Name der Zeitschrift: Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook Jahrgang: 2013 Heft: 1 Seiten: 25-48.

Though there are significant points of overlap between Michelle Kosch's reading of Fear and Trembling and my own, this paper focuses primarily on a significant difference: the legitimacy or otherwise of looking to paradigmatic exemplars of faith in order to understand faith. I argue that Kosch's reading threatens to underplay the importance of exemplarity in Kierkegaard's thought, and that there is good reason to resist her use of Philosophical Fragments as the key to interpreting the 'hidden message' of Fear and (...) Trembling. Key to both claims is the Concluding Unscientific Postscript. I also briefly sketch an alternative reading of the 'hidden message', one in which Kierkegaard's Christian commitments play a notably different role. (shrink)

Johannes de Silentio, the pseudonymous author of Fear and Trembling, purports to be an individual who admires faith but cannot attain to its unearthly standards. The discontinuity between Kierkegaard, who self-identified as a religious author, and de Silentio, who approaches Abraham in self-doubt, is apparent—and as a result, some have argued for an utter dissociation between these two authors. I argue that such dissociation undermines the potency of the work, especially with regard to the perspective on faith (...) presented therein. The significance of de Silentio’s perspective becomes clear when set against the backdrop of Kierkegaard’s view of the relationship between anxiety and faith; in this light, de Silentio turns out to represent an early stage of the individual’s religious development, and Kierkegaard turns out to have recently surpassed this stage before writing the work. (shrink)

In Fear and Trembling, Johannes de Silentio, the pseudonymous author, uses images drawn from biological life as metaphors to illustrate the life of faith. Silentio begins in the preface by equating the life of faith with a biological lifetime. He then traces this lifetime in detail, beginning with childhood in the "Exordium" and concluding with marriage and parenthood in "Problema III". The process of biological development from child to adult parallels the development of the self from spiritual (...) childhood to mature faith. Silentio uses this parallelism to present his own account of the nature of the individual, and to critique the very different account which he finds in Hegel, the church, and his age. (shrink)

El presente trabajo ofrece una lectura de la obra de Kierkegaard Temor y temblor en la que, por medio de los ejemplos de filosofía que en ella se contraponen, se pone de manifiesto cómo la reivindicación de la singularidad constituye el centro de gravedad del texto. Este contenido central de la obra debe entenderse juntamente con la dialéctica de palabra y silencio que formalmente la determina. A partir del reconocimiento de la centralidad de la voz frente a la imposibilidad de (...) la visión, se muestra cómo el pseudónimo Johannes de silentio, en su encuentro con la figura de Abraham, acalla toda especulación sobre la fe del patriarca al tiempo que da la palabra a la filosofía para que esta pueda decir lo que comporta la paradoja de la fe, a saber, la singularidad del individuo, cuyo sentido es ético, si bien descansa sobre una transcendencia que remite a lo religioso. (shrink)

The explicit topic of Fear and Trembling's third Problema (the longest single section, accounting for a third of the book's total length), the theme of Abraham's silence stands not far in the background in every other section, and its importance is flagged by the pseudonym—Johannes de silentio—under which Kierkegaard had the book published. Here I aim to defend an interpretation of the meaning of the third Problema's central claim—that Abraham cannot explain himself, 'cannot speak'—and to argue on its (...) basis for an interpretation of the work as a whole. (shrink)

This paper concerns Kierkegaard's notion of a teleological suspension of the ethical, which is presented by his pseudonym Johannes de Silentio in Fear and Trembling in connection with the biblical narrative of Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac. Against prevailing readings, I argue that Abraham's suspension of the ethical does not consist in his violating the ethical in order to satisfy a higher normative requirement. Rather, it consists in his preparedness to violate an overriding ethical norm, even where he does (...) not believe that there is some competing requirement that such a violation will satisfy - indeed, even where he believes that he has no reason to commit the violation and conclusive reason not to. Abraham's faith, as expressed in the teleological suspension, consists not in his willingness to obey God or his recognition that God's authority overrides that of the ethical; it consists in his trustful confidence that what seems certain - that he will have committed a monstrous wrong - will not obtain, a confidence that is best understood as a practical orientation toward the world rather than a propositional attitude such as a belief. I argue that this way of interpreting the teleological suspension makes the sections in which that phenomenon is discussed cohere better with the text's earlier sections than standard readings, and shows Kierkegaard's conception of faith to be more radical and more interesting than is commonly supposed. (shrink)

This chapter focuses on Soren Kierkegaard's use of pseudonyms. Some of the names he used include Johannes Climacus, Johannes de silentio, and Vigilius Haufniensus. The chapter evaluates the rationale and significance of using pseudonyms, suggesting that Kierkegaard used different names because of the varied genres of his works and in order to communicate or send specific message to a particular group in society.

This paper considers whether a divine-command theory of moral obligation could justify morally horrible acts, partly by examining Kierkegaard’s writings. It argues that only the commands of a God who is essentially good could be morally justified, and thus no defensible version of a DCT could actually justify horrible acts. In Works of Love Kierkegaard defends such a DCT, and thus is committed to the claim that any actual commands of God must be aimed at the good. This is consistent (...) with the claim that if we knew that a command that is alleged to be from God is directed at what is bad, the command must not be authentic. The issue raised by Fear and Trembling, where Kierkegaard’s pseudonym Johannes de Silentio considers the “binding of Isaac” story, thus raises crucial epistemic issues, which cannot be settled without considering how one might come to know that a purported revelation from God is authentic, as well as how one might come to believe that some particular moral belief is wrong. The paper defends the view that if one knew that a revelation from God was authentic, then one could be justified in holding a moral view on some particular issue, such as veganism, that clashes with the dominant views of one’s contemporaries. (shrink)

It has often been noted that liberal democracies are facing a serious political crisis. A common reaction to this situation is to call for more comprehensive or more effective liberal democratic education. This volume discusses some of the most important challenges to and critiques of the paradigm of liberal democratic education. In doing so, it offers novel insights into how liberal democratic education can be amended, extended or qualified to address the special challenges of the current political moment.

In this paper, I examine Johannes de Silentio’s presentation of the faith of Abraham, deriving therefrom a new way of conceiving his notion of faith as a paradoxical co-inhabiting of both the aesthetic and the ethical stages, rather than as a rejection, synthesis, or overcoming of them. Relying largely upon Silentio’s account of Abraham’s faith as anxious but not doubting, I argue that the interpretations of Fear and Trembling by Alastair Hannay and Mark C. Taylor fail to (...) account for some essential aspects of Silentio’s depiction. I conclude that faith, as it is described in Fear and Trembling, cannot be philosophically understood as it is not an object for thought but an existential perspective one lives. (shrink)

This article looks at “faith-in” and what Jonathan Kvanvig calls the “belittler objection” by comparing Hegel’s and Kierkegaard’s interpretations of Abram (later known as Abraham). I first argue that Hegel’s treatment of Abram in Spirit of Christianity and its Fate is an objection to faith-in. Building on this with additional Hegelian texts, I argue that Hegel’s objection employs his social command account of morality. I then turn to Johannes de Silentio’s treatments of Abraham in Fear and Trembling and (...) Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love to argue that Kierkegaard defends faith-in as part of a moderate divine command account of moral knowledge. Finally, this article suggests that the belittler objection is ultimately an objection to faith-in as a divine command source of moral knowledge or obligation rather than social command. (shrink)

In the Mengzi there is a hypothetical situation relating how the ancient sage-king Shun 舜 would respond if his father had committed murder. This has recently become a source of debate among Chinese philosophers. Here we will apply arguments made by Johannes de silentio (Kierkegaard's pseudonym) about the “teleological suspension of the ethical” related to the action of the biblical Abraham, and link them up to alternative interpretations of the actions of Shun. This challenges the current and traditional (...) interpretations of his actions, suggesting how this new approach can overcome ethical quandaries related to the Mengzian account of Shun's behavior. (shrink)

Most readings of Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling take its account of the Abraham and Isaac story to imply fairly obviously that duty towards God is absolutely distinct from, and therefore capable of superseding, duty towards neighbor or son. This paper will argue, however, that the Akedah, or ‘binding’ of Isaac, as Kierkegaard’s pseudonym, Johannes de Silentio, depicts it, binds Abraham to Isaac in a revitalized neighbor relation that is not at all subordinate, in any simple way, to Abraham’s (...) God-relation. The two relations are defined by an intimate mutual tension, a dynamic of passionate inwardness that responds to the immediate demands of the neighbor as fully as the ethics that Levinas notoriously accuses Kierkegaard of having ignored. It is also the dynamic of time consciousness, which for Levinas is fundamentally ethical. I show that Kierkegaardian faith can be viewed as the dynamic of time-consciousness transformed by passionate inwardness into one’s God-relation—that is, converted into a certain religious mode of life. The ethics corresponding to this—an ethics of neighbor love superseding the ‘social morality’ that Silentio, following Hegel, calls the ‘ethical’—would then be the same dynamic of time-consciousness transformed by passionate inwardness into one’s neighbor-relation. The key to the argument is seeing the need to substitute for the spatial dichotomy ‘interior/exterior,’ which results in so much trouble when comparing Levinas and Kierkegaard, the temporal contraries ‘giving up’ and ‘getting back.’. (shrink)

One of the most distinctive features of Fear and Trembling is Kierkegaard’s use of narrative variations in order to isolate, develop, and highlight the relevant features of his principal theme, the story of Abraham and Isaac, especially Abraham’s final test of faith. The book begins with a preface and ends with an epilogue; immediately within these, Kierkegaard has his pseudonym, Johannes de Silentio, provide such variations in the “Attunement” or Stemning, just following the Preface, and in Problema III, (...) just before the Epilogue. What is the purpose of these narrative variations? How are they intended to prepare the reader to understand Abraham? How, in short, do they clarify the nature and difficulty of faith? I argue, on the basis of the account of "mood" given in Concept of Anxiety, that the variations of the Attunement function to modulate the "mood" of the work by converting a fixed narrative into a possibility field, thereby giving the work a mood of anguish or anxiety rather than a detached or scholarly mood, while the variations of Problema III function to callapse this mood into interested admiration. I conclude with some remarks about what this suggests for a reader that wishes to "go further" than Johannes de Silentio. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:CONRAD'S REPLY TO KIERKEGAARD by Jerry S. Clegg Varied answers to a fixed question have often guided interpretations of Conrad's novella, Heart ofDarkness. Who, that question has been, was Conrad's model for the enigmatic colonial official he calls Kurtz? Hannah Arendt has speculated that it was Carl Peters, an early explorer of east Africa.1 Norman Sherry has picked Arthur Hodister, a Belgian officer, as his candidate.2 Ian Watt has (...) likewise suggested historical figures: Henry M. Stanley and King Leopold of Belgium.3 Since all these men had a reputation for cruelty, those thinking that Conrad had them in mind when describing Kurtz have stressed the political message of his story; for them it is basically an indictment of colonialism. Stephen Reid has argued for a mythic model. Kurtz, he holds, was meant to be seen as one of the man-gods of Frazer's Golden Bough—a primitive king who is obliged to maintain his political position by engaging in certain bestial rites.4 Kenneth Bruffee has recendy cast Kurtz as Conrad's version of Byron's Childe Harold, arguing that the eventualjudgment on him by the character Marlow represents the effort of a squire-narrator to free himself from the pernicious influence of his knight-hero.5 For Bruffee Heart of Darkness is the prototype of a genre oftwentieth-century literature thatrejects the values ofaristocratic romance in favor of democratic norms. There may be truth in all these associations of Kurtz with known colonizers, mythical kings, and fictional knights, but they share a pair of deficiencies. They do not clarify the argument of Heart ofDarkness and so do not dojustice to its copious philosophical content. They also 280 Jerrys. Clegg281 fail to note those features ofKurtz that identify his model most precisely. The prototype of Conrad's famous character is biblical. He is a modern version of Abraham, and the work most intimately related to Heart of Darkness is Kierkegaard's panegyric on Abraham: Fear and Trembling. Conrad's story is, in fact, an addendum to Fear and Trembling written from the point of view of a poet-narrator—Marlow—who has accepted some, but not all, of the tenets of Kierkegaard's own poet-narrator, Johannes de Silentio. It is Marlow's quarrel with de Silentio that explains the structure of Heart ofDarkness, that constitutes its deepest message, and that tells the reader who the model for Kurtz was. An appreciation of that quarrel also helps clarify other matters. It makes plain, for example, the symbolism of light and dark that Conrad uses as an accompaniment to his argument.6 Heart of Darkness is, unarguably, a meditation on several subjects. It is about the Belgian Congo under the administration of King Leopold. It is also about European colonialism in general. It may be about other matters as well. Its primary subject, however, is the relationship of the religious to the ethical and the aesthetic. Since for Conrad the ethical and the aesthetic were allied, this subject may be best cast as the relationship ofreligion to art. It is introduced at the very start ofthe novella. Conrad's primary narrator there offers a theme for his seafaring friend, Marlow, to meditate on aloud: the great English knights-errant of the sea who, like "jewels flashing in the night of time," have born the torch of civilization into the mystery of an unknown earth.7 As this theme is announced, what was a mournful gloom that had hung over London becomes a lurid glare under the stars, and Marlow begins to talk of these, and still other, kinds of light and their relationship to the dark. The primary narrator has already identified what the dark stands for: time. Marlow does not challenge that equation. He only asks who, and with the aid of what kind of light, effectively combats "the night of time." During his meditation he considers four answers to his question, three of which are of primary importance. Certain "redeeming facts," illustrated by the restraint shown by hungry cannibals, quietly dazzle with reassurance, and so what mightbe called the person ofethical conduct— when stripped bare of pretense and the opaque "cloak of time... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 63.2 (2002) 303-321 [Access article in PDF] "The Peak on Which Abraham Stands": The Pregnant Moment of Søren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling Lasse Horne Kjaeldgaard When Søren Kierkegaard in the 1840s began his one-man crusade against the predominant philosophy of his time and place—the right Hegelianism that was en vogue among his contemporaries in Copenhagen—he chose his weapons with great circumspection. The indirect (...) form of communication, which he later advocated in more direct terms in his "Point of View," 1 was not only a maieutic means that helped the reader conceive of the latent and strictly private messages of the texts; it was also a strategy for Kierkegaard's undercover assaults on the Hegelian turn of the Geistesleben around him. By interweaving many of the Hegelian platitudes and self-confident pronouncements that circulated in the intellectual life of the day into the pseudonymous writings, Kierkegaard contested them with parody rather than argumentation. This is the local background against which these texts are structured and to which they are addressed in multiple and very subtle ways. That also goes for that of the pseudonymous writings which has become the best known but which may also be regarded as the most private and most secretive of them all, Fear and Trembling, published pseudonymously in 1843.Secrecy, silence, and unspeakable messages are abundantly thematized in Fear and Trembling, as one could expect from the name of the narrator, Johannes de Silentio. Silentio is a prominent member of the choir of pseudonymous figures Kierkegaard invented to communicate indirectly with his audience and in [End Page 303] the name of which he published his most celebrated works. The silence that Silentio speaks of is that of Abraham of the Old Testament, who was commanded by God to sacrifice his only son on Mount Moriah. Although Genesis 22 includes fragments of the dialogue between Abraham and Isaac on their way to the mountain, Silentio insists that Abraham remained silent on the essential issue: the command he acts upon. The unmediated message Abraham had received from God could not be conveyed, and he was therefore barred from communication and bereft of his community as he journeyed to the Mountain. Yet Silentio's discourse upon this silence in Fear and Trembling has given impetus to innumerable pages of commentary. The questions and answers he poses in his reflections upon Abraham's ordeal have called for critical attention and controversy since the time of its publication. His obsession with the biblical narrative certainly seems to have been passed on to many readers of Fear and Trembling, which, a recent commentator has remarked, "continues to haunt us like no other of [Kierkegaard's] writings." 2 So far, it would seem, then, that Kierkegaard was right when he predicted, in an undated journal entry, that "Fear and Trembling will be enough to immortalise my name." It has indeed been "read and translated into foreign languages," as he foresaw it would. 3Even so, what has passed unnoticed in its long history of reception is the significance of the titles that the manuscript text bore before it came to be called Fear and Trembling. On the title page the definitive appellation is placed together with two alternatives with less suggestion of pathos: "Movements and Postures" (Bevægelser og Stillinger) and "Between-each-other" (Mellemhver-andre). 4 Not much can be discerned from these unpeculiar phrases in isolation. However, tracing their history and significance through Kierkegaard's writings and beyond, will make it clear that Fear and Trembling was also dispatched to the narrow Hegelian community in Copenhagen for the purpose of questioning their literary and visual aesthetics and philosophy of history. Into the guerrilla warfare against them Fear and Trembling introduces a weapon of such sophistication that it has remained undetected so far: the power of the "pregnant moment." My aim here will be to demonstrate the way in which Fear and Trembling appropriates a principle of selection intended for the... (shrink)

In Fear and Trembling, Søren Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous character, Johannes de Silentio, highlights the spiritual danger inherent in the Christian life of enjoying finite goods without giving into the temptation to idolize or become too dependent for our happiness on them. In light of this danger, de Silentio suggests that the life of faith depends on a special kind of courage—“the courage of faith.” Here, I offer an analysis of the courage of faith, underscoring its importance for the (...) Christian life, and I explore the interdependence of courage, faith, and a third virtue—humility. (shrink)

This study shows that, for Kierkegaard, the crisis of faith plays an essential role in the life of faith. To demonstrate this, it compares pseudonym Johannes de silentio’s portrayals of religious crisis in Fear and Trembling with similar sketches in Strengthening in the Inner Being, an edifying discourse published on the same day as Fear and Trembling. Kierkegaard agrees with de silentio that the life of faith is tethered to struggle, but unlike his pseudonym, who is baffled (...) by the source of Abraham’s bold trust, Kierkegaard is more confident about identifying that which gives him strength: an inner, divine affirmation. (shrink)

Stay! That is to say, either stay with your decision or stay your hand. Demeure: either remain or delay. Morari or moriri: either life or death. The alternation is also a hyphenation, a connection-disconnection, as with that of Judaeo-Christianity and the ethicoreligious. How are these hyphenations construed in Kierkegaard's divergence from Kant and Hegel and in the responses of Derrida and Levinas to Johannes de silentio's story of what happened and did not happen on Mount Moriah? Perfect duties (...) and imperfect duties fall under the responsibility of absolute duty. If the ethical is externally related to natural life, the life that is internal to the ethical is due to another externality, that of responsibility to the absolute other - or God, if you like. Another alternation. Another hyphenation? Or a dash? And would it be a dash that separates justice from love? And is love ever separate from self-love or from narcissisim? What sort of narcissism is exemplifed in Kierkegaard's search for salvation? Meanwhile Abraham waits, and with him or against him but without demur, so do Isaac, the ram, and a host of hostages, guests, and asylum-seekers, one by one. (shrink)

I consider in this essay three possible interpretations of the infinitely rich story of Abraham and Isaac found in Genesis 22. Against the background of what I call "the traditional reading," I compare the views of William Blake, Johannes de Silentio, and Søren Kierkegaard. Blake's poetry and painting suggest a striking alternative to our usual understanding of the story, but they finally require too radical a departure from the Biblical text. The pseudonym de Silentio's views on obedience (...) to God, presented in Fear and Trembling, are even more problematic, however. They are at odds with Kierkegaard's powerful account of love of neighbor, related under his own name in Works of Love, for instance. The God who is Love would not literally require murderous intent toward a neighbor, I conclude, but that same God might issue an "ironic" command designed to lift us out of an abominable ritual. (shrink)

In the Mengzi there is a hypothetical situation relating how the ancient sage-king Shun would respond if his father had committed murder. This has recently become a source of debate among Chinese philosophers. Here we will apply arguments made by Johannes de silentio about the “teleological suspension of the ethical” related to the action of the biblical Abraham, and link them up to alternative interpretations of the actions of Shun. This challenges the current and traditional interpretations of his (...) actions, suggesting how this new approach can overcome ethical quandaries related to the Mengzian account of Shun’s behavior. (shrink)

Assumindo que o “tornar-se cristão” é o eixo que sustenta toda a produção literária de Søren Kierkegaard, o escopo deste ensaio é tentar delinear o conceito de paixão apresentado em Temor e Tremor como uma condição necessária para a efetivação dos movimentos dialéticos que possibilitam o desenvolvimento da fé. Efetivamente, é através do pseudônimo Johannes de Silentio que Kierkegaard apresenta sua ode à fé. Neste sentido, é sobre o esteio da narrativa apresentada em Temor e Tremor acerca da (...) fé demonstrada por Abraão (quando Deus solicitou-lhe a vida de Isaac em sacrifício) que destacaremos a importância que o mencionado pseudônimo atribui à paixão como fundamento que precede e, substancialmente, compõe a fé última: aquela que só emerge ante ao absurdo, mas que, uma vez conquistada, assoma como possibilidade para a fuga do desespero da existência e para a construção de sentido para a vida humana. (shrink)

The mysterious phrase, ‘the eternal validity of the self,’ is clearly quite important in Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous works. A reader of those works will see that becoming aware of your eternal validity is a prerequisite for becoming both Judge William’s ‘ethical man’ and Johannes de Silentio’s ‘knight of faith,’ but the same reader is likely to be unsure just what it means to become aware of yourself in your eternal validity. In this paper, I discuss and critique various accounts (...) of the concept of the eternal validity of the self. Then, I offer an account of that notion which proceeds from careful attention to Judge William’s use of the phrase in Either/or. Finally, I connect my account with some of Kierkegaard’s writings beyond Either/or. (shrink)

There is a long history of interpreting Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling as setting forth an irrationalist position on the relationship of faith to ethics–a position that declares faith actually opposed to the demands of ethics. One question has emerged at the forefront of the debate over this interpretation: is the ethics to which Johannes de Silentio opposes faith Kantian or Hegelian? I argue that the Kant/Hegel debate is irrelevant for determining whether Kierkegaard is an ethical irrationalist. To make (...) the case for my thesis, I will take a step back and give a general reading of Fear and Trembling. (shrink)

This paper considers how Kierkegaard self-reflexively portrays the tension between the boundary limit of discursive reason and mythic imagination in his classic analysis of Abrahamic faith. Following some reflections on the nature and philosophical implications of that tension, I examine its salient delineation in the Prelude of Fear and Trembling. Through four non-canonical renderings of the biblical Aqedah myth featured in the Prelude, Kierkegaard depicts the limits of ethical reasoning in the drama of Johannes de Silentio’s struggle to (...) figure-forth Abraham’s “movements” in ethically intelligible terms. I conclude that, as dramatized by Kierkegaard, the tension between mythemic figuration and discursively articulated critical reasoning sets in relief one of the formative aporiai of modern Western culture, namely the conflictive interplay of vision and discourse. (shrink)

Om Søren Kierkegaards værk "Philosophiske smuler". Lise Søelund skriver til Kierkegaard-entusiaster med det formål, at guide læsere igennem værket På omslaget: Filosofi Søren Kierkegaard bruger også pseudonymerne: Anti-Climacus, Constantin Constantinus, Nicolaus Notabene, Johannes Climacus, Johannes de Silentio og Vigilius Haufniensis.

This book is an analysis of Kierkegaard's account of the self from a unique perspective, that of a character introduced by one of Kierkegaard's pseudonymous authors, Johannes de silentio. This character is seen once in a brief vignette in Fear and Trembling, but Hough argues that this character is a necessary lens for looking across Kierkegaard's vast authorship, both the pseudonymous works as well as the works that Kierkegaard himself signed. This character sketch, often overlooked in Kierkegaard scholarship, (...) is crucial to understanding what Kierkegaard calls the life of faith, and, therefore, the nature of a fully realized human self. (shrink)

This newly translated Fear and Trembling, a founding document of modern philosophy and existentialism, could not be more apt for these perilous times. First published in 1843 under the pseudonym "Johannes de silentio" (John of Silence), Søren Kierkegaard's richly resonant Fear and Trembling has for generations stood as a pivotal text in the history of moral philosophy, inspiring such artistic and philosophical luminaries as Edvard Munch, W. H. Auden, Walter Benjamin, and existentialist Jean-Paul Sartre. Retelling the biblical story (...) of the binding of Isaac, Kierkegaard expounds on the ordeal of Abraham, who was commanded to sacrifice his son in an exceptional test of faith. Disgusted at the self-certainty of his own age, Kierkegaard investigates the paradox underlying Abraham's decision to allow his duty to God to take precedence over his duties to his family. Now, in a new era of immense uncertainty and dislocation, renowned Kierkegaard scholar Bruce H. Kirmmse, in his accessible translation and engaging introduction, eloquently brings this classic work to a new generation of readers, demonstrating Kierkegaard's enduring power to illuminate the terrible wonder of faith. (shrink)

The infamous and controversial work that made a lasting impression on both modern Protestant theology and existentialist philosophers such as Sartre and Camus Writing under the pseudonym of "Johannes de silentio," Kierkegaard expounds his personal view of religion through a discussion of the scene in Genesis in which Abraham prepares to sacrifice his son Isaac at God's command. Believing Abraham's unreserved obedience to be the essential leap of faith needed to make a full commitment to his religion, Kierkegaard (...) himself made great sacrifices in order to dedicate his life entirely to his philosophy and to God. The conviction shown in this religious polemic—that a man can have an exceptional mission in life—informed all Kierkegaard's later writings. His "teleological suspension of the ethical" challenged the contemporary views of Hegel's universal moral system, and was also hugely influential for both protestant theology and the existentialist movement. Alastair Hannay's introduction evaluates Kierkegaard's philosophy and the ways in which it conflicted with more accepted contemporary views. This edition also includes detailed notes to complement this groundbreaking analysis of religion, and a new chronology. For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators. (shrink)

James Bogen misinterprets what Kierkegaard (or more accurately, Johannes de Silentio) meant by the ethical in Fear and Trembling (see Inquiry, 5 [1962], pp. 305?17). Kierkegaard did not intend to depict morality as a system of duties where moral duties derive from the particular position(s) one holds in society. Kierkegaard thought that moral duties were based on universal principles that were divine commands. Although Kierkegaard thought that it was necessary for an action to be moral that it be (...) done in accord with such universal principles, he did not think that this was sufficient. In order to be a moral action, the action must be done not only in accord with certain universal principles but in a certain way. Kierkegaard notes the appropriate way by saying the agent must reveal himself in his action. Thus revelation by the agent and acting in accordance with certain principles are jointly sufficient and singly necessary conditions for an action to be moral. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Reading Kierkegaard I: Fear and Trembling by Paul MartensDerek HostetterReading Kierkegaard I: Fear and Trembling Paul Martens EUGENE, OR: CASCADE BOOKS, 2017. 130 pp. $18.00The very first line of Reading Kierkegaard I: Fear and Trembling warns that "reading Søren Kierkegaard is a task that requires a relatively high level of intellectual investment" (ix). Yet the difficult task Paul Martens sets for himself, in keeping with the goal of (...) the Cascade Companions series, is to provide a short introduction to Kierkegaard's thought for a nonspecialist readership. In this first volume, the primary text in focus is Fear and Trembling (FT), with a second volume to focus on Works of Love. More specifically, the threefold purpose of this volume is "(1) to illuminate the internal logic of the text in a manner that renders the text more accessible; (2) to highlight the links between FT and Kierkegaard's broader context in a way that helps one make sense of some of its more opaque sections; and (3) to attend to the theological themes that permeate and drive the text" (xi). [End Page 205]Martens helpfully follows the structure provided by FT, explicating each "chapter" in turn and highlighting the ways it relates to the others as well as to the argument as a whole. This approach is particularly helpful for the long and difficult Problem III "chapter" in FT, which Martens frames as an attempt by Kierkegaard's pseudonymous author Johannes de Silentio to perform the text's argument by demonstrating "that the whole investigation—any investigation, even an unlimited poetic investigation of characters and concepts—only leads to one conspicuous conclusion: Abraham is unintelligible" (54).Attention to the links between FT and Kierkegaard's broader context is also helpful for unifying the seemingly disparate arguments in FT. In Martens's reading of this context, FT is to be understood against the broad backdrop of Kierkegaard's criticisms of nineteenth-century Danish Christendom and the particular backdrop of the Hegelianism that de Silentio finds within it. The overall task of FT is then "to raise the price of faith" (71).Martens clearly attends to the text's theological themes with his repeated juxtaposition between "faith" as de Silentio sees it in the story of Abraham and "the ethical" as de Silentio sees it in nineteenth-century Denmark. Many theological themes are also highlighted and then brought into the reader's context in the discussion questions that follow each chapter.In addition to the discussion questions, Martens provides an appendix, which includes a timeline of Kierkegaard's first authorship, a glossary of important terms that may be unfamiliar, and a list of suggested readings for further study. The glossary will be a particularly helpful tool for those less familiar with Kierkegaard. However, there are also several terms missing that are both significant enough and unclear enough to warrant inclusion. One thinks here of a figure like Socrates and concepts like the knight of faith and the knight of infinite resignation.Similarly, another feature of the book that is both a strength and a weakness is its commitment to the text of FT rather than the scholarship surrounding the text. This is a strength because it keeps the book short and accessible for nonspecialists. It is also a weakness, however, because the reader interested in further study is not clearly pointed toward competing interpretations, despite the fact that some lines are ripe for a brief footnote providing such a reference—"Not all agree with me on this" (76).Overall, the discussion questions and appendix, its short length and overall readability, and its commitment to the text make Reading Kierkegaard I: Fear and Trembling a significant pedagogical contribution to ethics and Kierkegaard studies as an entry point for nonspecialists. [End Page 206]Derek HostetterUniversity of DaytonCopyright © 2018 Society of Christian Ethics... (shrink)

This article interrogates the concepts of faith, the ethical, and tragedy in Fear and Trembling by examining Johannes De Silentio’s allusions to heroic characters. I argue that these heroes are emblematic of faith or tragedy through their orientation to a promise in their respective mythic narratives. Abraham’s faith in the covenant with God commits him to the reconcilability of virtue and the good life, while the tragic heroes’ commitments to the ethical reveal their inability to transcend the (tragic) (...) presumption that virtue and the good life are ultimately incommensurable. I conclude by sketching a politics corresponding to De Silentio’s conception of tragedy. (shrink)