leap into faith.
Placement
Often called the father of existentialism: the individual facing choice; anxiety as the “dizziness of freedom.”
Key ideas
- Either/Or
- Stages of existence
- Anxiety
- Leap of faith
Influence
Influenced by 3
Socrates
influenced by
Kierkegaard modelled his indirect communication and pseudonymous authorship on Socratic midwifery, and in Philosophical Fragments (1844) set Socrates the teacher against Christ. S. Kierkegaard (Johannes Climacus), Philosophiske Smuler (1844); SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Socrates › 470–399 BCE
Plato
influenced by
Kierkegaard read Plato’s dialogues for Socrates’ irony (On the Concept of Irony, 1841) and set Platonic recollection against the Christian moment (Philosophical Fragments, 1844). S. Kierkegaard, Om Begrebet Ironi (1841); Philosophiske Smuler (1844)
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Plato › 428–348 BCE
Immanuel Kant
influenced by ✓
According to Ronald M. Green, Kierkegaard’s ethics and view of sin and grace answer Kant’s Religion, a debt he rarely named (Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt, 1992). R. M. Green, Kierkegaard and Kant: The Hidden Debt (1992); I. Kant, Die Religion innerhalb der Grenzen der bloßen Vernunft (1793)
Immanuel Kant › 1724–1804
Influenced 9
Miguel de Unamuno
influenced ✓
Unamuno, who learned Danish to read Kierkegaard, drew on him in The Tragic Sense of Life (1913) for a faith that lives only together with doubt and agony. M. de Unamuno, Del sentimiento trágico de la vida (1913); J. Marías, Miguel de Unamuno (1943)
Miguel de Unamuno › 1864–1936
Karl Jaspers
influenced ✓
Jaspers took his concept of Existenz from Kierkegaard and, in Reason and Existenz (1935), presented Kierkegaard and Nietzsche as the thinkers who opened the modern question of existence. K. Jaspers, Vernunft und Existenz (1935); Philosophie (1932); SEP “Karl Jaspers”
Karl Jaspers › 1883–1969
Martin Heidegger
influenced ✓
Heidegger took up Kierkegaard’s analyses of anxiety and the moment in Being and Time (1927), noting that Kierkegaard had grasped the existentiell problem but not the existential analysis. M. Heidegger, Sein und Zeit (1927); SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”; SEP “Martin Heidegger”
Martin Heidegger › 1889–1976
Ludwig Wittgenstein
influenced ✓
Wittgenstein esteemed Kierkegaard, as Drury reported, and shared his view that Christianity is not a doctrine but a way of living (Culture and Value, remarks 1914–51; publ. 1977). L. Wittgenstein, Vermischte Bemerkungen (ed. G. H. von Wright, 1977; Engl. Culture and Value, 1980); M. O’C. Drury, “Conversations with Wittgenstein”, in R. Rhees (ed.), Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections (1981); SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”
Ludwig Wittgenstein › 1889–1951
Jean-Paul Sartre
influenced
At the UNESCO colloquium Kierkegaard vivant (1964) Sartre presented Kierkegaard as the ‘singular universal’, a subject whose existence cannot be absorbed into knowledge. J.-P. Sartre, “L’universel singulier”, in Kierkegaard vivant (1966); SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Jean-Paul Sartre › 1905–1980
Simone de Beauvoir
influenced
In The Ethics of Ambiguity (1947) Beauvoir drew on Kierkegaard’s defence of the existing individual against Hegel’s system, while holding that freedom must will the freedom of others. S. de Beauvoir, Pour une morale de l’ambiguïté (1947); SEP “Simone de Beauvoir”
Evidence: also in InPhO · InPhO
Simone de Beauvoir › 1908–1986
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Harald Høffding
influenced
After a religious crisis while reading Kierkegaard, Høffding wrote one of the first philosophical studies of him, Søren Kierkegaard as Philosopher (1892). H. Høffding, Søren Kierkegaard som Filosof (1892)
Evidence: AI draft
Harald Høffding › 1843–1931
Lev Shestov
influenced ✓
Directed to Kierkegaard by Husserl in 1928, Shestov read him as an ally against speculative reason in Kierkegaard and Existential Philosophy (1936). L. Chestov, Kierkegaard et la philosophie existentielle (1936)
Lev Shestov › 1866–1938
Watsuji Tetsurō
influenced
Watsuji followed his Nietzsche book with a study of Kierkegaard (Zēren Kierukegōru, 1915). Watsuji Tetsurō, Zēren Kierukegōru (1915); SEP “Watsuji Tetsurō”
Evidence: AI draft
Watsuji Tetsurō › 1889–1960
Criticism
Criticized by 5
Georg Brandes
criticised by
Brandes’ critical study Søren Kierkegaard (1877) admired the polemicist and psychologist but rejected, as a freethinker, the ascetic Christianity Kierkegaard demanded. G. Brandes, Søren Kierkegaard. En kritisk Fremstilling i Grundrids (1877)
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Brandes › 1842–1927
Martin Buber influenced
influenced ✓
In the same essay that criticised him (The Question to the Single One, 1936) Buber adopted Kierkegaard’s category of the Single One as the person who answers responsibly. M. Buber, Die Frage an den Einzelnen (1936); Eng. in Between Man and Man (1947); SEP “Martin Buber”
criticised by
Buber objected that Kierkegaard’s ‘Single One’ reaches God by turning away from the world and others, rather than through them (Die Frage an den Einzelnen, 1936). M. Buber, Die Frage an den Einzelnen (1936); Eng. in Between Man and Man (1947)
Evidence: AI draft
Martin Buber › 1878–1965
Theodor W. Adorno
criticised by
Adorno’s Kierkegaard: Construction of the Aesthetic (1933) read Kierkegaard’s objectless inwardness as the bourgeois intérieur, a retreat from history into a private sphere. T. W. Adorno, Kierkegaard. Konstruktion des Ästhetischen (1933); SEP “Theodor W. Adorno”
Evidence: AI draft
Theodor W. Adorno › 1903–1969
K. E. Løgstrup
criticised by
Løgstrup objected that Kierkegaard isolates the individual before God and neglects the ethical demand arising from everyday trust between people (Opgør med Kierkegaard, 1968). K. E. Løgstrup, Opgør med Kierkegaard (1968); Den etiske fordring (1956)
Evidence: AI draft
K. E. Løgstrup › 1905–1981
Albert Camus influenced
influenced ✓
In The Myth of Sisyphus (1942) Camus listed Kierkegaard, with his analysis of despair, among those who mapped the ‘absurd walls’ of existence. A. Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), “Les murs absurdes”; SEP “Albert Camus”
criticised by
Camus called Kierkegaard’s leap a ‘philosophical suicide’: instead of holding to the absurd, Kierkegaard turns it into a criterion of the other world (The Myth of Sisyphus, 1942). A. Camus, Le Mythe de Sisyphe (1942), “Le suicide philosophique”
Evidence: AI draft
Albert Camus › 1913–1960
Criticizes 4
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel influenced by
influenced by ✓
Kierkegaard’s dissertation On the Concept of Irony (1841) drew heavily on Hegel’s reading of Socratic and Romantic irony and argued in Hegelian terms, before turning against the system. S. Kierkegaard, Om Begrebet Ironi (1841); J. Stewart, Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered (2003); SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”
criticised
Kierkegaard objected that Hegel’s system forgets the existing individual: a logical system is possible, but a system of existence cannot be (Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 1846). S. Kierkegaard (Johannes Climacus), Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift (1846), Part Two; SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”
Evidence: AI draft
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel › 1770–1831
Friedrich Schlegel
criticised
In The Concept of Irony (1841) Kierkegaard criticised Schlegel’s romantic irony, exemplified by Lucinde, as an infinite negativity that dissolves ethical actuality into aesthetic play. S. Kierkegaard, Om Begrebet Ironi (1841), Part Two, on Friedrich Schlegel; SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”
Evidence: AI draft
Friedrich Schlegel › 1772–1829
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling influenced by
influenced by ✓
Kierkegaard heard Schelling’s Berlin lectures (1841–42) and took detailed notes; scholars trace in part to them his contrast between conceptual thought and actual existence. S. Kierkegaard, notes on Schelling’s Berlin lectures (1841–42); SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”
criticised
Kierkegaard, who heard Schelling’s Berlin lectures in 1841–42, was first delighted by his talk of ‘actuality’, then judged them endless nonsense and left Berlin early (letters, 1842). S. Kierkegaard, notes on Schelling’s Berlin lectures (1841–42); letters to E. Boesen, 1842; SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”
Evidence: AI draft
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling › 1775–1854
N. F. S. Grundtvig
criticised
Kierkegaard rejected Grundtvig’s ‘matchless discovery’ that the living word of the Apostles’ Creed gives faith historical certainty: no historical fact can ground faith (Concluding Unscientific Postscript, 1846). S. Kierkegaard (Johannes Climacus), Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift (1846), Part One, ch. 1 §2; SEP “Søren Kierkegaard”
Evidence: AI draft
N. F. S. Grundtvig › 1783–1872
Works
- 1843Either/Or
Aesthetic versus ethical existence – choose!
Abraham and the teleological suspension of the ethical.
Anxiety as the dizziness of freedom.
Subjectivity is truth – against the System.
Position
Against Hegel’s all-embracing system Kierkegaard defended the single individual, who must choose and cannot be absorbed into world history. “Subjectivity is truth”: what matters is not objective knowledge but how one relates to one’s own existence. He described three stages of life – the aesthetic, seeking pleasure and variety; the ethical, binding oneself to duty; and the religious, a leap of faith beyond reason, illustrated by Abraham’s readiness to sacrifice Isaac. Anxiety is the “dizziness of freedom”, despair the failure to become oneself. His pseudonymous, ironic writing was meant to force readers to decide for themselves. He is regarded as the father of existentialism.
Life & context
Kierkegaard spent almost his whole life in Copenhagen, living on his inheritance from a wealthy and deeply melancholic father. Breaking off his engagement to Regine Olsen in 1841 marked him for life and his writing. He published many books under pseudonyms, was mocked by a satirical paper, and in his last years fiercely attacked the Danish state church. He died at 42.
Further main works
- The Sickness unto Death (1849)
Appears in
- Journey ‘Hegel’s Heirs’ · Stop 2 of 10
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