Abstract

A hypothetical scholar who came to read Kierkegaard after a thorough study of Hegel, might be struck by the parallelism between many pivotal concepts of Kierkegaard and corresponding concepts in Hegel. Just taking Hegel’s Phenomenology as an example, we note the following similarities: Kierkegaard’s idea of the "eternal moment" and Hegel’s concept of the universal "now," "Absolute Dread" in Kierkegaard’s Concept of Dread, and the "Absolute Fear" of the Slave Self-Consciousness, the three Kierkegaardian Stages and the three Hegelian stages, the opposition to "Historical Proofs" in both Kierkegaard and Hegel, the importance of "the task" in both thinkers, etc., etc. But since Kierkegaard scarcely ever mentions Hegel except to criticize him, such a hypothetical scholar, if his suspicions were aroused, might turn to a book such as Thulstrup’s, for some enlightenment as to just how much influence, overt or covert, Hegel actually had on Kierkegaard’s thinking. But Thulstrup himself has apparently been strongly influenced by some of Kierkegaard’s biases. For example, he states in chapter 5 his sympathy with those scholars who "cannot imagine that such a shrewd genius as Kierkegaard could possibly have let himself be taken in by Hegel". And Thulstrup’s book is concerned precisely with showing how Kierkegaard, in each work that he wrote, managed to avoid being "taken in by Hegel." In some cases he is successful in doing this. For example, in chapter 4 he shows that Kierkegaard’s statement in From the Papers of One Still Living about Hegel’s "great attempt to begin with nothing" shows simply an ignorance of Hegel’s Logic, which begins with Being rather than Nothing. But in other cases, Thulstrup is too cavalier in dismissing any connection.