Kierkegaard

Course Description

This term's work focuses on Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript and related material. We begin by setting the book against the background of SK's theory of the Stages of Life, or Existence Spheres. This theory distinguishes the Aesthetic, the Ethical, and the Religious forms or modes or spheres of life -- which looks simple, but there are plenty of complications to consider.

We will be reading most of Volume I (Volume II is a useful supplement from SK's journals and other papers). We will also make use of Merold Westphal's new commentary, Becoming a Self. In the end we should be in a good position to appreciate why SK is so often regarded as the Father of Existentialism -- and also to see how different he is from Sartre or Camus.

The central problem of Kierkegaard's earlier work, Fragments, was the 'truth' of Christianity. In the CUP, which is a 'postscript' to the Fragments, SK continues to develop his idea that the truth of Christianity is subjective truth.