Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Volume II: Historical Introduction, Supplement, Notes, and Index

by Soren Kierkegaard

Publisher:

Princeton University Press

, 1992

Overview

In Philosophical Fragments the pseudonymous author Johannes Climacus explored the question: What is required in order to go beyond Socratic recollection of eternal ideas already possessed by the learner? Written as an afterword to this work, Concluding Unscientific Postscript is on one level a philosophical jest, yet on another it is Climacus’s characterization of the subjective thinker’s relation to the truth of Christianity. At once ironic, humorous, and polemical, this work takes on the “unscientific” form of a mimical-pathetical-dialectical compilation of ideas. Whereas the movement in the earlier pseudonymous writings is away from the aesthetic, the movement in Postscript is away from speculative thought. Kierkegaard intended Postscript to be his concluding work as an author. The subsequent “second authorship” after The Corsair Affair made Postscript the turning point in the entire authorship. Part Two examines the subjective issue of what is involved for the individual in becoming a Christian, and the volume ends with an addendum in which Kierkegaard acknowledges and explains his relation to the pseudonymous authors and their writings. The second volume contains the scholarly apparatus, including a key to references and selected entries from Kierkegaard’s journals and papers.

Product Details

• Title: Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments, Volume II: Historical Introduction, Supplement, Notes, and Index
• Author: Soren Kierkegaard
• Series: Kierkegaard’s Writings
• Volume: II
• Publisher: Princeton University Press
• Print Publication Date: 1992
• Logos Release Date: 2018
• Language: English
• Resources: 1
• Format: Digital › Logos Research Edition
• Subjects: Christianity › Philosophy; Apologetics › 19th century
• ISBNs: 9781400847006, 0691020817, 9780691020822, 9780691020815, 0691020825, 1400847001
• Resource ID: LLS:KKGWRTGS12_2
• Resource Type: Monograph
• Metadata Last Updated: 2024-03-04T23:39:01Z

About Soren Kierkegaard

Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (5 May 1813 – 11 November 1855) was a Danish Christian philosopher, theologian and religious author. He was a critic of idealist intellectuals and philosophers of his time, such as Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling and Karl Wilhelm Friedrich Schlegel; he was also critical of the state and practice of Christianity in his lifetime, primarily that of The Church of Denmark. He is widely considered to be the first existentialist.