Soren Kierkegaard
December 30, 2014 at 11:28 am
(This post was last modified: December 30, 2014 at 11:30 am by Mudhammam.)
So, while I was in the philosophy section at Barnes and Nobles the other day, I saw a book called "The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition for Edification and Awakening by Anti-Climacus" (Anti-Climacus was a pseudonym Kierkegaard used). Since I'm waiting for a handful of books to arrive in the mail, and seeing as I just finished my current book, I decided to pick it up. It's only 180 pages or so including introduction and notes, so I figured, perfect, I will have something to hold me over until the other books arrive.
Now I've had an interest in Kierkegaard for a while, since he's considered an existentialist and a pessimist writer, like Schopenhauer (whom Kierkegaard "first read with admiration and mixed appreciation in 1854," a year before Kierkegaard died at the young age of 41 or 42), so I figured there would be a lot to gain from it aside from the Christian elements which could probably be interpreted indifferently.
I'm about half-way through the book and I hate it. I hope this isn't what Kierkegaard's other philosophical works are like. For one, he seems to be, like Pascal has been described, half genius and half mad, but I'm not even really impressed by his philosophizing, and it comes off to me exactly what I imagine an early Sophist would have sounded like. Kierkegaard has a few good lines here and there, but in terms of his despair, while obviously deep, he intellectualizes it in a way only a theologian could (and hence does so as, dare I say, a shitty philosopher), with just enough sense to frustrate the reader. I don't know if anyone else has read his works, or sympathize with my disappointment and annoyance. I guess he wrote against Hegel, so perhaps that's not where my distaste begins (from what I've heard about Hegel's philosophy, I would probably hate it), though I at first thought maybe Hegel's influence was still demonstrative. Then it dawned on me. Whereas Schopenhauer, I think, borrowed from Kant's genius, even though Kant and Schopenhauer were both wrong in many ways, and through it created his own brilliant and beautiful philosophy, perhaps others, like Hegel and Kierkegaard, took it over the deep end and manifested it into something truly stupid.
That's some speculation. I've only read one work by Kant, half of this Kierkegaard thus far, and no Hegel, so I may be entirely wrong, not to mention philosophy is a great deal opinion. Anyway, perhaps someone can help me figure out my angst that I feel at having another 90 pages to read.
Now I've had an interest in Kierkegaard for a while, since he's considered an existentialist and a pessimist writer, like Schopenhauer (whom Kierkegaard "first read with admiration and mixed appreciation in 1854," a year before Kierkegaard died at the young age of 41 or 42), so I figured there would be a lot to gain from it aside from the Christian elements which could probably be interpreted indifferently.
I'm about half-way through the book and I hate it. I hope this isn't what Kierkegaard's other philosophical works are like. For one, he seems to be, like Pascal has been described, half genius and half mad, but I'm not even really impressed by his philosophizing, and it comes off to me exactly what I imagine an early Sophist would have sounded like. Kierkegaard has a few good lines here and there, but in terms of his despair, while obviously deep, he intellectualizes it in a way only a theologian could (and hence does so as, dare I say, a shitty philosopher), with just enough sense to frustrate the reader. I don't know if anyone else has read his works, or sympathize with my disappointment and annoyance. I guess he wrote against Hegel, so perhaps that's not where my distaste begins (from what I've heard about Hegel's philosophy, I would probably hate it), though I at first thought maybe Hegel's influence was still demonstrative. Then it dawned on me. Whereas Schopenhauer, I think, borrowed from Kant's genius, even though Kant and Schopenhauer were both wrong in many ways, and through it created his own brilliant and beautiful philosophy, perhaps others, like Hegel and Kierkegaard, took it over the deep end and manifested it into something truly stupid.
That's some speculation. I've only read one work by Kant, half of this Kierkegaard thus far, and no Hegel, so I may be entirely wrong, not to mention philosophy is a great deal opinion. Anyway, perhaps someone can help me figure out my angst that I feel at having another 90 pages to read.
He who loves God cannot endeavour that God should love him in return - Baruch Spinoza
