The Tale of Two Seducers: Existential Entrapment in the Works of Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky

The present study poses a simple question, namely, what are the specific forces that might at times hinder rather than advance individual moral development? To answer this inquiry, I will investigate the writings of Kierkegaard and Dostoevsky, examining the two aesthetic protagonists found in their works—Johannes the Seducer and Dmitri Karamazov. I will utilise the Kierkegaardian framework of the three existential stages to illustrate that it is an over-reliance on gratification, coupled with an instrumental approach towards beings that not only prevents these two aesthetes from behaving morally, but also from even recognising the ethical perspective as a viable existential position.

Philosophy Lost and Found: Irony and Renewal in Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments

Readers of Kierkegaard’s Philosophical Fragments witness the development of Johannes Climacus from an initial posture of aesthetic detachment to a mutually elevating partnership with his unnamed interlocutor. Despite his (exaggerated) suspicions of philosophy, Johannes cautiously assents in Chapters IV and V of the Fragments to the philosophical innovations suggested by his unnamed critic. As he does so, he not only exposes the limitations of the Socratic account of recollection, which is what he set out to do, but also, and inadvertently, reveals the limitations of his own “thought-project.” As it turns out, the most notable (and persistent) of these limitations is his own fear of (ethical) commitment, which he associates with a union so toxic that one who is ill wed may crave the hangman’s noose. Despite the success he enjoys in developing his “thought-project,” and the camaraderie he experiences with his former adversary, Johannes concludes Fragments by retreating to the safety of the aesthetic nook from which he ever-so-briefly emerged. Fascinated by philosophy but frightened by (what he takes to be) its serious implications, he contents himself with the “fragments” and “crumbs” of which his philosophical diet consists.

Without Authority: Kierkegaard’s Resistance to Patriarchy

The phrase, “Without Authority,” is used so frequently by Kierkegaard that it becomes a kind of signature; yet it remains little understood. I argue that the phrase works to resist patriarchal, top-down, institutionally sanctioned authority: the authority of “direct” communication. Kierkegaard is not alone in contesting the tyranny of patriarchy: another tyranny—of anonymity, of the crowd—threatens to do away with patriarchal authority too, and with it all authority, all communication. Kierkegaard’s “without authority” defies patriarchy and does so at the risk of this wild-fire destruction, for the sake of a different communication that might yet be possible.

Hans L. Martensen on Self-Consciousness, Mysticism, and Freedom

This article examines three early writings of Hans L. Martensen, Søren Kierkegaard’s teacher and the target of his criticisms. The writings focus respectively on self-consciousness, mysticism, and freedom. They each make important claims about religion, and together they disclose the young Martensen’s systematic understanding of the epistemological, mystical, and moral-ethical dimensions of human experience as shaped by the representations of Christian faith and life. The analysis reveals an agile thinker, whose creative philosophical and theological ideas are the product of imaginative speculation growing out of passionate religiosity. Some connections will be drawn from these essays to the writings of Søren Kierkegaard.

Towards the Socratic Mission: Imitatio Socratis

It is known that Kierkegaard’s relation to politics was problematic and marked by a somewhat reactionary stance. The nature of this problematic relation, however, will be shown to lie in the tension between his double skepticism of the order of establishment [det Bestående] on the one hand, and the political associations of his age on the other. In this tension he is immersed, trembling between Scylla and Charybdis. On the one hand Kierkegaard is hesitant to support the progressive political movements of the time due to his skepticism about the principle of association in the socio-psychological climate of leveling and envy. On the other hand, his dubious support of the order of the establishment, in particular the Church and Bishop Mynster, becomes increasingly problematic. The importance of 1848 is crucial in this regard since this year marks the decisive turn in Kierkegaard’s authorship. Using the letters to Kolderup-Rosenvinge in the wake of the cataclysmic events of 1848 as my point of departure, I wish to elucidate the pathway towards what Kierkegaard himself understands as his Socratic mission.