History Creator / SorenKierkegaard

* AboveGoodAndEvil: Or at least, Above Society's Good and Evil. ''Fear and Trembling'' explores this with Johannes de Silentio's "teleological suspension of the ethical". Roughly speaking, it teaches that a person has an absolute duty to God and that obedience to Him is higher than obeying secular ideas of good and evil, or "social morality". Normally, there is usually overlap between social morality and obedience to God, but there are times when God's commands and social morality clash. If the person recognizes this conflict but, knowing he has an absolute duty to God, chooses to obey God's command anyway, then he suspends obedience to social morality, at least for this one instance, and thus "teleologically suspends the ethical". To apply this to Abraham and Isaac's story, Abraham knows that it is wrong to kill an innocent, let alone his beloved son. However, he also recognizes he has a higher duty to obey God's commands. As he could not give an intelligible ethical justification for the act in terms of social norms, Abraham simply chooses to obey God's command.

He was born in Copenhagen on 5 May 1813 to parents who were well into middle age; Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard was 57 and his mother, Ane Sørensdatter Lund Kierkegaard, 45. His family was plagued by instability, to the point of believing that his family was cursed. For example, only two of their seven children, Søren and his brother Peter, would live past age thirty-four. His father was very influential to him, and he inherited his Lutheran Pietism, his intellectual gifts, and even his melancholy. He then enrolled at the University of Copenhagen to study theology, philosophy, and literature.

Shortly after breaking off the engagement, he turned to writing, producing more than thirty works in twelve years. Kierkegaard's authorship came in two forms. In one form, he wrote using pseudonyms and indirect communication to explore viewpoints that are not his own, intending to help the reader see the false ultimates by which people live their lives. One of these pseudonymous works is ''Fear and Trembling'', in which he, as Johannes de Silentio, comments on the story of Abraham and Isaac. His other form of authorship involves a series of discourses, in which he shows the reader what the Christian ideal really is. These works, Kierkegaard wrote under his own name.

His unrelenting assault on the Danish Church proved too taxing for his health and for his finances. He fainted in the streets of Copenhagen on 2 October 1855 and was subsequently hospitalized. He died on 11 November 1855.

Kierkegaard was an incredibly prolific writer, writing a number of his works using pseudonyms.

* DirectLineToTheAuthor: Kierkegaard uses this as a framing device in ''Either/Or''. There are actually two different layers to the framing device. An editor claims to have found works from two different authors that represent two different views on life, while one of the authors claims within their section to have found writings from another man (known as [[IntentionalHeartbreaker Johannes the Seducer]]). The author claims that the Seducer's writings relate a true narrative about taking their shared viewpoint to the morally-depraved LogicalExtreme. It's a somewhat common interpretation that the writer and the Seducer are the same person.
* {{UsefulNotes/Existentialism}}: Kierkegaard is considered to be the UrExample, as his writings explored themes often associated with existentialism, such as authenticity, freedom, responsibility, death, anxiety, despair, and herd mentality. However, he tended to see himself more as a Christian missionary in Christendom, and his writings just happened to explore the themes that would be associated with existentialism.
* IntentionalHeartbreaker: Kierkegaard has a character in ''Either/Or'' known as "Johannes the Seducer", a man who seduces a woman named Cordelia so he could encourage her to break the relationship. Notably, this is considered so morally bankrupt that two different pseudonyms, the book's "editor" and the section's writer (himself only loosely caring about morality), both take time to disavow the Seducer.

* PaintingTheMedium: This is generally the reason for Kierkegaard's use of pen names. The pseudonyms often express limited views, hinting that the audience needs to look beyond the writing itself to truly understand. This means that although Kierkegaard was a philosopher and an existentialist, his writings are much more literary than might be expected.
** For example, one popular interpretation of Either/Or is that the reader is not supposed to agree with either the aesthetic or the ethical viewpoint, but rather recognise that both are limited and begin to move towards a third sphere, the religious sphere.

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish writer, philosopher, Lutheran theologian, and social critic. He is largely considered to be [[UrExample the first existentialist]], years before the likes of Creator/FriedrichNietzsche and Creator/JeanPaulSartre, and has both religious and secular admirers. He wrote a multitude of works on the Christian religion, morality, psychology, and society using irony, metaphors, parables, and pseudonyms.

-->--'''Søren Kierkegaard''', ''Journals''