Soren Kierkegaard - Introduction to the Father of Existentialism

The Living Philosophy

This is a deeper dive into the Father of Existentialism Soren Kierkegaard. Following on the 5-minute introduction to Kierkegaard, this episode looks in more depth at the philosophy and life of Soren Kierkegaard and why he is one of the greatest philosophers ever.
In this episode we look at the three phases of Kierkegaard's work: the First Authorship (and its masterpieces Either/Or and Fear and Trembling), the Second Authorship (including Kierkegaard's third masterpiece Sickness Unto Death) and the final year of his life where he took the gloves off and directly attacked the church. We also look at the "long foreground" to Kierkegaard's work — the curse on his family and his broken engagement to Regine Olsen.
Kierkegaard was one of the most prodigious philosophers. In 1843 he published three books in a single day (one of which Fear and Trembling is commonly placed in the canon of great philosophy). In the space of three years he published sixteen books. These books were written using various pseudonyms with many different stylistic devices. This was all part of Kierkegaard's style of "Indirect Communication". Like Socrates he didn't want to give answers he wanted to awaken the quest for individuality in his readers.
Kierkegaard was part of the select group of Christian Existentialism (his most famous peer being Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky). Like Nietzsche he hated the Church. His form of Christianity was about the self-making quest of Faith. This self is forged out of the dizzying Anxiety of choosing. This choice of faith can only be made by the individual and this is why Soren Kierkegaard spent his career trying to call people away from the "levelling" of Modernity which was turning everyone into "The Crowd" and away from the Church which kept its congregation like children. He was calling them to the "highest passion" of faith. He was calling them to forge their own selves and not give into the inauthenticity of Despair. In this introduction to Kierkegaard we take a brief look at the most compelling reasons why Kierkegaard is relevant today.
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📚 Further Reading:
- McDonald, William, "Søren Kierkegaard", _The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy_ (Winter 2017 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.), Available at: https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/win2017/entries/kierkegaard/
- McDonald, William, _Søren Kierkegaard (1813—1855)_, _Internet encyclopedia of philosophy_. Available at: https://iep.utm.edu/kierkega (more in-depth than the Stanford one. Highly recommend)
- Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography by Joakim Graff (https://amzn.to/3Sx1Tm5)
- Either/Or by Søren Kierkegaard (https://amzn.to/3DrOVBC)
- Fear and Trembling by Søren Kierkegaard (https://amzn.to/3TxiNCv)
- Sickness Unto Death by Søren Kierkegaard (https://amzn.to/3TxiY0D)
The above are Amazon affiliate links that let you get an awesome book AND support the channel (with no additional cost to you)
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5. Lost Frontier — Kevin MacLeod
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