Søren Aabye Kierkegaard
Birth-date: May 5th, 1813 in
Copenhagen, Denmark
dead-Date: November 11th,
1855 (42 years old)
-Father- Michael Pedersen
Kierkegaard
-Mother- anne kierkegaard
-7 children
-raised soren as a shepherd boy
-broke his marriage because he
could not make a happy girl
and returned the ring
-Studied at the school of civic virtue for latin, history, and other strong subjects
“life can only be understood backwards
but it must be lived forwards.”
- Søren kierkegaard
-Dissatisfied by philosophy; wanted a clear understanding of what he was supposed to do and
not what he was supposed to know
-Wrote over 7,000 pages in his journal explaining his method of philosophy and the wills he
was created to do by god
-became serious about furthering his
education after the death of his father
-wrote frequently about his father in
his journal but not about his mother
wrote about Regine (his ex-wife) and
their relationship
-Christianity plays a huge role
Existential Point Of Views
Kierkegaard’s views on life or existence was that it was in all aspects subjective
and ambiguous.
Kierkegaard believed people lived their lives in two ways: aesthetic and ethical.
Aesthetics live there life in search of pleasure while Ethical lives
live a very simple life.
He believed people should defy the accepted practices of society
and if you did that would lead towards a more meaningful life.
Ethical Point-Of-View
Kierkegaard valued God before his own ethics and felt that
ethics never came before the commands of God
Keiredgard also believed that nothing is higher than the
ethics of a community
He believed that ethics and faith are separate mindsets.
Either you live your life by faith or live it by ethics.
Kierkegaard insisted that every person had the ethical
responsibility of the life that he/she lives in
Spiritual History and Point-Of-View
Kierkegaard was a christian and a huge influence on protestant theology in the 20th century.
When Kierkegaard first enrolled at the University of Copenhagen, he started out studying theology, but later devoted himself
to philosophy and literature.
Kierkegaard thought of himself as a religious poet.
Kierkegaard was immersed in values such as sin, guilt, suffering, and individual responsibility in his childhood family home
through his father.
To Kierkegaard the Christian faith wasn’t a matter of ejecting or putting out church dogma, it’s more about individual
subjective passion.
According to Kierkegaard, Christian dogma demonstrates that are offensive to reason.
Aristotle (384BC-322BC) argued that the group is to blame for sin, not the individual. Kierkegaard is one of
many philosophers who argued against him at the time.
Johann Georg Hamann (1730-1788) believes that human self-knowledge limited to itself. Kierkegaard
outlined his limits of self-knowledge off of Hamann.
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831) believes that a person moves the country. Kierkegaard believes
that the humanity and ethics of a person is brushed aside when dealing with a civil society or a country.
Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) believes in a universal ethic whereas Kierkegaard believes in an individual
ethic.
Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775-1854), Kant, and Kierkegaard argued and debated on
“possibility.”
Socrates (470BC-399BC) separated the individual from the religion, but Kierkegaard did the opposite.
5. Other Philosophers’ Influence
Works Cited:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard
https://stockerb.wordpress.com/2007/12/16/kierkegaard-against-the-ethics-of-aristotle/
http://sorenkierkegaard.org/kierkegaard-biography.html
https://www.era.lib.ed.ac.uk/handle/1842/6438
http://www.britannica.com/biography/Soren-Kierkegaard
http://nome.unak.is/nm-marzo-2012/vol-8-no-3-2013/69-conference-paper/440-kierkegaard-s-critique-of-hegelexistentialist-ethics-versus-hegel-s-sittlichkeit-in-the-institutions-of-civil-society-of-the-state
chromeextension://mloajfnmjckfjbeeofcdaecbelnblden/http://www.sorenkierkegaard.nl/artikelen/Engels/054.%20K
ant%20and%20Kierkegaard%20on%20faith.pdf
chromeextension://mloajfnmjckfjbeeofcdaecbelnblden/http://www.raco.cat/index.php/arsbrevis/article/viewFile/2