An Analysis of Soren Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling

ISBN-13: 9781912127740 / Angielski / Miękka / 2017 / 98 str.

Brittany Pheiffer Noble

Opis

Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard’s 1843 book Fear and Trembling shows precisely why he is regarded as one of the most significant and creative philosophers of the nineteenth century.

Creative thinkers can be many things, but one of their common attributes is an ability to redefine, reframe and reconsider problems from novel angles. In Kierkegaard’s case, he chose to approach the problems of faith and ethics in a deliberately artful and non-systematic way. Writing under the pseudonym “John the Silent,” he declared that he was “nothing of a philosopher,” but an “amateur,” wanting to write poetically and elegantly about the things that fascinated him. While Fear and Trembling is very much the work of a philosopher, Kierkegaard’s protests showed his intent to take a different path, approaching his topic like no one else before him.

The book goes on to ask what the real nature of our personal relationship with God might be, and how faith might interact with ethics. What, Kierkegaard asks, can we make of God asking Abraham to sacrifice his only son, and of Abraham obeying? Arguing the unorthodox position that in following God’s incomprehensible will Abraham had acted ethically, Kierkegaard set out the parameters of a moral argument that remains strikingly novel over a 150 years later.

What is the nature of our personal relationship with God? That’s the core question of Fear and Trembling, published in 1843.

Spis treści

Ways in to the text  Who was Søren Kierkegaard?  What does Fear and Trembling Say?  Why does Fear and Trembling Matter?  Section 1: Influences  Module 1: The Author and the Historical Context  Module 2: Academic Context  Module 3: The Problem  Module 4: The Author's Contribution  Section 2: Ideas  Module 5: Main Ideas  Module 6: Secondary Ideas  Module 7: Achievement  Module 8: Place in the Author's Work  Section 3: Impact　  Module 9: The First Responses  Module 10: The Evolving Debate  Module 11: Impact and Influence Today  Module 12: Where Next?  Glossary of Terms  People Mentioned in the Text  Works Cited

O autorze

Brittany Pheiffer Noble is a graduate student at Columbia University and holds a Masters degree from Yale University’s Divinity School, where she studied Religion and Theology. Her research focuses on Literary and Aesthetic theory, alongside Theology and History. She is the translator of Arab Orthodox Christians Under the Ottomans 1516–1831 (2016) and has taught at Sciences Po, Columbia and Dartmouth.