Søren Kierkegaard

Copenhagen

Born 1813, died 1855: Copenhagen was the stage of his life and his feuds.

💡 Did you know? Kierkegaard scarcely left his home town of Copenhagen: almost his entire work was written there, funded by his father's inheritance.

existentialism

Sartre, Heidegger, Jaspers and Camus built on him; he was discovered only decades after his death.

💡 Did you know? Kierkegaard is seen as the father of existentialism: over half a century before Sartre he put the individual's concrete existence at the centre.

Either/Or

The aesthetic life of enjoyment versus the ethical life of commitment: the reader must choose.

💡 Did you know? „Either/Or“ contrasts two ways of life: the pleasure-seeking (aesthetic) and the responsible (ethical).

Regine Olsen

He explained the reasons only in riddles all his life: the pain powers his entire work.

💡 Did you know? The broken engagement to Regine Olsen became the lifelong theme of his work: out of love he felt he had to release her.

Subjectivity is truth

What matters is not systems but the existence of the individual: choice and decision.

💡 Did you know? Against Hegel's grand „system“ Kierkegaard set: truth is nothing abstract, but something the individual can live and die for.

leap

Faith is not a doctrine one can prove but a venture of one's whole existence.

💡 Did you know? For Kierkegaard faith is not a proof but a „leap“: a venture across the abyss of uncertainty.

Abraham's sacrifice

The knight of faith Abraham acts beyond what ethics can grasp: published in 1843 under a pseudonym.

💡 Did you know? In „Fear and Trembling“ he ponders Abraham's willingness to sacrifice his son, as an image of unconditional faith beyond all reason.

dizziness of freedom

Anxiety is the price of possibility: it seizes whoever stands before his own freedom.

💡 Did you know? For Kierkegaard anxiety is the „dizziness of freedom“: the possibility of doing anything at all makes one giddy.

under pseudonyms

Johannes de Silentio, Victor Eremita, Climacus…; the masks argue with one another like characters in a play.

💡 Did you know? His devotional discourses, by contrast, always appeared under his own name.

the state church

Its comfortable 'Christianity', he charged, had nothing to do with that of the New Testament: he died in the midst of the feud.

💡 Did you know? In his last year he fiercely attacked the smug, worldly Danish state church in pamphlets.

his father's inheritance

The melancholy, sternly pious father believed the family haunted by a curse from his youth.

💡 Did you know? Five of his six siblings died young: fuel for the dark family legend.

42

He collapsed in the street in 1855 (in the midst of his war on the church) and died a few weeks later.

💡 Did you know? Kierkegaard collapsed in the street at just 42 and died soon after: his inheritance spent.

Søren Kierkegaard

Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher who, as the father of existentialism, placed the individual's choice and faith at the centre.

💡 Did you know? The broken engagement to Regine Olsen shaped his entire body of work.