Sren Kierkegaard

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Sören Kierkegaard

• The Melancholy Dane

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Sören Kierkegaard (1813-1855)

• Born to a wealthy family, although his father
  worked his way up from peasantry.
• Father was a stern, exacting, but God fearing
  man.
• Regine Olsen
• The 1st existentialist

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Truth and Subjectivity

• Kierkegaard viewed modern epistemology misguided.
  The question is not What can I know? but What
  Shall I do?
• We must choose. Called The Heretical Imperative
  by sociologist Peter Berger.
• All choices lead to dread and despair.
• Truth is subjectivity. One becomes an authentic
  person by making choice concerning what to
  believe and how to believe.

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Decision and Dread

• Why does choice produce dread?
• Problem One Self-Consciousness
• Problem Two In choosing one alternative, you
  must rule out other alternatives. You can imagine
  what life would have been like under different
  circumstances.
• Problem Three How do I know that I have made the
  right choice?

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Faith As Solution

• Only faith can put an end to dread.
• This faith must be placed in God.
• The infinite qualitative distinction between time
  and eternity.
• Faith as a leap into the darkness.

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Fear and Trembling

• Abraham was characterized by infinite
  resignation to God which is the precursor to
  faith.
• By faith Abraham believed in the irrational and
  the impossible and thus was righteous.