An Introduction To Kierkegard, by Peter Vardy

I must admit that among philosophers that I have not tended to read much of the writings of the gloomy but alarmingly Nathanish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard.  This book certainly does a good job at introducing the man and his thinking to an audience of readers that is at least somewhat interested in philosophy.  If this subject is at all appealing to you, this book is a worthwhile one to read, not only because it is brief (although that helps) but also because it manages to convey something of the seriousness of Kierkegaard’s thinking and gives someone a reason to read about him even if his fragmentary and not very systematic writing largely focused on generalizing universal truths and general abstractions from his own painful personal experience.  Given that I am someone whose writing is similarly fragmentary and similarly personal, I found a lot to relate to here and can certainly view Kierkegaard with empathy, even if I do not view his life or his philosophy as entirely a success.  Still, if you are the sort of person whose fierce wit and stern sense of right and wrong alienate you from the general population, you will find yourself reading about a kindred soul here.

This short book of just over 100 pages is divided into eleven short chapters.  Beginning with a preface, abbreviations, and an introduction, the author then discusses Kierkegaard’s life as being essential to understanding his philosophy (1).  After that there is a discussion of the relationship between faith and reason (2) in Kierkegaard’s thought as well as tricky nature of truth (3), views which are frequently misunderstood and misrepresented.  After that the author spends some time talking about Kierkegaard’s view of the aesthetic (4), ethical (5), and religious (6) states of being that people can find themselves in, as well as the thorny question of ethics and the relationship between God and man (7) that was all-important to him.  The author then discusses the subjective truth of the God-relationship (8) as well as the works of love (9) that demonstrate that relationship.  The author then looks at the implications of Kierkegaard’s thought on the question of inter-religious dialogue, where sincere followers of different faiths may frequently find themselves more similar to each other than to insincere followers of their own faiths (10) as well as the unpleasant relationship between Kierkegaard and the church (13), after which the book ends with suggestions for further reading and an index.

Despite being a rather self-absorbed and almost solipsistic sort of philosopher in terms of his interests and focus, Kierkegaard is an important philosopher for the contemporary age, especially as a critic of the complacency of the contemporary church and the desire people have of using religion to push away vulnerability.  Kierkegaard was properly a critic of the way that religion and corrupt governments tend to become entangled and if he was not exactly the most winsome of people, his understanding of the ethical life is something that can speak powerfully to our own choices and responsibilities.  Unfortunately, the man himself was unable to commit to marrying a girl he had groomed from her early teenage years and thus attain the ethical life himself, and he died rather young and rather disastrously, unable to be on good terms with the Danish church and a subject of mockery among his fellow Danish citizens thanks to his waspish temper and frequent and public clashes with the press and religious authorities.  Again, Kierkegaard is a philosopher it is easier to respect than he is a man who is easy to be liked, and even if we may not always appreciate the way he lived or the choices he made or the hostility with others that marked his days, his thinking does challenge us and sometimes we need a stiff challenge.