Soren Kierkegaard — "The specific character of despair is precisely this, that it is unaware of being…"
The specific character of despair is precisely this, that it is unaware of being despair.
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More from Soren Kierkegaard
"Marry, and you will regret it; don't marry, you will also regret it; marry or don't marry, you will regret it either way."
"The present age is an age of reflection, an age of calculation, an age of prudence, an age of prudence in its highest degree."
"The present age is an age of reflection, an age of calculation, an age of thought, an age of analysis, an age of observation, an age of experimentation, an age of invention, an age of discovery, an ag…"
"The task is to understand myself, to understand what I am to do, to see what God really wishes me to do; the point is to find a truth which is truth for me, to find the idea for which I can live and d…"
"The infinite resignation is the last stage before faith, so that anyone who has not made this movement has no faith; for only in the infinite resignation does one become conscious of one's eternal val…"
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.