A Guide to Søren Kierkegaard’s Life and Philosophy

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813–1855) was a Danish philosopher and theologian who lived and wrote during the nineteenth century. Kierkegaard's writings focused on death, purpose, and the human condition. The philosophers Plato, Kant, and Schelling influenced Kierkegaard’s work. Often considered the father of existentialism, Kierkegaard influenced existentialist philosophers throughout the nineteenth century and twentieth century, including Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre.

Søren Kierkegaard’s life was defined by his dedication to his writing.

• Youth: Søren Kierkegaard was born in Copenhagen, Denmark, in 1813. With the exception of a few trips to Berlin and Sweden, he spent the majority of his life there. Kierkegaard’s father was a successful merchant, but during childhood, Kierkegaard was surrounded by death—all but one of his siblings died young.
  
• University of Copenhagen: As a young man, Søren Kierkegaard attended the University of Copenhagen. During that time, he met a woman named Regine Olsen. They were engaged to be married, but Kierkegaard broke off the engagement with no explanation in 1841. He graduated that same year with a dissertation called On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates (1841).
• First published books: Søren Kierkegaard began publishing books under various pseudonyms, including Johannes Climacus and Johannes de Silentio. His final book of this period was Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments (1846), a critique of the German philosopher Hegel published under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus.
• The Corsair affair: After a bad review of Kierkegaard’s book Stages on Life's Way (1845) was published in a satirical magazine called The Corsair, Kierkegaard fought back with several publications. The back and forth from this controversy ultimately destroyed Kierkegaard’s reputation within Danish society at that time.
• Continued authorship: Kierkegaard broke away from being a pseudonymous author and began publishing works under his real name, including Two Ages: The Age of Revolution and the Present Age, A Literary Review (1846) and For Self-Examination (1851). During this period, Kierkegaard focused many of his writings on the dialectic of Christian faith, including Christian Discourses (1848), The Sickness Unto Death (1849), and Practice in Christianity (1850).
• Conflict with the church: In his later years, Kierkegaard opposed the leaders of the Lutheran Church of Denmark. He wrote about his philosophical issues with Christendom, which he deemed the merging of church and society. Kierkegaard was particularly angered by the words of Danish bishop H.L. Martensen, who praised his predecessor J.P. Mynster. Kierkegaard knew Mynster personally and wrote about his negative opinion on the man and the institution as a whole.
• Death: In 1855, Kierkegaard collapsed in the streets of Copenhagen. He spent a month in the hospital and died in October of that same year at the age of forty-two. In 1859, his only living brother published Kierkegaard’s autobiography, The Point of View for My Work as an Author (1859).

Kierkegaard’s philosophy and writings focused on the concepts of free will, self-expression, and the human experience.

1. 1. Anxiety and despair: Kierkegaard believed that anxiety and despair were essential to the human experience. He asserted that human beings must make choices based on free will despite their anxiety.
2. 2. Subjectivity: Kierkegaard used the term “single individual” to describe what he saw as the subjectivity of each person’s experience. Kierkegaard believed that truth was defined by each individual based on their unique perspective.
3. 3. Absurdism: With an existentialist mindset, Kierkegaard saw reality as absurd and unexplainable. Unlike the rationalist philosophers before him, Kierkegaard believed that reason was insufficient to sort out the absurdity of human existence.
   
4. 4. Aesthetics: With his early writings, Kierkegaard explored themes of sensuality, beauty, and living for the moment. One section of Kierkegaard’s first book, Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843), is an exploration of romance called “The Seducer’s Diary.” Kierkegaard viewed aestheticism as the first stage of development for individuals.
5. 5. Ethics: Kierkegaard classified the second stage of individual development as ethical. In his book For Self-Examination (1851), Kierkegaard described how he believed human beings must identify themselves within a larger society and behave ethically within it.
6. 6. Religion: In his later writings, Kierkegaard added a third and final stage for his concept of human development—a religious stage. Although Kierkegaard often criticized religious leaders whom he viewed as dogmatic, his writings explored his belief in God, Jesus Christ, and his idea that individuals should take a leap of faith for their spiritual development. In Fear and Trembling (1843), Kierkegaard retells the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac to explore the relationship between religion and ethics.

To learn more about Kierkegaard’s philosophy, explore some of his famous quotes.

1. 1. On anxiety: “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” —The Concept of Anxiety (1844)
2. 2. On human will: “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” —Edifying Discourses in Diverse Spirits (1847), also known as Upbuilding Discourses in Various Spirits
3. 3. On freedom of speech: “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought, which they seldom use.” —Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843)
4. 4. On love: “Love is all, it gives all, and it takes all.” —Works of Love (1847)
5. 5. On poetry: “What is a poet? An unhappy person who conceals profound anguish in his heart but whose lips are so formed that as sighs and cries pass over them they sound like beautiful music.” —Either/Or: A Fragment of Life (1843)

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