Abstract

In his early, unfinished essay entitled Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est, Søren Kierkegaard enters into a polemic with Hegel’s interpretation of the methodic Cartesian doubt. Kierkegaard questions the philosophical absolutism of Cartesian scepticism and his methodological universalism. For the first time in Kierkegaard’s writings, the sphere of speculation is confronted with personal involvement. Kierkegaard never published this work, and did not make any direct reference to Descartes in the same form ever again. However, certain subjects and themes remained: doubt and the alias, used when writing that early essay.