Kierkegaard: Existence and identity in a post-secular world

Description

The last few years have seen a change in Kierkegaardian studies. Scholars have now moved away from their sole interest being in the philosopher himself, and have started to analyse the thematic importance of his work. For Alastair Hannay, Søren Kierkegaard is the prime example of a philosopher who dealt with existential themes with passion and yet, within his work, personal problems and those of social unity do not entirely coalesce. Kierkegaard castigated his society for its failure to uphold its Christian values. At the same time however, his personal aim was to justify his own exceptionality by promoting the myth of the ‘single individual’. In this bold new argument, Hannay claims that the distinction between Kierkegaard’s personas was indicative of how fragmented the philosopher’s selfhood was and it is this fractured sense of self that he links to current issues swirling around modern identity politics. For Hannay, the modern manifestations of issues relating to integration, acceptance and identity have already been explored by Søren Kierkegaard in his own personal battles. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Dedication Introduction 1 The message and the messenger 2 Being one self 3 The eternal in a twinkling 4 Communing with God 5 Self, solitude and society 6 Comparisons NOTES BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX