Concluding Unscientific Postscript

Introduction

With more than 600 pages, the Postscript is far longer than the slim Philosophical Fragments (1844) to which it is formally an appendix; both are ascribed to the pseudonym Johannes Climacus, with Kierkegaard named as publisher. Published in February 1846, it distinguishes objective thinking, which seeks results, from subjective thinking, in which the thinker’s own existence is at stake. In this sense truth is an objective uncertainty held fast with the most passionate inwardness – which is also Kierkegaard’s description of faith. Climacus calls himself a humorist who is not a Christian. In an appendix Kierkegaard publicly acknowledges the pseudonymous books for the first time, asking readers to cite them under the pseudonyms.

Connections

Criticizes

• Science of Logic1812 · Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

Criticized in

• A Reckoning with Kierkegaard1968 · K. E. Løgstrup

More works by Søren Kierkegaard

• 1843Either/Or
• 1843Fear and Trembling
• 1844The Concept of Anxiety