Abstract

Certain concepts in Kierkegaard's thought might be taken to make a contribution to philosophical anthropology, such as subjectivity, existence, explanation, religiousness A, and the self. This chapter examines these concepts as found in Fear and Trembling, Philosophical Fragments, the Concluding Unscientific Postscript, and The Sickness unto Death. It argues that Kierkegaard uses these concepts to draw a limit to philosophical and naturalistic explanations of human beings, and as such that they are at odds with the methodological agenda of philosophical anthropology. Indeed, Kierkegaard wages against an immanent theocentrism that he takes to be equivalent to anthropocentricism, and that would reduce theology to anthropology. Against this, he seeks to show how the divine, or supernatural, elements of human existence, Christianity, and the self place them beyond anthropological explanation. These supernatural, or theological, elements of Kierkegaard's thought negate the possibility that he can be read in terms of philosophical anthropology.