Søren Kierkegaard
Truth is subjectivity: one must take the leap of faith.
Søren Kierkegaard (1813 – 1855, Denmark) : existentialism. Kierkegaard does not first ask "what is true?" but "how do I live what I believe?". Against the great systems (Hegel), he defends the single individual, who must choose without guarantees. On AskPhilosophy: 5 reconstructed arguments, 7 quotes checked word for word against the original texts, and 4 common beliefs examined; every text carries an authenticity badge (written by the author, posthumous, student notes, reported, apocryphal).
Why he matters
He is often called the father of existentialism, a word that did not yet exist. Anxiety, despair, choice, the individual facing the crowd: Heidegger, Jaspers, Sartre, Camus and many theologians (Barth, Tillich) start from him. His pseudonymous books are also a unique literary experiment: invented authors, each with his own view of life.
His times
He lived in Copenhagen during the Danish "Golden Age", when Hegel's philosophy was dominant. The son of a rich and very pious merchant, he broke off his engagement to Regine Olsen in 1841, an event that marks his whole work. In 1846 he was mocked by the satirical paper The Corsair. At the end of his life he attacked the official Church of Denmark. He died at 42.
Mind the pseudonyms
In 1846, in a short "First and Last Explanation" signed with his own name, Kierkegaard acknowledged writing the pseudonymous books, but said there is "not a single word of my own" in them, and asked that the pseudonym's name be quoted, not his. On this site we do so: Johannes de silentio, Johannes Climacus, Anti-Climacus, "A"... are presented as the authors of their books.
His positions
click a row to see the evidenceA convinced Christian. At 22 he already seeks "what God wants" him to do. But he rejects proofs of God: for his pseudonym Johannes Climacus, God is not an object to be demonstrated; he is reached only in inwardness.
The question does not interest him in this form. Neither empiricist nor rationalist: for the truths that concern life, all objective inquiry is an endless approximation (Johannes Climacus).
On questions that concern existence (God, immortality) there is no objective certainty, only approximation. Mathematics is certain, but that truth is "indifferent" to an existing person (Johannes Climacus).
Man is a synthesis (finite and infinite, time and eternity, freedom and necessity), and he is spirit: a self that relates itself to itself. There is something eternal in him (Anti-Climacus).
Despair is not a misfortune that befalls us: every instant one is in despair, one "contracts" it oneself, and is responsible for it (Anti-Climacus). His whole work rests on choice.
Ethics applies to everyone, at every instant: it is not each person's invention. But Johannes de silentio asks whether faith can stand above it (Abraham). His Works of Love, signed with his own name, are not yet in our corpus.
Faith begins where thinking leaves off (Johannes de silentio). It is a risk: if I could grasp God objectively, I would not believe (Johannes Climacus). Both sentences belong to pseudonyms, but most readers also see in them Kierkegaard's own position.
There is a given meaning (what God wants of me), but it is worth nothing until it has become a "truth for me", for which I want to live and die.
Almost no one escapes despair, even those who think they are happy (Anti-Climacus). But being able to despair is also man's superiority over the animal.
He defends the "single individual" against the crowd and against reducing everything to the State or society (Johannes de silentio). But he thinks as a believer, not as a political theorist, and remains conservative about the institutions of his time.
A religious ethics, neither a calculation of consequences nor a mere morality of duty. Johannes de silentio, describing Abraham's trial, writes that "duty is the expression of God's will". His Works of Love, signed with his own name, are not yet in our corpus: this classification remains provisional.