God Is the Middle Term: Kierkegaard's View of Erotic Love
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Kierkegaard And/Or Catholicism: a Matter of Conjunctions Center for Catholic Studies, Seton Hall University
Seton Hall University eRepository @ Seton Hall Center for Catholic Studies Faculty Seminars and Center for Catholic Studies Core Curriculum Seminars 2008 Kierkegaard and/or Catholicism: A Matter of Conjunctions Center for Catholic Studies, Seton Hall University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.shu.edu/catholic-studies Part of the Christianity Commons, Practical Theology Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Center for Catholic Studies, Seton Hall University, "Kierkegaard and/or Catholicism: A Matter of Conjunctions" (2008). Center for Catholic Studies Faculty Seminars and Core Curriculum Seminars. 14. https://scholarship.shu.edu/catholic-studies/14 Seton Hall University eRepository @ Seton Hall Center for Catholic Studies Faculty Seminars Proceedings Summer 2008 Kierkegaard and/or Catholicism: A Matter of Conjuctions Center for Catholic Studies, Seton Hall University Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.shu.edu/summer-seminars Part of the Christianity Commons, Practical Theology Commons, and the Religious Thought, Theology and Philosophy of Religion Commons Recommended Citation Center for Catholic Studies, Seton Hall University, "Kierkegaard and/or Catholicism: A Matter of Conjuctions" (2008). Center for Catholic Studies Faculty Seminars. Paper 4. http://scholarship.shu.edu/summer-seminars/4 ―Kierkegaard and/or Catholicism: A Matter of Conjuctions‖ 2008 Summer Seminar Center for Catholic Studies Seton Hall University CENTER FOR CATHOLIC STUDIES Faculty Summer Seminar 2008 ―Kierkegaard and/or Catholicism: A Matter of Conjunctions‖ Facilitator: William Cahoy Dean, School of Theology and Seminary, Saint John’s University May 20-22 (8:30 am to 12:00 pm) “Kierkegaard and/or Catholicism: A matter of conjunctions” It is often said (accurately) that one of the distinguishing marks of a Catholic understanding of life is its both-and approach in contrast to the either-or approach more characteristic of a Protestant sensibil- ity. -
Kierkegaard: on Selfhood, Love, and Politics
Kierkegaard: On Selfhood, Love, and Politics Katie Canjar Undergraduate Honours Thesis Presented to The Department of Political Science University of Lethbridge In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirement for Honours Thesis Designation in Political Science Submitted: April 15, 2013 Advisor: Dr. John von Heyking Second Reader: Dr. Lance Grigg i Table of Contents Chapter One: Introduction......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter Two: A Society Without God........................................................................................................4 I. Despair............................................................................................................................................... 5 A. Despair of Ignorance....................................................................................................................6 B. Despair of Weakness.................................................................................................................... 9 C. Despair of Defiance................................................................................................................... 13 II. Despair of Modern Politics: The Crowd.........................................................................................14 III. The Next Step: From Despair to Selfhood.................................................................................... 18 Chapter Three: Selfhood and Ethical-Religious Love............................................................................ -
Denying and Becoming: a Defense of Kierkegaard's Works of Love
Denying and Becoming: A Defense of Kierkegaard’s Works of Love Laura Howard A perennial concern with Kierkegaard’s Works of Love is that its condemnation of preferential love is incoherent, inhibits the proper formation of self and of special relationships (i.e. friendships, romantic relationships), or both. In this essay, I argue that (1) Kierkegaard coherently rejects selfshness while allowing for and encouraging special relationships to exist, and (2) understanding love as a double movement (like that of faith described in Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling) is essential to understand- ing this basic claim. Tis essay thus draws upon and goes beyond previous analyses of Kierkegaard’s work, demonstrating how the double movement can be used to understand neighbor love as all at once selfess, involving the kind of preference necessary for special relationships, and positively forming the one who loves her neighbor. Søren Kierkegaard’s Works of Love1 has long been work of M. Jamie Ferreira, whose commentary seeks to accused of recommending a conception of love unlivable in address whether Kierkegaard’s understanding of becoming some way—by ignoring crucial bodily realities, presenting a self in WL “only allows concern for others or whether it an impossible ideal, failing to be coherent, or some combi- requires it” (2001, 7). In defense of the latter interpretation, nation of the three.2 One perennial concern is that his Ferreira emphasizes Kierkegaard’s identifcation of the account of love3 demeans meaningful human relationships. human need to love and of Christianity’s teaching about For Kierkegaard, Christian love must be conceived of as a proper self-love as necessary for neighbor love. -
The Religious Philosophy of "Johannes Climacus" the Religious Philosophy of "Johannes Climacus"
-- - - ~~--~~~- THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF "JOHANNES CLIMACUS" THE RELIGIOUS PHILOSOPHY OF "JOHANNES CLIMACUS" By PAUL GALLAGHER, B.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts McMaster University (c) Copyright by Paul Gallagher, January 1999 MASTER OF ARTS (1999) McMaster University (Religious Studies) Hamilton, Ontario TITLE: The Religious Philosophy of "Johannes Climacus" AUTHOR: Paul Gallagher, B.A. (Brock University) SUPERVISORS: John C. Robertson Peter J. Widdicombe Ellen E.F. Badone NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 113 ii Abstract In this thesis I examine the philosophy of "Johannes Climacus", the pseudonym under whose name Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) wrote Philosophical Fragments (1844) and Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (1846). I argue that these two works can only be fully understood when they are read as the works of Johannes Climacus rather than his creator, Kierkegaard. It will be shown throughout the thesis that the personality of Climacus and the philosophical positions advanced in his writings inform each other. Besides the personality ofClimacus, particular attention is also given to his opposition to Hegelianism. An appreciation ofClimacus' thought will be gained through an analysis of his first work, Philosophical Fragments, in which he attempts to demonstrate that the essential features of Christianity, such as transcendence, sin, the incarnation, and faith, are incompatible with a Hegelian world-view. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my supervisor, John C. Robertson, who has patiently guided me in the writing of this thesis. His conversations have been an invaluable resource. Ellen Badone and Peter Widdicombe have also been helpful readers and supporters of my work. -
Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing by Sören Kierkegaard
Purity of Heart Is to Will One Thing by Sören Kierkegaard This book was first published by Harper in 1938. It was translated from the Danish and contains an introductory essay by Douglas V. Steere. Prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Willie Brock. Translator’s Introduction by Douglas V. Steere A helpful summary of Kierketaard's basic positions, written by an outstanding scholar of his work. Douglass Steere was Professor of philosophy at Haverford College. Preface A woman doing needlework on an altar cloth does not want the work admired or criticized, but rather that the intent of the work is that it be seen for its higher purpose. Kierkegaard desires his writing receive the same attention. Chapter 1: Introduction: Man and the Eternal In relation to the eternal, a man ages neither in the sense of time nor in the sense of an accumulation of past events. There is something eternal in a man, and the eternal must be able to exist and to be grasped within every change. Chapter 2: Remorse, Repentance, Confession: Eternity’s Emissaries to Man Remorse is a guide that calls out to the wanderer that he should take care. In confession one becomes at one with himself. Chapter 3: Barriers to Willing One Thing: Variety and Great Moments Are Not One Thing To will one thing can only mean to will the good, because every other object is not a unity. The will that only wills that another object, therefore, must become double-minded. Chapter 4: Barriers to Willing One Thing: The Reward-Disease If a man can will one thing, then he must will the Good, for the Good alone is one. -
Contents Page
NUMBER 54: March 2009 Contents Page ANNOUNCEMENTS AND NEWS 2 ARTICLES Kierkegaard at the APA (?) Edward F. Mooney 11 REVIEWS Jorge Miranda de Almedia and Marcio Gimenes de Paula, and Deyve Redyson, Søren Kierkegaard no Brasil By Marcio Gimenes de Paula and Patricia Carina Dip 17 Gert Posselt, Sørensen om Kierkegaard: Villy Sørensens udvalgte artikler om Søren Kierkegaard By Poul Houe 19 Merold Westphal, Levinas and Kierkegaard in Dialogue by J. Aaron Simmons 28 Editor: Gordon D. Marino Spanish Editor: Begonya Saez Tajafuerce Announcement The 6 th International Kierkegaard Conference CALL FOR PAPERS “Why Kierkegaard Still Matters” The Hong Kierkegaard Library will hold its Sixth International Kierkegaard Conference June 27-30, 2010. As in the past, the conference will include a dissertation panel. The topic of the conference is “Why Kierkegaard Still Matters.” Not coincidentally, this is the same issue that will be explored in the festschrift for Robert Perkins to be published by Mercer University Press in November of 2010. Scholars interested in presenting papers should send an abstract to Gordon Marino by February 1st, 2010 and a completed paper by April 15th, 2010. A reading length of 20 minutes will again be strictly observed. People willing to serve as commentators on papers should contact Gordon Marino. There will also be a workshop pegged to the question, “What is the relevance of Kierkegaard to the clergy today?” People interested in guiding or participating in that workshop should email Gordon Marino at [email protected] 2 ANNOUNCEMENTS AND NEWS Friends of the Kierkegaard Library Fall Meeting 2008 This gathering took place in conjunction with the Julia Watkin Memorial Lecture which was given this year by Bruce Kirmmse on the evening of November 18 at St. -
Albert Camus: Rebellion Through the Ethical Frameworks of Emmanuel Levinas and Soren Kierkegaard
The University of Notre Dame Australia ResearchOnline@ND Theses 2020 Albert Camus: Rebellion Through the Ethical Frameworks of Emmanuel Levinas and Soren Kierkegaard Conor Spence The University of Notre Dame Australia Follow this and additional works at: https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses Part of the Philosophy Commons COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under the Act. Any further copying or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Publication Details Spence, C. (2020). Albert Camus: Rebellion Through the Ethical Frameworks of Emmanuel Levinas and Soren Kierkegaard (Master of Philosophy (School of Philosophy and Theology)). University of Notre Dame Australia. https://researchonline.nd.edu.au/theses/ 263 This dissertation/thesis is brought to you by ResearchOnline@ND. It has been accepted for inclusion in Theses by an authorized administrator of ResearchOnline@ND. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Albert Camus: Rebellion through the ethical frameworks of Emmanuel Levinas and Soren Kierkegaard Conor Spence Supervisors: Professor Philip Matthews Dr Richard Hamilton Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the Master of Philosophy School of Philosophy and Theology Fremantle Campus 12 December 2019 1 | P a g e Statement of Authorship This research is the candidate’s own work and contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other institution. To the best of my knowledge, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference is made in the text. -
Faith and Loneliness: Kierkegaard and Fackenheim on Abrahamic Faith in Genesis 22
Faith and Loneliness: Kierkegaard and Fackenheim on Abrahamic Faith in Genesis 22 by Joshua Martin A Thesis submitted to the Faculty of Wycliffe College and the Theological Department of the Toronto School of Theology In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in Theology awarded by the University of St. Michael’s College. Copyright © Joshua Martin 2014 Faith and Loneliness: Kierkegaard and Fackenheim on Abrahamic Faith in Genesis 22 Joshua Martin Master of Arts in Theology University of St. Michael’s College 2014 Abstract The strength of Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous Fear & Trembling lay in its portrayal of faith, specifically Abraham’s faithful obedience in Genesis 22, the binding of Isaac. However, Jewish philosopher and theologian Emil Fackenheim raises a problem with this portrayal of faith, namely the radical solitude it entails. Using the midrashic interpretation of Genesis 22 Fackenheim shows that faith is not and cannot be isolated, but must involve a three-term relation between God, one human, and all fellow humanity. Yet within Kierkegaard’s acknowledged (i.e., not pseudonymous) authorship, specifically Works of Love, the same three-term relation is also evident in Kierkegaard’s own writing. Engaging Works of Love, and in conversation with Genesis 22, this thesis argues that Kierkegaard’s own conception of faith, while sharing the virtues of Fear & Trembling, is more fully understood as akin to love, as both are necessarily manifest in obedience and in a three-term relation of human—God—human. ii Acknowledgements Without the generous funding of the Joseph-Armand Bombardier CGS Scholarship, awarded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, this project may never have been undertaken. -
At the Fringes of Personhood. an Explorative Essay on the Dialogue of I and Thou and the Poetics of the Impersonal
religions Article In the Middle of Love: At the Fringes of Personhood. An Explorative Essay on the Dialogue of I and Thou and the Poetics of the Impersonal Kasper Lysemose Department of Systematic Theology, Aarhus University, Jens Christian Skous Vej 3, 8000 Aarhus, Denmark; [email protected] Abstract: In Works of Love, Søren Kierkegaard introduces the idea that God’s love is “the middle term.” It is a love that manages to be in the middle of all created being. To that extent, love is not just one relation among others, but the “being-in-relation” as such. It is, in Heideggerian terms, “the with” of being-with. This implies, further, that the middle is as inconspicuous as it is ubiquitous. According to Martin Buber, however, there is a privileged relation to the middle in the I–Thou relation. It is here that it reveals itself. For Buber, this is so on the strength of two important traits of this dyadic relation: that it is dialogical and personal. It is in dialogue that I and You are responsive to the word of God; and it is in personal co-presence that the theophany of “the absolute person” may occur. This paper explores these tenets of “philosophy of dialogue” at their fringes. Accordingly, it explores the impersonal in the person and the monologue in dialogue. More specifically, it aims to show how: (a) the impersonal in the person is disclosed in love and angst and how (b) the monologue in dialogue is expressed in a poetics of the impersonal. Citation: Lysemose, Kasper. -
ABSTRACT the Legitimacy of the Comic: Kierkegaard and The
ABSTRACT The Legitimacy of the Comic: Kierkegaard and the Importance of the Comic for His Ethics and Theology Will Williams, Ph.D. Mentor: Paul Martens, Ph.D. While some consider the comic to be a trivial subject, fit mainly for amusement or distraction, Søren Kierkegaard disagrees. This dissertation examines Kierkegaard’s understanding of the nature of the comic and how he believes even the triviality of comic jest to be deeply tied to ethical and theological earnestness. First, I examine Kierkegaard’s understanding of the comic, irony, and humor, drawing primarily from Concluding Unscientific Postscript (1846). I argue that, for Kierkegaard, the comic is a contradiction or misrelation that is essentially though not absolutely painless, providing a “way out.” The comic is a contradiction between norms, suggesting that it springs from one’s perspective in a way that holds important implications for one’s ethical and theological worldview. Kierkegaard believes that subjective development is closely tied to one’s capacity to perceive the comic, making the comic both diagnostic of and formative for one’s subjective state. For him, the Christian is far from humorless, instead having the maximum human capacity to perceive the comic. Next, I show that the previously argued conception of the comic can be found in other works by Kierkegaard: Prefaces (1844), Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits (1847), and the Corsair affair (c.1845-1848). Then, I examine representatives of the Deconstructionist tradition of reading Kierkegaard, namely Louis Mackey, Roger Poole, Elsebet Jegstrup, and Mark C. Taylor. I argue that, while they accurately perceive the widespread irony in Kierkegaard’s corpus, they incorrectly conclude that such irony is a sign of his lack of earnest interest in philosophy and theology. -
The Danish Doctor of Dread by GORDON MARINO
March 17, 2012, 2:30 pm New York Times The Danish Doctor of Dread By GORDON MARINO Anxiety: We worry. A gallery of contributors count the ways. The way we negotiate anxiety plays no small part in shaping our lives and character. And yet, historically speaking, the lovers of wisdom, the philosophers, have all but repressed thinking about that amorphous feeling that haunts many of us hour by hour, and day by day. The 19th-century philosopher-theologian Soren Kierkegaard stands as a striking exception to this rule. It was because of this virtuoso of the inner life that other members of the Socrates guild, such as Heidegger and Sartre, could begin to philosophize about angst. It is in our anxiety that we come to understand feelingly that we are free, that the possibilities are endless. Though he was a genius of the intellectual high wire, Kierkegaard was a philosopher who wrote from experience. And that experience included considerable acquaintance with the chronic, disquieting feeling that something not so good was about to happen. In one journal entry, he wrote, “All existence makes me anxious, from the smallest fly to the mysteries of the Incarnation; the whole thing is inexplicable, I most of all; to me all existence is infected, I most of all. My distress is enormous, boundless; no one knows it except God in heaven, and he will not console me….” Is there any doubt that were he alive today he would be supplied with a refillable prescription for Xanax? On virtually every third page of Kierkegaard’s authorship some note about angst is scrawled. -
The Accusation of Otherworldliness in Works of Love
PARTICIPATIO TEMPORAL GOODS, DIVINE LOVE AND THE POVERTY OF CHRIST: or, how Kierkegaard’s Ethic in Works of Love is Economically Apathetic G. P. Marcar, PhD Research Affiliate and Teaching Fellow The Centre for Theology and Public Issues, University of Otago [email protected] Abstract: Amongst the most serious objections to Kierkegaard’s ethics in Works of Love (1847) is that it does not seek to change temporal socio-economic or political conditions; on these matters, it is alleged, Kierkegaard’s thought is apathetic. After first discussing Jamie Ferreira’s widely accepted answer to this charge, this article further problematises the issue. Rather than downplaying the implications of Kierkegaard’s claims, in what follows I set the vision of Works of Love’s ethics against the intertextual backdrop of Kierkegaard’s thought on the individual’s relatedness to God, and the nature of the love which God mandates towards others. The linchpin of both these strands of thought is the figure of Jesus Christ: the self- revelation of God and “the prototype” for humanity. The result of this, I argue, is to heighten the potentially objectionable nature of Kierkegaard’s remarks. The Accusation of Otherworldliness in Works of Love The charge of otherworldliness against Kierkegaard’s 1847 Works of Love (WOL) commonly centres upon a much-discussed passage at the beginning of WOL’s discourse “IIIB: Love is a Matter of Conscience.” In this passage, Kierkegaard points towards the economically disadvantaged within society, epitomized by his figure of a “poor,