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cursedartichoke's review
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
i read only fear & trembling and never finished the last ~30pgs, but i spent a month reading it and discussing it for a book club and im counting the credit lol
ryberst's review
5.0
Fear and Trembling was a re-read for me (a repetition?) and so I will not go into detail. I will simply say that it is a great work, a must read in philosophy, and probably the most well known of Kierkegaard's (although not necessarily). Repetition was a new one for me and was, I think, better than Fear and Trembling. Kierkegaard's pseudonym, Constantin Constantius, discusses and shares the story of a young meloncholiac who falls passionately in love, yet, from the start introduces tragedy into the relationship. Constantius shares several letters from the young man, tracing his development after the break up. Throughout, Constantius explores the possibility of repetition, the same but opposite movement of the Greek concept of recollection that establishes ones self in the flux of time.
paigewetzel's review
5.0
As with my previous of the book, Kierkegaard is hard. There's nothing easy about the manner in which the man writes. However, I deeply appreciate his reflections on faith and his strong desire to address the problems he identified in his Danish community. It is one I see present within my American one as well. It was refreshing to hear faith talked about again, not as a mere stepping stone, but as an end in itself. I'm sure I'l revisit this book and gain even more insight into the cryptic mind that is Soren Kierkegaard, but for now I'm just enjoying the mystery of it all.
davidcalhoun's review
4.0
I first read this in college, many years ago now. I really liked the rebellious spirit in Kierkegaard, but became somewhat skeptical of his philosophy. His emphasis on the subjective/faith/individual experience over the objective/ethical/universal experience seemed to me something that could lead to a sort of moral relativism, if taken to an extreme. But I think my understanding was a bit off the mark. I don't think Kierkegaard was saying we should entirely throw away philosophy and science, and other objective/absolute things, especially ethical things like our judicial system and such, where we have to hold people's actions accountable with some standard. No, I think K was just saying that we expect too much out of philosophy and science, as there are parts of the human experience, such as faith, that just cannot be approached by them in the same way (namely, with reason).
In this book K is talking specifically about faith, and how folks in his day have tried to analyze faith as if it were a hard science. Consequently faith in that framework becomes something foreign and unrelatable: something objective, universalizable, something which can be reasoned about with some Hegelian dialectic of some sort (Hegel was the big philosopher of K's day, and much of K's writing consequently rails against him). It short, faith in their perspective becomes something that can be analyzed away, and all the mystery and challenge inherent in it surgically and scientifically extracted.
K explains that no, faith is not this at all. All of this scientific and philosophical rationalizing misses the mark, and worse, shields modern day folks from the lessons and the challenges of faith. Especially challenging passages in the Bible such as Abraham being called to sacrifice Isaac, which is the topic if the entire book. Or other passages, such as Jesus challenging us to "hate" our own family and friends in order to follow him. These passages are conveniently passed over by the church of K's day, and arguably the churches of our day as well.
These are meant to be challenges to be worked out by every individual, says K. Those working out these challenges are knights of faith, and every single knight of faith must figure out their way individually, not even with the help of other knights of faith. This is impossible, because the subjective challenge of faith cannot be shared, or else then it would become objectified (i.e. into something not subjective). The experience is meant to be totally individual and subjective.
In a broader sense, K ushered in a philosophy of existentialism, which was a reaction to the philosophy and science of his day. I think the reason his philosophy remains attractive to this day is that there is still a dominant trend away from the individual experience, and more towards the objective and rational sciences. Look no futher than the attitudes towards STEM subjects versus the humanities in schools, the latter of which have been on a downhill trend ever since I've been in school, and probably before that. Preparing students for STEM studying and STEM careers has been a singular focus, towards what K would call the absolute, the objective, and what we would call the "hard" sciences. Humanities subjects in comparison are called "soft" and are scoffed at because they don't prepare people for jobs. There is little appreciation for how things like art, music and literature can enrich individuals and let them understand more about life than science, technology, engineering, and math. School has become something less about creating single individuals, and more for creating cogs to be placed in a big machine, for creating parts in a whole objective system that all works together.
So many folks who may study these STEM subjects and later become disaffected individuals may end up turning to art, music, literature, philosophy, etc. In search of some more personal understanding that wasn't taught in school. This would support K's thinking, that there are some things in life that just cannot be rationalized and sanitized like STEM subjects.
A big summary: the mystery of faith cannot be scientifically analyzed and rationalized away, as it is something for each individual to work out on their own. In a bigger sense, there are many facets of the human experience such as faith, and they cannot be explained or approached by big dominant ways of thinking, such as philosophy (in K's day) or the sciences.
In this book K is talking specifically about faith, and how folks in his day have tried to analyze faith as if it were a hard science. Consequently faith in that framework becomes something foreign and unrelatable: something objective, universalizable, something which can be reasoned about with some Hegelian dialectic of some sort (Hegel was the big philosopher of K's day, and much of K's writing consequently rails against him). It short, faith in their perspective becomes something that can be analyzed away, and all the mystery and challenge inherent in it surgically and scientifically extracted.
K explains that no, faith is not this at all. All of this scientific and philosophical rationalizing misses the mark, and worse, shields modern day folks from the lessons and the challenges of faith. Especially challenging passages in the Bible such as Abraham being called to sacrifice Isaac, which is the topic if the entire book. Or other passages, such as Jesus challenging us to "hate" our own family and friends in order to follow him. These passages are conveniently passed over by the church of K's day, and arguably the churches of our day as well.
These are meant to be challenges to be worked out by every individual, says K. Those working out these challenges are knights of faith, and every single knight of faith must figure out their way individually, not even with the help of other knights of faith. This is impossible, because the subjective challenge of faith cannot be shared, or else then it would become objectified (i.e. into something not subjective). The experience is meant to be totally individual and subjective.
In a broader sense, K ushered in a philosophy of existentialism, which was a reaction to the philosophy and science of his day. I think the reason his philosophy remains attractive to this day is that there is still a dominant trend away from the individual experience, and more towards the objective and rational sciences. Look no futher than the attitudes towards STEM subjects versus the humanities in schools, the latter of which have been on a downhill trend ever since I've been in school, and probably before that. Preparing students for STEM studying and STEM careers has been a singular focus, towards what K would call the absolute, the objective, and what we would call the "hard" sciences. Humanities subjects in comparison are called "soft" and are scoffed at because they don't prepare people for jobs. There is little appreciation for how things like art, music and literature can enrich individuals and let them understand more about life than science, technology, engineering, and math. School has become something less about creating single individuals, and more for creating cogs to be placed in a big machine, for creating parts in a whole objective system that all works together.
So many folks who may study these STEM subjects and later become disaffected individuals may end up turning to art, music, literature, philosophy, etc. In search of some more personal understanding that wasn't taught in school. This would support K's thinking, that there are some things in life that just cannot be rationalized and sanitized like STEM subjects.
A big summary: the mystery of faith cannot be scientifically analyzed and rationalized away, as it is something for each individual to work out on their own. In a bigger sense, there are many facets of the human experience such as faith, and they cannot be explained or approached by big dominant ways of thinking, such as philosophy (in K's day) or the sciences.
joshperna's review
2.0
In an attempt to gain a cursory understanding of famous philosophers, I picked up Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling. The writing, which is vivid yet incredibly dense, tends to amble on without organization, which led to a very cursory and quick reading of the material. Perhaps another day, Kierkegaard.
tdwightdavis's review
5.0
I loved Fear and Trembling but Repetition didn't really do it for me. Don't get me wrong, this probably has a lot more to do with me than with Kierkegaard. This is the kind of book I see myself coming back to over and over again seeking to understand.
This translation is fantastic and beautiful. I don't think I've ever read any philosophy or theology that is as beautifully written as Kierkegaard's, and this translation is very literary and beautiful.
This translation is fantastic and beautiful. I don't think I've ever read any philosophy or theology that is as beautifully written as Kierkegaard's, and this translation is very literary and beautiful.
rawan930's review against another edition
5.0
i adore this/these books. i’ll re-read them again and again and never tire. they’re so well written and kierkegaard is such a sad soft boy i just want to hug him and tell him he isn’t going to hell, to take a breath. sigh.
rwcarter's review against another edition
3.0
Full disclosure, this is the actual book I read but I wanted to separate my reviews of F&T and Sickness so I marked F&T as its own book. This will be my thoughts on Sickness Unto Death.
First off, as one of the relatively few primary philosophy texts I've read, Sickness gave me quite a hard time, at least in the beginning. SK's definition of self is one of the most convoluted, twisting, circular sentences I've ever read and I eventually had to give up deciphering it so I could read the rest of his work. That said, I got the impression that SK's self is really a combination of body (finite) and soul (infinite) but in the sense that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The self is constituted by the relationship between body and soul and how it interacts with itself (kinda meta, right?). SK's self is important because that is how he goes on to define his various different types of despair, which was probably the more interesting of the two parts.
For SK, despair is the sickness [that results in] death; not necessarily death in a bodily sense, but rather in a spiritual sense. Everyone is in some form of despair all the time, some of which can be quite deceptive. That said, the common factor underlying all forms of despair is the inability of one to truly actualize their self. For some reason or another (SK lists quite a few) the individual is behaving or thinking things that are counter to their true nature. The aim is to, before God, self-actualize and enter into a private relationship with Him. Without going through all the types he lists, I'll pick out a few that stood out to me. First there are the despairs of possibility and necessity. The former is common enough: there are so many things that you could be that you're too busy exploring them or getting excited about them to actually become them. SK says that here "the self runs away from itself", hoping to chase all the possibilities available to it. The latter (despair over necessity) was the more interesting one for me. This is referring to things like Philistinism or anyone with a profound lack of faith (i.e. things *have* to be a certain way). SK talks about how probability is actually antithetical to possibility by "carrying [possibility] like a prisoner in a cage". He relates this to his concept of the absurd (which we saw in F&T) and says how all humans know that their destruction (death) is inevitable (a necessity), but its faith (possibility) that they use to not live in despair at all times. The belief that the universe (God) acts of its own will that is unpredictable to us is a source of hope (possibility) in the face of cold, hard necessity.
He goes on to talk about conscious and unconscious despair and as awareness of despair increases, so too does the suffering and proximity to God. The idea is eventually to humble yourself before God and allow him to help you with your despair. This line of thought continues into the much less interesting Part Second about sin. SK says that despair is sin and that it is a sin that is committed at every instant, so that only God can deliver us from it. I found this chapter circuitous and not incredibly valuable, especially when compared to the psychological analysis SK presented in Part First.
The bits that appealed to me in both F&T and Sickness were definitely the parts that smelled of existentialism. Interestingly, I encountered existentialism in a sort of reverse chronological order, reading SK (the Father of Existentialism) last. Something that really rubbed me wrong with SK that isn't the case in Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and others is that the Absurd is represented by God and has a will. Maybe this is the part of me that SK talks about feeling "offense" at Christianity. The offense comes from people unwilling to accept help from all-powerful Father and unwilling to humble themselves before Him. Maybe that's me. At any rate, I'd much rather prefer to place the individual above God, blasphemous though it may be, because at the end of the day, that's all I have. I live my own life and if the universe doesn't have any meaning, maybe I can use that to add some to my life, by contrast.
All in all, definitely a challenging read, but glad I finally got to read the Father of Existentialism.
First off, as one of the relatively few primary philosophy texts I've read, Sickness gave me quite a hard time, at least in the beginning. SK's definition of self is one of the most convoluted, twisting, circular sentences I've ever read and I eventually had to give up deciphering it so I could read the rest of his work. That said, I got the impression that SK's self is really a combination of body (finite) and soul (infinite) but in the sense that the whole is more than the sum of its parts. The self is constituted by the relationship between body and soul and how it interacts with itself (kinda meta, right?). SK's self is important because that is how he goes on to define his various different types of despair, which was probably the more interesting of the two parts.
For SK, despair is the sickness [that results in] death; not necessarily death in a bodily sense, but rather in a spiritual sense. Everyone is in some form of despair all the time, some of which can be quite deceptive. That said, the common factor underlying all forms of despair is the inability of one to truly actualize their self. For some reason or another (SK lists quite a few) the individual is behaving or thinking things that are counter to their true nature. The aim is to, before God, self-actualize and enter into a private relationship with Him. Without going through all the types he lists, I'll pick out a few that stood out to me. First there are the despairs of possibility and necessity. The former is common enough: there are so many things that you could be that you're too busy exploring them or getting excited about them to actually become them. SK says that here "the self runs away from itself", hoping to chase all the possibilities available to it. The latter (despair over necessity) was the more interesting one for me. This is referring to things like Philistinism or anyone with a profound lack of faith (i.e. things *have* to be a certain way). SK talks about how probability is actually antithetical to possibility by "carrying [possibility] like a prisoner in a cage". He relates this to his concept of the absurd (which we saw in F&T) and says how all humans know that their destruction (death) is inevitable (a necessity), but its faith (possibility) that they use to not live in despair at all times. The belief that the universe (God) acts of its own will that is unpredictable to us is a source of hope (possibility) in the face of cold, hard necessity.
He goes on to talk about conscious and unconscious despair and as awareness of despair increases, so too does the suffering and proximity to God. The idea is eventually to humble yourself before God and allow him to help you with your despair. This line of thought continues into the much less interesting Part Second about sin. SK says that despair is sin and that it is a sin that is committed at every instant, so that only God can deliver us from it. I found this chapter circuitous and not incredibly valuable, especially when compared to the psychological analysis SK presented in Part First.
The bits that appealed to me in both F&T and Sickness were definitely the parts that smelled of existentialism. Interestingly, I encountered existentialism in a sort of reverse chronological order, reading SK (the Father of Existentialism) last. Something that really rubbed me wrong with SK that isn't the case in Camus, Sartre, de Beauvoir, and others is that the Absurd is represented by God and has a will. Maybe this is the part of me that SK talks about feeling "offense" at Christianity. The offense comes from people unwilling to accept help from all-powerful Father and unwilling to humble themselves before Him. Maybe that's me. At any rate, I'd much rather prefer to place the individual above God, blasphemous though it may be, because at the end of the day, that's all I have. I live my own life and if the universe doesn't have any meaning, maybe I can use that to add some to my life, by contrast.
All in all, definitely a challenging read, but glad I finally got to read the Father of Existentialism.
sentient_meat's review
5.0
Kierkegaard is a genius. This book and the thoughts contained with in are the reasons I am not a Christian.