In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Receiving Søren Kierkegaard: The Early Impact and Transmission of His Thought by Habib C. MalikJ. KellenbergerHabib C. Malik. Receiving Søren Kierkegaard: The Early Impact and Transmission of His Thought. Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1997. Pp. xxii + 437. Cloth, $59.95.At the end of the twentieth century no one who has any acquaintance with Western philosophical or religious thought would fail to recognize Kierkegaard’s name. This (...) was not always so. Kierkegaard wrote in his native Danish in the first half of the nineteenth century, and for decades his thinking and his name were virtually unknown outside Scandanavia. Habib C. Malik’s book contains the richly detailed story of how Kierkegaard’s thought became known in Europe and in the English-speaking world. Malik breaks down the reception of Kierkegaardian ideas into several phases: “non-reception,” the beginnings of reception, “misreception,” suppression, and serious reception. In the first phase Kierkegaard was read in Denmark, but not understood. In [End Page 637] the second phase, during the 1840s and 1850s while Kierkegaard was still alive, his writings started to become known outside Denmark in Scandanavia (and even reached North America via Scandanavian-American immigrants). In the period of “misreception,” as Malik calls it, Kierkegaard’s ideas or catch-words are appropriated but not fully understood—as with Ibsen, Malik argues. After Kierkegaard’s journals and papers began to be published in the 1870’s, there developed a new kind of interest in Kierkegaard, the “biographical-psychological approach,” initiated by Georg Brandes, in which Kierkegaard’s ideas and themes were interpreted in terms of the crucial events in Kierkegaard’s life. This approach led to the substance of Kierkegaard’s thinking being suppressed by what became a morbid interest in Kierkegaard’s personal life, such as a preoccupation with Kierkegaard’s relationship to Regine Olsen and then reading “The Diary of a Seducer” or key parts of Fear and Trembling as an expression of this event. The period of suppression reaches into the 1880s and 1890s as scholars and translators, like Christoph Schrempf, use Kierkegaard for their own ends. Schrempf, a Lutheran minister who renounces his belief, looks to Kierkegaard for support for his new stance and translates Kierkegaard into German, omitting passages that do not foster his end. Finally there is the period of serious reception, or its beginning, especially in the German-speaking world. Malik ends the story of Kierkegaard’s reception with the period following the First World War, before the development of twentieth century Existentialism.In the book’s eight chapters a vast number of minor and major cultural figures are dealt with. Some, like Hans Christian Andersen and Hans Christian Ørsted (the rector of Kierkegaard’s university and the discoverer of electromagnetism, whose approach to religion was cosmological) Kierkegaard knew and interacted with. Most, like Ibsen, Brandes, Schrempf, and Hans Peter Barford (the first editor of Kierkegaard’s extensive papers) and Albert Bärthold (who learned Danish to translate Kierkegaard into German and during the 1870’s regularly produced translations and commentaries) enter the story after Kierkegarrd’s death. Malik recounts Kierkegaard’s Kirkekampen (church-struggle) with the Lutheran Danish state-Church, and he brings out how Kierkegaard’s writing in this period of his “Attack on Christendom” greatly influenced the way he was initially received. He discusses the reaction to Kierkegaard by the early Swedish writer and feminist Fredrika Bremer, and he discusses Kierkegaard’s later influence on such various thinkers and writers as Miguel de Unamuno, Rainer Maria Rilke, Franz Kafka, and Ludwig Wittgenstein (to name some of the more familiar).There are many nuggets of detail in the book. For instance, those who have read Walter Kaufmann’s Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist would know that in 1888 Brandes called Kierkegaard to Nietzsche’s attention, but too close to the onset of Nietzsche’s madness for him to read Kierkegaard. However we learn from Malik that Brandes in a letter had characterized Kierkegaard as “one of the profoundest psychologists that have ever existed” and that Nietzsche in his reply in February of 1888 actually expressed the intention to “take up the psychological problem of Kierkegaard” when... (shrink)

" ‘I can be understood only after my death,’ Kierkegaard noted prophetically: the fulfillment of this expectation for the English-speaking world a century and a quarter later is signified by the English translation in authoritative editions of all his works by the indefatigable Howard and Edna Hong.... The importance of [the Papirer] was emphasized by Kierkegaard himself.... The essentially religious interpretation he gave to his mission in life and his personal relationships is now documented clearly and exhaustively.... Obviously, these editions (...) are essential for academic and large general collections." —Library Journal "From this point on, anyone interested in tracking down a Kierkegaardian theme will have to consult the Hong presentation as well as the books of Kierkegaard." —Annual Review of Philosophy "The translations are entirely excellent. One envies the Hongs their capacity in language, the breadth of their reading in Kierkegaard and his sources, and the dedication they brought to this Herculean task. The assistance of Gregor Malantschuk has contributed materially to the notes which serve as trenchant summaries of Kierkegaard’s thought on the topics.... This is indeed a monumental work." —Review of Metaphysics "... [an] astonishing labor of editing and translating... " —International Studies in Philosophy "Howard and Edna Hong have brought to the task solid scholarship, linguistic competence, an imaginative and useful arrangement of the material, and a scrupulous self-effacement before the work. No one could ask for more." —Citation of the Judges at the National Book Awards "We must be grateful to the Hongs for their enormous labor.... Kierkegaard’s Journals and Papers are worth having for angry days, or ‘inward’ days; especially when they have been translated in as lively and sensitive a manner as are the texts in this first volume." —Nation The incidental writings of Søren Kierkegaard, published in the twenty-volume Danish edition of the Papirer, provide direct access to the thought of the many-faceted nineteenth-century philosopher who exerted so profound an influence on Protestant theology and modern existentialism. This important material, which Danish scholars regard as the "key to the scriptures" of Kierkegaard’s other work, spans his entire productive life, the last entry of the Papirer being dated only a few days before his death. These writings have been previously inaccessible in English except for a few fragmentary selections; the most significant writings are now being made available in this definitive seven-volume edition under the editorship of two expert scholars and translators. Kierkegaard’s scattered writings fall into three main subject groupings: journal entries of varied content, notes and early versions of his published material, and personal reactions to his reading and study. In length and degree of polish they range from brief and cryptic notes to extensive lecture material, finished travel sketches, and extended philosophical speculation. The translators provide annotations, copious notes, and a collation of entries with the Danish Papirer. The editors group the selections in Volumes I through IV by theme, with all entries on a given subject under the same heading. Within subject headings, entries are arranged chronologically, making it feasible to trace the evolution of Kierkegaard’s thought on a specific topic. Volumes V and VI are devoted to autobiographical material. Volume VII contains an extensive index with topical crossreferences. (shrink)

"Why I so much prefer autumn to spring is that in the autumn one looks at heaven--in the spring at the earth."--Søren KierkegaardThe father of existentialism, Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a philosopher who could write like an angel. With only a sentence or two, he could plumb the depths of the human spirit. In this collection of some 800 quotations, the reader will find dazzling bon mots next to words of life-changing power. Drawing from the authoritative Princeton editions of Kierkegaard's (...) writings, this book presents a broad selection of his wit and wisdom, as well as a stimulating introduction to his life and work.Organized by topic, this volume covers notable Kierkegaardian concerns such as anxiety, despair, existence, irony, and the absurd, but also erotic love, the press, busyness, and the comic. Here readers will encounter both well-known quotations ("Life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other principle, that it must be lived forward") and obscure ones ("Beware false prophets who come to you in wolves' clothing but inwardly are sheep--i.e., the phrasemongers"). Those who spend time in these pages will discover the writer who said, "my grief is my castle," but who also taught that "the best defense against hypocrisy is love."Illuminating and delightful, this engaging book also provides a substantial portrait of one of the most influential of modern thinkers. Gathers some 800 quotations Drawn from the authoritative Princeton editions of Kierkegaard's writings Includes an introduction, a brief account and timeline of Kierkegaard's life, a guide to further reading, and an index. (shrink)

Kierkegaard is widely regarded as the 'father of existentialism', although his influence can be observed across the spectrum of twentieth century continental philosophy and philosophy of religion. Fear and Trembling is his most compelling and popular work and is heralded as a benchmark in twentieth century philosophy. The Routledge Philosophy Guidebook to Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling examines the major themes that arise in this classic work of religious and existential philosophy. It also explores the broader aspects of Kierkegaard's (...) influence on philosophy as a whole. The book assumes no previous knowledge of Kierkegaard's work and will be essential reading for any student studying the ideas of this important thinker. Kierkegaard and Fear and Trembling introduces and assesses: Kierkegaard's life and the background to Fear and Trembling The ideas and text of Fear and Trembling , his most famous work Kierkegaard's continuing importance in philosophy. (shrink)

Helping more than “a little”: recent books on Kierkegaard and philosophy of religion Content Type Journal Article Category Book Review Pages 1-16 DOI 10.1007/s11153-012-9345-6 Authors J. Aaron Simmons, Department of Philosophy, Furman University, 3300 Poinsett Hwy, Greenville, SC 29613, USA Journal International Journal for Philosophy of Religion Online ISSN 1572-8684 Print ISSN 0020-7047.

No philosopher since Augustine had more strings to his bow than SK.

This volume contains the proceedings of the symposium held at Wofford College in 1968, in celebration of the Bi-centennial of the birth of Hegel. Hegelian philosophy has strong roots in America, and for the past one hundred and fifty years it has offered a major philosophical perspective from which to interpret religious concepts and phenomena. Its immediate dialectical relationship to phenomenology and existentialism made it almost inevitable that the strength of this position would receive fresh attention as more recent moods (...) subsided. Consequently this book undoubtedly heralds a rebirth of Hegel scholarship and a renewed concern with Hegelian philosophy of religion after the serious criticism by Kierkegaardians and Marxists which has dominated recent philosophy of religion. The main papers include "Some Historical Presuppositions of Hegel's System" ; "The Young Hegel and the Postulates of Practical Reason" ; "Hegel's Phenomenology of Mind as a Development of Kant's Basic Ontology" ; "Hegel's 'Unhappy Consciousness' and Nietzsche's 'Slave Morality'" ; "Hegel's Reinterpretation of the Doctrine of Spirit and the Religious Community" ; "Hegel and the Marxist-Leninist Critique of Religion" ; "'Authenticity' and 'Warranted Belief' in Hegel's Dialectic of Religion" ; "Hegel on The Identity of Content in Religion and Philosophy". The volume suggests the possibility of initiating dialogue with analytic philosophers regarding the Hegelian claim that "language is spirit," but such dialogue is never developed. In addition to bringing to light an interpretation of new source material for the study of the development of Hegel's position, there is also a unique interpretation of historical method. Henrich attempts to immerse his study more thoroughly in the immediate setting, biblical, theological, social and philosophical than did either R. Kroner or W. Dilthey in their classic studies of Hegel. At the same time the analysis of Hegel's relationship to Hölderlin is clarified with fresh interest for those who have been made conscious of Hölderlin through Heidegger. A number of the essays devote special attention to the Kant-Hegel relationship, analyzing with great care the Kantian atmosphere at the University of Tübingen and Hegel's place in this setting. If it is the case that secular theology is fundamentally a version of Hegelian immanence, then some of these essays can be seen as a restoration of the Hegelian doctrine of spirit in response to such secularization. On the other hand, if it is the case that the Kierkegaardian critique was a criticism of this very doctrine of immanence in the name of an "infinite gap" and that such Kierkegaardianism dominated philosophy of religion in the first half of this century, it is striking that so little direct confrontation of Hegel and Kierkegaard is attempted in these essays. It is time for Hegelianism to receive such renewed attention; but its dialogue with analysis, Kierkegaard, and phenomenology is still to be undertaken. We may be entering a period of genuine pluralism in contemporary philosophy where this very discussion can occur, and for this conversation these essays offer an excellent starting point.--H. A. D. (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)

En 1844, sous le pseudonyme de Johannes Climacus, Kierkegaard fait paraître les Miettes philosophiques, violente polémique contre Hegel. Il s'inscrit dans la tradition de la critique biblique qui, de Lessing à Strauss, entend ramener le christianisme au problème général de la constitution des mythes. Les effets de cette critique sont à l'origine du courant existentialiste et, plus profondément, sous-tendent la critique heideggérienne de la religion. Le Post-scriptum est quatre fois plus étendu que l'ouvrage qu'il souscrit. L'auteur distingue de la (...) religiosité en général - où l'homme souffre parce qu'il est une synthèse de temporel qui l'empêche de connaître Dieu et d'éternel qui aspire à le connaître - la seconde forme, dialectique, d'attitude religieuse : l'homme ne peut connaître Dieu en raison du péché, il doit alors croire passionnément au paradoxe scandaleux de l'incarnation pour accomplir son salut. Du point de vue de l'histoire de la pensée philosophique moderne, ce texte est au principe de toute réflexion sur la subjectivité, et il figure, aux côtés des écrits du jeune Marx comme de l'œuvre de Nietzsche, dans la postérité critique de Hegel. (shrink)

Reidar Thomte's Kierkegaard's Philosophy of Religion is an excellent read for students beginning their study of one of the greats of nineteenth and twentieth century philosophy. Thomte directly appropriates Kierkegaard's insightful language and discussion of the theological and philosophical issues that stimulated him, all of which are still alive and well today. This approach has the happy result that readers seeking an introduction do not have to be led through technical debates in order to approach Kierkegaard's thought. Thomte is (...) a master of incisive summary; his presentations of crucial distinctions are level-headed and to the point. Kierkegaard's categories such as the stages on life's way (the aesthetic, the ethical, Religiousness A, and Religiousness B), the individual, subjectivity, the Paradox, the varieties of love, faith and knowledge, etc., are provocative and illuminating. Not only is this book a good a starter, it is also a comprehensive review of the principal issues in Kierkegaard's philosophy of religion. (by Robert L. Perkins, Editor, International Kierkegaard Commentary). (shrink)

Hegel and the myth of reason -- Hegel's phenomenology as a systematic fragment -- The architectonic of Hegel's Phenomenology of spirit -- Points of contact in the philosophy of religion of Hegel and Schopenhauer -- Kierkegaard's criticism of the absence of ethics in Hegel's system -- Kierkegaard's criticism of abstraction and his proposed solution : appropriation -- Kierkegaard's recurring criticism of Hegel's The good and conscience-- Hegel and Nietzsche on the death of tragedy and Greek ethical life -- Existentialist (...) ethics -- Merleau-Ponty's criticisms of Sartre's theory of freedom -- Sartre and Merleau-Ponty on consciousness and bad faith. (shrink)

Existentialism enjoyed great popularity in the 1940s and 1950s, and has probably had a greater impact upon literature than any other kind of philosophy. The common interest which unites Existentialist philosophers is their interest in human freedom. Readers of Existentialist philosophy are being asked, not merely to contemplate the nature of freedom, but to experience freedom, and to practise it. In this survey, Mary Warnock begins by considering the ethical origins of Existentialism, with particular reference to Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and (...) outlines the importance of a systematic account of man's connection with the world as expounded by Husserl. She discusses at length the common interests and ancestry of Existentialism in the works of Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, and Sartre, and offers some conclusions about the current nature and future of this committed and practical philosophy. This revised edition includes a postscript reviewing the status of Existentialism in the 1990s, and has a thoroughly updated bibliography. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Translation of Levinas’s Review of Lev Shestov’s Kierkegaard and the Existential PhilosophyJames McLachlan (bio)In 1937, Emmanuel Levinas published a review of Lev Shestov’s Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy.1 In one of the first studies in English on Levinas, Edith Wyschogrod claims: “What Levinas writes of Shestov’s analysis of Kierkegaard might well be taken as a program for his own future work.”2 The review of Shestov’s Kierkegaard book shows (...) Levinas sympathy with Shestov’s rebellion against rationalism and totalism, his complaint that the individual and all her concerns, desires, and suffering were crushed by the world and ignored by philosophy. But his review of Shestov’s book also shows Levinas’s concern the rebellion could end in “the vanity of personal protest” and substitute subjective imprisonment for the imprisonment of history.3 Such irrationalism could lead to its own forms of violence, which in 1937 were becoming apparent.Like Levinas, Shestov helped introduce Husserl in France, although in Shestov’s case as an adversary to Husserl with whom he developed a friendship.4 The exchange between Shestov and Levinas’s Strasbourg teacher Jean Hering helped publicize Husserl in France.5 As an [End Page 237] exile in Europe, Shestov published his most powerful works Potestas Clavium, In Job’s Balances, Athens and Jerusalem, and Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy. Shestov sought, through a continued hammering, to escape the trap of Being toward radical freedom.6 The form of Shestov’s escape attempt can be situated between Levinas and Kierkegaard. He shares with Levinas the desire to escape ontology but, like Kierkegaard, Shestov’s version of the escape is into a radically individual relation with God through a violent repudiation of the universal; thus, both Levinas’s disagreement with and attraction to Shestov in his 1937 review of Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy prefigure his rejection of Kierkegaard.One must be wary of reading Shestov as a kind of introduction to any thinker he engages, and thus the inclusion for many years of Shestov’s book on short bibliographies on Kierkegaard was extremely misleading. The book was quite influential when it appeared in 1936 around the same time as Jean Wahl’s Études Kierkegaardiennes. Shestov’s work is filled with hyperbole, exaggeration, and polemic. All of his writings are more literary essays than works of scholarship. And it is this mesmerizing writing that Russian literary critic D. S. Mirsky called “the tidiest, the most elegant, the most concentrated... in short, the most classical prose in the whole of modern Russian Literature.”7 A more perceptive reader than many Kierkegaardians who have read Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy, Levinas wrote in 1937 that “the philosophical project of M. Shestov often takes on the allure of brilliant literary essay. It is a ‘poem’ rather than a ‘work.’ The author is more present therein than his subject.”8Here Levinas notes several important points about Shestov’s Kierkegaard book. Perhaps the most important is that it is not primarily about Kierkegaard that “the author is more present therein than his subject.” Levinas sees Shestov had indeed seized on one of the central aspects of Kierkegaard’s thought but “what affects us more deeply still, and this is not its smallest attraction, the ideas of M. Shestov.”9 This is true of all of Shestov’s work. It is a “vast symposium” around the problems that agitated Shestov. [End Page 238]________Emmanuel Levinas, review of Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy (Vox clamantis in deserto), by Leon Chestov, trans. T. Rageot and B. de Schloezer, Revue des Études Juives 101, nos. 1–2 (1937): 139–41.The thought of Søren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher, dead in 1855, has known for some time a rare good fortune. Jaspers and Heidegger in German, Jean Wahl and Gabriel Marcel in France, are some of the names that permit us to measure the quality of the influence, which, in a very solid manner, he has also exercised on the only modern philosopher of Judaism worthy of the name, Franz Rosenzweig. This good fortune is not just a mode. The moral crisis opened by the War of 1914 has given men a... (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Kierkegaard on Self, Ethics, and Religion: Purity or Despair by Roe FremstedalVanessa RumbleRoe Fremstedal. Kierkegaard on Self, Ethics, and Religion: Purity or Despair. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Pp. xiv + 280. Hardback, $99.99. Paperback, $32.99.Fremstedal’s impressive synthesis of the anthropological, ethical, and religious dimensions of Kierkegaard’s thought draws on the fruits of his earlier work, Kierkegaard and Kant on Radical Evil and the Highest Good (...) (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014). In each of the two volumes, Fremstedal argues for key points of agreement between Kant and Kierkegaard, and he proposes a precise and differentiated account of the way in which the anthropological assumptions of each thinker (a) undergird and shape their respective ethics and (b) pave the way for a religiosity that not only builds on but actively fortifies moral agency. The result, Fremstedal claims, is a rendering of Kierkegaard as by no means averse to the demands of systematic thought. Fremstedal’s Kierkegaard rejects the existence of “epistemic, objective evidence for or against faith” while nonetheless adducing “practical and subjective grounds” (252) for earnest ethical striving and religious faith. In addition to Fremstedal’s analysis of Kierkegaard’s debt to Kant, this book contains a finely drawn analysis of and response to the contemporary scholarship on ethical issues posed by (or to) Kierkegaard’s texts, drawing on the work of Rudd, Davenport, Helms, Stokes, Piety, and others, contributing thereby to the integration of Kierkegaardian ethics in larger discussions of moral psychology.Fremstedal’s stated aim is to provide both (i) the historical context for Kierkegaard’s authorship and (ii) a detailed consideration of Kierkegaard’s potential contribution to contemporary philosophical debates. With regard to (i), Fremstedal’s thirteen chapters offer considerably more than he is able to telegraph in the introduction. Fremstedal’s rough-and-ready appraisal of Kierkegaard’s relation to J. G. Fichte’s Ethics; his expert distillation of [End Page 513] the bearing of the Pantheism Controversy on the account of the “leap” in Postscript (173); and the alacrity with which he charts Kant’s, Jacobi’s, and Kiekegaard’s varying takes on the notion of “reason” (Vernunft/Fornuft) in its relation to “understanding” (Verstand/Forstand) all provide invaluable orientation and grist for further analysis. His discussion of the Pantheism Controversy lends support to his reading of the Postscript’s “leap” as indicating unavoidable discontinuities in “the transition from one normative domain to another” (179) rather than an espousal of fideism.What follows is a summary of Fremstedal’s central chapters on Kierkegaard’s ethics (chapters 2–9), with a particular focus on a key, contentious aspect of the former’s reading. Since the 1981 publication of Alasdair MacIntyre’s After Virtue, Kierkegaard scholars queued up to defend the Danish philosopher against MacIntyre’s claim that Kierkegaard depicts the commitment to moral existence as criterionless. In Davenport and Rudd’s anthology, Kierkegaard after MacIntyre, Peter Mehl’s essay encapsulates the standard response: “Kierkegaard is primarily concerned with providing a philosophical anthropology as a basis for a coherent and reasonable approach to moral praxis,” a concern that is hardly compatible with a conception of morality as pure subjectivism (“Kierkegaard and the Relativist Challenge to Practical Philosophy,” in Kierkegaard after MacIntyre, ed. John J. Davenport and Anthony Rudd [Chicago: Open Court, 2001], 4).Like Mehl, Fremstedal believes Kierkegaard’s philosophical anthropology offers the best defense against MacIntyre’s charge of irrationalism. He grounds his account of Kierkegaard’s anthropology in The Sickness unto Death, citing Anti-Climacus’s depiction of the synthesis of finitude and infinitude as establishing the “fundamental tension between facticity and freedom,... constitutive of our human nature” (20). He parses the supervening relational task placed on the self (Selvet) as twofold: (a) recognition of the conjunction of the given and the chosen in the actual self and, crucially, (b) the evaluation and ranking of the “first order” motivations and inclinations of the actual self with a view to forging a coherent self, namely, the “pure” or “whole-hearted” self that is to evade despair and guide ethical striving. (Fremstedal nods here to work by Davenport and Stokes.) Fremstedal highlights the limitations of the “given” self by reminding... (shrink)

Existentialism exerts a continuing fascination on students of philosophy and general readers. As a philosophical phenomenon, though, it is often poorly understood, as a form of radical subjectivism that turns its back on reason and argumentation and possesses all the liabilities of philosophical idealism but without any idealistic conceptual clarity. In this volume of original essays, the first to be devoted exclusively to existentialism in over forty years, a team of distinguished commentators discuss the ideas of Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre, (...) Merleau-Ponty and Beauvoir and show how their focus on existence provides a compelling perspective on contemporary issues in moral psychology and philosophy of mind, language and history. A further sequence of chapters examines the influence of existential ideas beyond philosophy, in literature, religion, politics and psychiatry. The volume offers a rich and comprehensive assessment of the continuing vitality of existentialism as a philosophical movement and a cultural phenomenon. (shrink)

Introduction : the feel of religion -- Authenticity and conversion -- Conversion as a way of life -- Philosophical methodism -- The infinite mission -- Ascetics of presence.

This is an extremely helpful book, superbly edited by Professor Molina, whose earlier book Existentialism as Philosophy provided a helpful introduction to existentialism as a serious, systematic philosophy. Molina successfully avoids all temptations to exploit the faddish quality of existentialism. After all these years, even the most protected, sequestered, academic institutions have had their resident left-bank habitue. And so one could play about lightly with Nietzsche and Kierkegaard, sell lots of books, sound serious, and leave still another generation (...) impressed with the shallow and the superficial. But Molina is at all times the scholar. He refuses to couch difficult concepts in popular terms. And the result is a weighty, but well-written companion volume to the earlier expository work, providing the reader with an interesting selection of primary sources in the philosophy of existentialism. The authors represented are Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Husserl, Ortega y Gasset, Sartre, Tillich, Heidegger, Gendlin, and Merleau-Ponty. Each selection is prefaced by Molina's interpretation of the material, excellently written and philosophically sound. The book ought to be a standard text for courses in Existentialism.--W. A. J. (shrink)

This anthology provides a history of the systemization and canonization of existentialism, a quintessentially antisystemic mode of thought. Situating existentialism within the history of ideas, it features new readings on the most influential works in the existential canon, exploring their formative contexts and the cultural dialogues of which they were a part. Emphasizing the multidisciplinary and global nature of existential arguments, the chosen texts relate to philosophy, religion, literature, theater, and culture and reflect European, Russian, Latin American, African, and (...) American strains of thought. Readings are grouped into three thematic categories: national contexts, existentialism and religion, and transcultural migrations that explore the reception of existentialism. The volume explains how literary giants such as Dostoevsky and Tolstoy were incorporated into the existentialist fold and how inclusion into the canon recast the work of Kierkegaard and Nietzsche, and it describes the roles played by Jaspers and Heidegger in Germany and the Paris School of existentialism in France. Essays address not only frequently assigned works but also underappreciated discoveries, underscoring their vital relevance to contemporary critical debate. Designed to speak to a new generation's concerns, the collection deploys a diverse range of voices to interrogate the fundamental questions of the human condition. (shrink)

This review of one in the series of the monumental primary works of Kierkegaard shows him as the champion and, as it were, an inaugurator of the phenomenological turn in both philosophy and literature. The review touches upon serious issues regarding mass culture and Christianity. The review of the eighth volume in this series was published in January 2020, and these two reviews are the first by any Indian Hindu. While discussing Kierkegaard the reviewer touches upon John Caputo's theology derived (...) from Jürgen Moltmann's concept of a weak God. There are inadvertent typos in this review. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:BOOK REVIEWS 703 thing," and "doing, acting [having.] priority over intellectual understanding and reasoning " (92). But are such "analogies" really the crux of the "religious point of view" in terms of which Wittgenstein said that he could "not help seeing every problem"? When we recall that Wittgenstein's later philosophy was a proibund attack upon what he regarded as the idolatry of science, logic, and mathematics (an idolatry (...) of which he himself, in the Tractatt~,, was partly guilty), and that he was also bent on undermining the accompanying subjectivized and privatized view of the human mind, as well as the scientistic reading of religious beliefs and primitive religions, we may be inclined to see his philosophy as clearing the way for the simple noninstitutionalized Tolstoian faith which he himself accepted. Philosophy and religion were on the same track in his mind (and not merely related by "analogies") when he wrote: "All that philosophy can do is to destroy idols. And that means not creating a new one--for instance, as in the 'absence of an idol' " (MS 213, 89). Peter Winch's Responseor Discussion(both words are used as titles) suggests that the pervasiveness of Wittgenstein's "religious point of view" can be seen in his question to Russell: "How can I be a logician before I am a human being?" (which certainly also extends to "How can I be a philosopher before I am a human being?"). With this goes the realization, expressed in the Preface to the PhilosophicalRemarks, that he will not be able to make his book more free of the "impurities" of vanity than he himself is free of them. We sense the religious point of view of Wittgenstein in his utter seriousness (so often compared to Augustine, Pascal, and Kierkegaard) as well as in his conviction that there is a good lying beyond the world which puts every human being, and above all himself, under an obligation to place it ahead of self. When he said that he could not help seeing every problem this way, he meant that he could not help seeing it as having an importance that went beyond facts and theories and circumstances and even beyond the world itself. And the demonstration that this was indeed his point of view he knew would inevitably be, as indeed it was, in every line he wrote. H. L. FINCH Hunter College,CUNY Johnny Washington. A Journey into the Philosophyof Alain Locke. Contributions in AfroAmerican and African Studies. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1994. Pp. viii + ~2o. Cloth, $59.95. Alain Locke (1886-1954), a secondary figure in American pragmatism, wrote on problems of value in cultural analysis; he is noted for his vigorous relativism. As this century's most distinguished African American philosopher--a Rhodes Scholar educated at Harvard and Oxford--Locke played twin roles, mentoring artists of the Harlem Renaissance and chairing the philosophy department at Howard University. Josiah Royce's influence on his thought is evident, as is that of social scientists W. E. B. Du Bois and Franz Boas. In Locke's most recognized works, such as "Values 704 JOURNAL OF THE HISTORY OF PHILOSOPHY 33:4 OCTOBER 1995 and Imperatives" (1935) and "The New Negro" (19~5), as well as his lesser-read "Pluralism and Intellectual Democracy" (1942), he warrants note for two key contributors to the history of ideas. First, he analyzes "race" and "culture" relativistically, showing how nineteenth-century discussions (say, on "racial uplift") may continue without problematic ontological baggage. Second, by appealing to functionalism, he defends the relative equivalence of elements which characterize cultures. He thus undergirds arguments in social philosophy about the sufficiency of values and norms in social practices. Four decades after his death there exist only two book-length studies of Locke's philosophy, both authored byJohnny Washington. Washington deserves a great deal of credit for his part in initiating a fast-growing critical--and distinctively philosophical-literature on Locke. Indeed, no serious student of Locke's philosophy can proceed without contending with Washington's work. While this study merits praise for its thoroughness and care in treating unpublished essays by Locke, it suffers somewhat from its style of exposition. Washington's "narrate-and... (shrink)

The Continuum Companion to Existentialism offers the definitive guide to a key area of modern European philosophy. The book covers the fundamental questions asked by existentialism, providing valuable guidance for students and researchers to some of the many important and enduring contributions of existentialist thinkers. Eighteen specially commissioned essays from an international team of experts explore existentialism’s relationship to philosophical method; ontology; politics; psychoanalysis; ethics; religion; literature; emotion; feminism and sexuality; cognitive science; authenticity and the self; its significance (...) in Latin American culture; and its contribution to the development of Poststructuralism. In addition, five short chapters summarise the status of canonical figures Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and de Beauvoir, delineating the historical approach to their work, while pointing to new directions such research is now taking. Featuring a series of indispensable research tools (A to Z of terms, concepts and thinkers; timeline of existentialism; list of resources and an annotated guide to further reading), this Companion is an essential tool to help the new reader navigate through the heart of Existentialism and modern European philosophy. (shrink)

In this review, I will focus on how William Irwin’s The Free Market Existentialist manages to take a broad definition of existentialism and narrow it into dogma. Such narrowing limits the appeal of this book and causes an interesting discussion to fall short of its promised goal: a demonstration that libertarianism is compatible, and perhaps a natural fit, with existentialism.

This fully revised and updated 2nd edition provides a comprehensive reference guide to existentialism, featuring key chapters on key existentialist thinkers, as well as chapters applying existentialism to subject areas ranging across politics, literature, feminism, religion, the emotions, cognitive science, and poststructuralism. Contemporary developments in the field of existentialism that speak to issues of identity and exclusion are explored in 4 new chapters on race, gender, disability, and technology, whilst the 5th new chapter new chapter outlines analytic philosophy's complicated (...) relationship to existentialism. Presenting the field of existentialism beyond the European tradition, this edition also includes a new key thinker chapter on Frantz Fanon, alongside Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Sartre and de Beauvoir, as well as new engagement with the work of scholars on race and existentialism, including Lewis R. Gordon, George Yancy, and Richard Wright. The resources section at the end of the book includes an updated A to Z glossary, and timeline of key events, texts and thinkers in existentialism, as well as a list of relevant organisations, and an annotated guide to further reading, making this 2nd edition an invaluable text for scholars and students alike. (shrink)

This article aims to show that in his little-known work Denkbewegungen (MS 183), Wittgenstein sketchesan existential philosophy that has been influenced by Kierkegaard. While earlier interpretations of Denkbewegungen stress that this is a diary and tend to favour a biographical orpsychological approach to the diary, I try – with a thematic andhistorical approach − to show that this book sheds new light upon how Wittgenstein was occupied with Kierkegaard (and Christian-ity) on the one hand, and ethics, religion, and (...) existential philoso-phy on the other. Because of this, Denkbewegungen can provideus with a better understanding of how Wittgenstein, during animportant period in the 1930s, developed his thinking. (shrink)

Shestov's name appears from time to time in existentialist literature. Camus, for example, refers approvingly to Shestov in The Myth of Sisyphus: "Shestov... tracks down, illuminates, and magnifies the human revolt against the irremediable." Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy was translated earlier into French and into Danish in 1947, and German in 1949. The Danes received Shestov's book with great appreciation, and were particularly happy about his attempt to relate Kierkegaard to such diverse thinkers as Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Nietzsche, Hegel, (...) Spinoza, Luther, and others. And that is what Shestov's work on Kierkegaard is fundamentally all about, an attempt to place Kierkegaard in the history of philosophical and theological thought. Shestov is appreciative of Kierkegaard as the great champion of the revelational character of the Christian faith. Revelation stands over against reason, and the truths of one cannot be reconciled with the truths of the other. Shestov attempts to set in opposition the proponents of a rationalistic philosophy, Socrates, Spinoza, Hegel, and Kant, and the advocates of Biblical faith, Job, Abraham, Paul, Luther, and Kierkegaard, arguing that a reconciliation is impossible. One must choose to live the life of "the knight of faith," rather than attempt to find answers to, or reasons for, life's ambiguities. The author employs a methodological device much in vogue among Kierkegaard scholars in the 30s and 40s, i.e., he employs Kierkegaard's own life and experiences as a model to analyze and clarify theological conundrums. Kierkegaard's unhappiness is related to the human problem of suffering, just as Kierkegaard attempts at knowledge fail because he had forgotten the Biblical truth that "all that is not faith is sin." Finally, man must reject Spinoza's injunction "Do not laugh, do not weep, do not condemn, but understand." Not understanding, but faith. Kierkegaard's own life reveals an alternation between those polar opposites.--W. A. J. (shrink)

Guy Axtell's new book, as the title suggests, is an attempt to assess the limits of reasonable religious disagreement. In trying to delineate those limits Axtell thinks that it is useful to employ the notions of luck and risk in examining how reasonable a particular religious (or atheistic) stance is. A central concern of the book is with religious groups which exclude others in some way and which ascribe traits to those other groups that are very unlike the (...) traits the group ascribes to themselves. For example, a group might describe its own members as being saved but describe members of other similar groups as being lost. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Reviewed by:Holocaust Visions: Surrealism and Existentialism in the Poetry of Paul CelanVéronique M. FótiHolocaust Visions: Surrealism and Existentialism in the Poetry of Paul Celan, by Clarise Samuels; x & 134 pp. Columbia, South Carolina: Camden House, 1993, $53.50.Samuels’s thesis is that Celan’s poetic work in its entirety can and should be understood as a comprehensive and unified philosophical system, in which each poem is assigned its place. This system (...) is not outlined in terms of its organizing principles, but rather in its topography of three superimposed layers. The top layer (which an empiricist would consider foundational) mirrors an “objective” reality and is informed by finehoned observation, whereas the middle layer constitutes an “ideological program” that “attempts to establish a socio-political value system” (p. 2), while the supporting bottom layer offers an “existentialist epistemology.”Despite her stress on systematicity (obsolete since Hegel), Samuels identifies surrealism (particularly the strand deriving from Breton) and existentialism as the formative influences on Celan’s poetics; and she carefully explores the interrelations of these movements of thought with the heritage of French symbolism, and with Dadaism and Marxism. She does not, however, use guiding concepts, such as “epistemology” or “ideology,” in any precise philosophical sense. By “epistemology” she seems to mean a fundamental concern for reality and truth, coupled with the belief that truth is accessible beyond [End Page 382] social constructions of meaning, whereas “ideology” is used in the various senses of revolutionary program, utopian vision, structure of ideas, or even just ideation (as in “On the ideological level, the Holocaust fulfills the surrealist intention of entering the individual’s subconscious,” p. 108).On the basis of her analyses of surrealist and existentialist thought, Samuels examines Celan’s poetry and poetics with a view to his search for an “alter reality” that would transcend, but not negate, the “Holocaust universe.” She first researches Celan’s syntactic structures, such as the “genitive phrase,” the elliptical sentence, or the fragmentation (and recombination) of words, to move on to a discussion of his tropes, which she arranges broadly into “representations of space, time, persons, and actions” (p. 39). Her discussion of Celan’s spatial tropes, particularly of his devastated imaginary landscapes and places of loss (unfortunately “space” and “place” are not distinguished), is especially compelling. It is further enriched, in the final chapter, which seeks to elucidate Celan’s notion of utopia and to locate utopia in art, by reference to the visual work of Tanguy, Ernst, and Magritte.The book as a whole is meticulously researched and includes extensive discussions of the secondary literature, with a slant toward Germanistik rather than philosophy, and with perhaps a particular debt to Marlies Janz. Its weakness is, in a way, tied to its strength: in her discussions of philosophical concepts and movements, Samuels seems to rely largely on (somewhat dated) secondary literature, so that her philosophical understanding is frequently a confused amalgam. For instance, she links Sartre’s in-itself to the Kantian noumenon (p. 20) and goes on to locate it, not only in the “universe,” but also “at the core of the human self,” so that the for-itself contrasts with it as a “superficial” construction, a sort of artifact that needs to be “controlled.” She assimilates the nihilating character of Sartrean consciousness to a “principle of nihilism” that supposedly characterizes existentialism, while nevertheless interpreting Sartre’s humanism as a turn toward “the eternal aspect” of mankind. Heidegger is cast as an existentialist in search of a literalized authenticity, while his critique of Sartrean humanism is simply ignored.In treating Celan’s poetry as systematically coherent and as, in some sense, ideological, Samuels not only disregards the striking stylistic changes that characterize its various phases, but she also does not try to unravel its intricate textual fabric of allusions (notably to Hölderlin and Trakl), to analyze textual structures such as the displaced re-inscription of the date (notably Büchner’s Jänner), or to respond to its unleashing of the semantic energies that lie latent beneath the surface of ordinary language. Sometimes she overlooks her own inchoate interpretive insights, as in her two discussions of parts of... (shrink)

Concise and clearly written, this volume surveys the doctrines of Plato, Aristotle, Descartes, Berkeley, Hume, and Kant, presenting major issues in metaphysics and the relationship between philosophy and science, and examining Cartesian rationalism and other theories of knowledge. It considers moral responsibilities and problems in ethics, discusses the philosophy of religion, and reviews some arguments for the existence of God. It concludes with an exploration of trends in twentieth-century philosophy, including pragmatism, analytical philosophy, logical positivism, and existentialism. An excellent (...) introduction, this volume provides the necessary perspective and critical insight to pursue further readings in philosophy, and will prove equally valuable in and out of the classroom. (shrink)

Mrs. Warnock opens her discussion with a warning against the attempt to define existentialism, or to treat it as a single, unified position. With this warning in mind, she then proceeds to trace some of the general features of existentialist "ethics" through the philosophies of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, and Sartre. Mrs. Warnock sees the common aim of these thinkers as the attempt to "free people from illusion." She particularly stresses 1) the breakdown of the distinction between thinking and feeling, and the (...) resultant blurring of the line between an ethics and the rest of each thinker's philosophy; and 2) the breakdown of the distinction between feeling and acting—in Sartre's words "we try to change the world." Throughout the volume the import of the role of freedom, choice, and anguish are emphasized.—C. L. H. (shrink)

In 'Literature Suspends Death: Sacrifice and Storytelling in Kierkegaard, Kafka and Blanchot' Chris Danta takes Genesis 22 as the starting point for an investigation of the role of literary imagination. His aim is to read the Genesis story from a literary-theoretical perspective in order to show how it can 'illuminate the secular situation of the literary writer.' To do this, Danta stages a fruitful confrontation between Søren Kierkegaard as defender of religion and inwardness and Franz Kafka and Maurice Blanchot (...) as defenders of literature. In this review, three important points in this confrontation are highlighted. 1. The problem of identification. 2. The moment of substitution. 3. The spectrality of the writer. (shrink)

Søren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) has often been cast as an irrationalist -- an enemy of reason, logic, and perhaps even truth. It is easy to see why. Some of his works encourage us to "crucify" our understanding or to take a leap of faith beyond the evidence.[1] We also encounter texts suggesting that passionate beliefs are more important than true ones.[2] Perhaps his most frequently read book, Fear and Trembling, lauds Abraham for following God's commands "by virtue of the absurd."[3] (...) Finally, a number of passages encourage us to accept "the absolute paradox" or "the contradiction" of the God-man, Jesus Christ.[4] Richard McCombs joins a growing chorus of scholars who reject this view. Indeed, there is something approaching a consensus among specialists that Kierkegaard is not as irrational as he appears. What sets McCombs apart is that he also defends a more ambitious thesis. In addition to downplaying the irrationality of Kierkegaard, he maintains that Kierkegaard is actually a "robustly rational thinker" (7). (shrink)

This book is an investigation into authenticity, certainty, and self-hood as they arise in the story of the binding of Isaac. Gellman provides a new interpretation of Kierkegaard with select Hasidic commentary. Contents: INTRODUCTION: Background to the Book; Hasidism and Existentialism; Preview of the Chapters; THE FEAR AND THE TREMBLING: Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling; The Problem of Hearing and the Problem of Choice; The 'Ethical' for Kierkegaard; The 'Voice of God' for Kierkegaard; The Resolution of the Problems; THE (...) UNCERTAINTY: Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica; Maimonides, Saadia, and Gersonides; The Existentialist Interpretation; The Theological Interpretation; SINNING FOR GOD: The Teleological Suspension of the Ethical; Averah Lishmah-Mordecai Joseph Leiner of Izbica and Zadok Hakohen of Lublin; Divine Determinism; Repentance from Fear and from Love; Averah Lishmah and the Teleological Suspension of the Ethical; THE DOUBLE-MINDEDNESS: Abraham's Prophetic Utterance; Heavy and Light Double Mindedness; The Fire-Elimelech of Lyzhansk; Judah Aryeh Leib of Gur; Abraham's Double-Mindedness; THE PASSION: Abraham Issac Kook; Hegel and Kierkegaard on Religion and Philosophy; Abraham and Idolatry; The Akedah According to Rav Kook; God's Mercy; Rav Kook and Kierkegaard on the Self; Index. (shrink)

The purpose of this book is purely expository, but within its limits it is perhaps the best account of existentialism yet to appear in English. Its virtues are clarity, balance, accuracy, and an objectivity of tone which is maintained even in the treatment of emotionally charged subject-matter. Mr. Grimsley summarizes the views of Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre, Jaspers, and Marcel in separate chapters of fairly extensive scope, mainly through direct exposition of their major works. In a short introduction, and again (...) in a shorter postscript, he attempts to characterize existentialism and the existential attitude as a whole; his success makes one wish he had done more in this direction.--V. C. C. (shrink)

In these studies of the relationships between poetry, religion, and philosophy, and of the background and development of existentialism, Walter Kaufmann has produced a book which is challenging and important on many different levels. --.

Abbagnano clearly belongs to the first rank of European philosophers. He is an existentialist concerned primarily with the category of "the possible." He outlines his basic ideas in several essays, "What is Existentialism?" and "Existentialism is a Positive Philosophy," in which the distinctive character of "the possible" is related to other existentialistic notions. Other essays deal with "Faith, Philosophy, Religion," "Science and Freedom," "Experience and Metaphysics," "The Method of Philosophy." What makes the volume so very attractive to the American (...) reader is the editor's introduction. Mr. Languilli, in seventy pages, places Abbagnano in the proper context of European philosophy, and traces his intellectual development within the unique Italian academic environment.--W. A. J. (shrink)

Throughout the years, there has been an extensive engagement with the philosophy of Søren Kierkegaard from the perspective of Western philosophy and theology. Kierkegaard's thought has been examined through the lenses of Roman Catholicism, Protestantism, existentialism, post-modernism, feminism, and literary theory, to name just a few. Scholars have also offered fruitful comparative analyses of Kierkegaard's work in relation to Asian philosophical and religious traditions such as Buddhism. It is therefore surprising that the engagement between Kierkegaard's philosophy and that of Eastern (...) Orthodox philosophy and thought has heretofore been minimal. This volume offers a comparative analysis of Kierkegaard's philosophy in relation to the philosophy, theology, and spiritual practices of the Eastern Orthodox Church. Kierkegaard's philosophy of sin, his epistemology, and his philosophy of personhood are all analyzed in light of the Eastern Christian tradition. This hermeneutical lens allows important elements of Kierkegaard's philosophy to shine forth, many of which have heretofore not received their due attention in studies of his works. (shrink)