Kierkegaard A Guide For The Perplexed

Kierkegaard is an important literary and religious figure, as well a major philosopher whom students may have a difficult time comprehending- this guide provides a clear and concise understanding of his work

Existentialism is often studied by students with little or no background in philosophy; either as an introduction to the idea of studying philosophy or as part of a literary course. Although it is often an attractive topic for students interested in thinking about questions of 'self' or 'being', it also requires them to study difficult thinkers and texts. This Guide for the Perplexed begins with the question of 'What is Existentialism?' and then moves on to provide a brief analysis of the key thinkers, writers and texts - both philosophical and literary - central to existentialism. Chapters focus particularly on Kierkegaard, Heidegger, Sartre and Camus but also discuss other philosophers and writers such as Nietzsche, Dostoevsky and Kafka. The second section of the Guide introduces key topics associated with existentialist thought; Self, Consciousness, the question of God and Commitment. Each chapter explains the concepts and debates and provides guidance on reading and analysing the philosophical and literary texts addressed, focusing throughout on clarifying the areas students find most difficult

A concise and accessible introduction, this Reader's Guide takes students through Kierkegaard's most important work and a key nineteenth century philosophical text.

Featuring new, original essays on Fear and Trembling, this collection casts new interpretive light on Kierkegaard's most influential work.

Søren Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript has provoked a lively variety of divergent interpretations for a century and a half. It has been both celebrated and condemned as the chief inspiration for twentieth-century existential thought, as a subversive parody of philosophical argument, as a critique of mass society, as a forerunner of phenomenology and of postmodern relativism, and as an appeal for a renewal of religious commitment. These 2010 essays written by international Kierkegaard scholars offer a plurality of critical approaches to this fundamental text of existential philosophy. They cover hotly debated topics such as the tension between the Socratic-philosophical and the Christian-religious; the identity and personality of Kierkegaard's pseudonym 'Johannes Climacus'; his conceptions of paradoxical faith and of passionate understanding; his relation to his contemporaries and to some of his more distant predecessors; and, last but not least, his pertinence to our present-day concerns.

First published in English in 1968, Kierkegaard's Authorship begins with a brief account of the life and meaning of Kierkegaard and concludes with the brief treatment of his relation to multifaceted existentialism. By reviewing the total authorship and by making available much of the fruit of widespread research, this work throws into relief Kierkegaard’s central purposes and makes it possible to avoid some of the dubious interpretations which have grown out of more narrowly selective study. This critical introduction and guide is especially important because Kierkegaard’s style was deliberately indirect and distorted and even more because half of the works are actually antagonistic to Kierkegaard’s own views. By the pseudonymous works he intended to lead into truth through a process of frustration, provoking the reader into existence. In another sense, the body of the book is also a biography for, in a degree perhaps without parallel in world history, the library which he created was his deed and life. This is an important read for scholars and researchers of Philosophy specially existentialism.

Selected as a Book of the Year in The Times Literary Supplement 'This lucid and riveting new biography at once rescuses Kierkegaard from the scholars and shows why he is such an intriguing and useful figure' Observer Søren Kierkegaard, one of the most passionate and challenging of modern philosophers, is now celebrated as the father of existentialism - yet his contemporaries described him as a philosopher of the heart. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen analysing love and suffering, courage and anxiety, religious longing and defiance, and forging a new philosophical style rooted in the inward drama of being human. As Christianity seemed to sleepwalk through a changing world, Kierkegaard dazzlingly revealed its spiritual power while exposing the poverty of official religion. His restless creativity was spurred on by his own failures: his relationship with the young woman whom he promised to marry, then left to devote himself to writing, haunted him throughout his life. Though tormented by the pressures of celebrity, he deliberately lived amidst the crowds in Copenhagen, known by everyone but, he felt, understood by no one. When he collapsed exhausted at the age of 42, he was still pursuing the question of existence: how to be a human being in this world? Clare Carlisle's innovative and moving biography writes Kierkegaard's remarkable life as far as possible from his own perspective, conveying what it was like to be this Socrates of Christendom - as he put it, living life forwards yet only understanding it backwards.

The A to Z of Kierkegaard's Philosophy provides a contextual introduction to Kierkegaard's 19th century world of Copenhagen, a chronology of events and key figures in his life, as well as definitions of the key systems of his thought-theology, existentialism, literature, and psychology. The extensive bibliographical section covers secondary literature and electronic materials of help to researchers. The appendix includes detailed information on his writings, along with a list of his pseudonyms. This book is useful not only as a guide for experienced scholars, but also as an introduction to new students of Kierkegaard's Philosophy.