PHL 210: Faith and Philosophy

Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855) has been proposed as the 'father' of existentialism, as a forerunner of post-modernism and as the proponent of a purely humanistic religiosity. According to Julia Watkin all of these approaches suppress the reality of Kierkegaard as a Christian thinker, albeit one of a uniquely challenging cast who saw the need to treat Christianity as a personal existential adventure in which one is not afraid to risk oneself. In Kierkegaard, Watkin uses Danish critical sources to classify the legendary thinker as one of a radical Christian persuasion.

Although the ideas of Søren Kierkegaard played a pivotal role in shaping mainstream German philosophy and French existentialism, the question of how philosophers should read Kierkegaard is difficult. His intransigent religiosity has led some philosophers to view him essentially as a religious thinker with an anti-philosophical attitude. In a major new survey of Kierkegaard's thought, George Pattison addresses this question and shows that although it would be difficult to claim a "philosophy of Kierkegaard" as one can a philosophy of Kant or Hegel, there are significant common interests in Kierkegaard's central thinking and the questions that concern philosophers today.

Kierkegaard is often viewed in the history of ideas solely within the academic traditions of philosophy and theology. The secondary literature generally ignores the fact that he also took an active role in the public debate about the significance of the modern age that was taking shape in the flourishing feuilleton literature during the period of his authorship. Through a series of sharply focussed studies, George Pattison contextualizes Kierkegaard's religious thought in relation to the debates about religion, culture and society carried on in the newspapers and journals read by the whole educated stratum of Danish society.