Kierkegaard’s ’concluding Unscientific Postscript’: A Critical Guide

This page intentionally left blank KIERKEGAARD’S CONCLUDING UNSCIENTIFIC POSTSCRIPT Søren Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript has provoked a lively variety of divergent interpretations for a century and a half. It has been both celebrated and condemned as the chief inspiration for twentieth-century existential thought, as a subversive parody of philosophical argument, as a critique of mass society, as a forerunner of phenomenology and of postmodern relativism, and as an appeal for a renewal of religious commitment. These new essays written by international Kierkegaard scholars offer a plurality of critical approaches to this fundamental text of existential philosophy. They cover hotly debated topics such as the tension between the Socraticphilosophical and the Christian-religious; the identity and personality of Kierkegaard’s pseudonym “Johannes Climacus”; his conceptions of paradoxical faith and of passionate understanding; his relation to his contemporaries and to some of his more distant predecessors; and, last but not least, his pertinence to our present-day concerns. rick anthony furtak is Associate Professor of Philosophy at Colorado College. His publications include Wisdom in Love: Kierkegaard and the Ancient Quest for Emotional Integrity (2005) and Rilke’s “Sonnets to Orpheus” (2007). cambridge critical guides Titles published in this series: Hegel’s Phenomenology of Spirit: A Critical Guide edited by dean moyar and michael quante Mill’s On Liberty: A Critical Guide edited by c. l. ten Kant’s Idea for a Universal History with a Cosmopolitan Aim: A Critical Guide edited by am´e lie oksenberg rorty and james schmidt Kant’s Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals: A Critical Guide edited by jens timmermann Kant’s Critique of Practical Reason: A Critical Guide edited by andrews reath and jens timmermann Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations: A Critical Guide edited by arif ahmed Kierkegaard’s Concluding Unscientific Postscript: A Critical Guide edited by rick anthony furtak KIERKEGAARD’S Concluding Unscientific Postscript A Critical Guide edited by R ICK ANT H O NY F U RTAK Colorado College CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521897983 © Cambridge University Press 2010 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First