Soren Kierkegaard — "The self is a relation which relates itself to itself or, what is the same thing…"
The self is a relation which relates itself to itself or, what is the same thing, is in the relation's relating itself to itself.
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More from Soren Kierkegaard
"The most common deception of all is the deception that one is not deceived."
"Marriage is and remains the most important discovery of the human race."
"The task is to venture out into the deeper waters of existence, to discover oneself in the infinite."
"Freedom's possibility is not to be able to do this or that, but to be able to do this and that."
"The dialectic of despair is this, that the despairing self is unable to get rid of itself."
About Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855)
Danish philosopher and theologian considered the founder of existentialism; Either/Or (1843) and Fear and Trembling (1843) explored the leap of faith. Closely associated with Friedrich Nietzsche (his existentialist successor working in the opposite theological direction) and Fyodor Dostoevsky (literary parallel exploring faith-and-despair). For an intellectual contrast, see G.W.F. Hegel, German Idealist of the totalizing system — Kierkegaard called Hegel's system a 'palatial residence' that nobody could actually live in — his entire authorship is structured against Hegelian abstraction in favor of the existing individual's inwardness.
The standard scholarly entry points to Soren Kierkegaard's work: Joakim Garff (University of Copenhagen, Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre) — Søren Kierkegaard: A Biography (2000); Walter Lowrie (Princeton, his major postwar English translator) — A Short Life of Kierkegaard (1942); C. Stephen Evans (Baylor University, philosophy of religion) — Kierkegaard: An Introduction (2009). These are the works graduate seminars cite when teaching Soren Kierkegaard.