This paper elucidates Kierkegaard’s notion of the “simultaneity of factors” in order to reveal the intimate connection between reason and emotion. I begin with the romantic vision of aesthetic education as embodied in Friedrich Schiller, which Kierkegaard himself inherited, though in a critical and nuanced manner. Next, I explore Kierkegaard’s pointed critique of the romantics, namely through his conviction that they had misrepresented the role of imagination to the detriment of harmony in the individual. Finally, I present Kierkegaard’s positive view (...) of the simultaneity of factors, emphasizing his improvement on the romantics through the central category of “inwardness.” Throughout, I underline that Kierkegaard gave higher status neither to emotion nor reason, taking them as complimentary aspects of human existence and thereby inviting their reunion in the history of philosophy. (shrink)

Nearly all of the scant comparative work on Søren Kierkegaard and Confucius places the two starkly at odds with each other. Kierkegaard is pictured as the paradigmatic exemplar of the Western self: a discrete rights-bearing and volitional atom who is quite alone in the world, while Confucius, by contrast, is the paradigmatic exemplar of the Eastern self: a complex and irreducibly embedded communitarian bundle of relations and rich social roles. In this article, I challenge this oppositional approach, since it is (...) both erroneous and obscures fruitful dialogue between the two on conceptually commensurate problems. I argue (1) that Kierkegaard offers a relational ontology of the self which moves in a Confucian direction, (2) that subjectivity and relational reciprocity are not fundamentally at odds in the two thinkers, (3) that both thinkers value a life of harmonious integration that entails right relation to others, and finally (4) that Confucius’ appeal to Heaven as a source of normativity allows for salutary social critique of prevailing ethical norms and practices, in a way that provides important comparative insights with Kierkegaardian theism. (shrink)

Søren Kierkegaard's thesis, "The Concept of Irony", contains an interesting critique of pure irony. Kierkegaard's critique turns on two main claims: (a) pure irony is an incoherent and thus, unrealizable stance; (b) the pursuit of pure irony is morally enervating, psychologically destructive, and culminates in bondage to moods. In this essay, first I attempt to clarify Kierkegaard's understanding of pure irony as "infinite absolute negativity." Then I set forth his multilayered critique of pure irony. Finally, I consider briefly a distinctly (...) theological component in Kierkegaard's critique. I argue that this feature of Kierkegaard's account can and should be distinguished from the broadly ethical critique of pure irony that I sketch in the second section, even if these components of Kierkegaard's position are found together as a unified whole in "The Concept of Irony". My overall goal in this essay is to reveal the subtlety and plausibility of Kierkegaard's critique of pure irony. I also attempt to disclose the richness of the Hegelian account of ethical life to which Kierkegaard recurs in his thesis. (shrink)

The philosophies of Søren Kierkegaard and Albert Camus have typically been considered as inverted images of each other. Kierkegaard turns to faith in God as a path of redemption from meaninglessness while Camus rejects faith as a form of intellectual suicide and cowardice. I argue that an analysis of key terms of contest—faith and lucidity, revolt and suicide, Abraham and Sisyphus, despair and its overcoming—serves to blur the lines of contrast, making Kierkegaard and Camus much closer in their views of (...) what sort of life we should live in face of the forsakenness of our condition than they seem at first glance. (shrink)