Thinking through Kierkegaard is a critical evaluation of Søren Kierkegaard's vision of the normatively human, of who we are and might aspire to become, and of what Mehl calls our existential identity.

In this essay I argue that liberal arts education must reject scientism and embrace tmths about human flourishing, tmths that can be supported by both traditional wisdom and recent scientific studies. Liberal arts education can speak to the human spirit's yeaming for moral and spiritual meaning in life, and can help students come to terms with this interest. Current research into human flourishing enables us to make a more persuasive public case for the importanceof liberal arts education, and specifically for (...) it as education for our moral and spiritual lives. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that liberal arts education must reject scientism and embrace tmths about human flourishing, tmths that can be supported by both traditional wisdom and recent scientific studies. Liberal arts education can speak to the human spirit's yeaming for moral and spiritual meaning in life, and can help students come to terms with this interest. Current research into human flourishing enables us to make a more persuasive public case for the importanceof liberal arts education, and specifically for (...) it as education for our moral and spiritual lives. (shrink)

In this essay I argue that liberal arts education must reject scientism and embrace tmths about human flourishing, tmths that can be supported by both traditional wisdom and recent scientific studies. Liberal arts education can speak to the human spirit's yeaming for moral and spiritual meaning in life, and can help students come to terms with this interest. Current research into human flourishing enables us to make a more persuasive public case for the importanceof liberal arts education, and specifically for (...) it as education for our moral and spiritual lives. (shrink)

I argue that at least some of Kierkegaard’s authorship is designed to make a rational case for a religious and specifically Christian existence; he is not a total fideist. He argues that anything short of the existential stance of the “strong spiritual/moral evaluator” is despair. To overcome this we are compelled to reach for religious or transcendent sources of meaning; the authentic life is the life of constant ethical and spiritual evaluation grounded in the authority of God. But I ask (...) how does Kierkegaard justify the stance of the strong evaluator in the first place? I argue that he crafts an existential and pragmatic case for it, but that this approach does not have the strength he suggests. Indeed. I argue that because this defense reflects his own Protestant Christian context, his case for Christian existence (as an existence of strong spiritual/moral evaluation) is seriously weakened. (shrink)

This essay attempts to understand the search for authenticity in terms of the breakdown of authority in the modern world. The sense of autonomy, I argue, emerges from the need to choose the authorities one will accept. The ever-increasing difficulty of choosing from among authorities is internalized and is experienced as a difficulty of choosing, or “finding” oneself. The shattered authorities on the outside become a fragmented self on the inside. The search for the authentic self, then, is the search (...) for an authority on the inside that has been broken and lost on the outside. The prospects for achieving such selfhood are criticially evaluated. (shrink)

I critically examine the recent thought of Michael Sandel and Martha Nussbaum to reinvigorate our understanding of a just and flourishing society, and to address shortcomings of liberalism. I argue that while both offer important correctives to facile liberalisms, they both need to understand liberalism as a view of the good society. I spend more time with Nussbaum as she provides a more developed way forward for liberalism. Examining her epistemological approach leads me to argue that her appeal to an (...) overlapping consensus is doing some epistemological work, and that her capabilities approach is tied to a theory of humans and their flourishing. In the final analysis, I judge that Nussbaum’s capabilities approach encompasses Sandel’s communitarian hope for a richer conversation about the good society. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Goodman’s philosophy in relation to psychotherapeutic interpretation. Goodman argues that we shouldunderstand our knowledge as a creative symbolic construction, and not as a set of ideas that match reality. The notion of “the world” does no epistemological work. Using an example of psychotherapeutic interpretation found in Erik Erikson’s writings, I argue that whileErikson suggests that he discovers in the patient’s showings and tellings the patient’s message and its meaning, I argue (with Goodman) that Erikson creates (...) a narrative identity for his patient. The self is not found but fashioned, and it is deemed the true self because it coheres with Erikson’s general theoretic standpoint and is found to be cognitively and practically helpful for the patient. The conclusion is that selves, like worlds, are largely creative constructs. (shrink)

In this paper, I consider Goodman’s philosophy in relation to psychotherapeutic interpretation. Goodman argues that we shouldunderstand our knowledge as a creative symbolic construction, and not as a set of ideas that match reality. The notion of “the world” does no epistemological work. Using an example of psychotherapeutic interpretation found in Erik Erikson’s writings, I argue that whileErikson suggests that he discovers in the patient’s showings and tellings the patient’s message and its meaning, I argue (with Goodman) that Erikson creates (...) a narrative identity for his patient. The self is not found but fashioned, and it is deemed the true self because it coheres with Erikson’s general theoretic standpoint and is found to be cognitively and practically helpful for the patient. The conclusion is that selves, like worlds, are largely creative constructs. (shrink)