God and Passion in Kierkegaard's ClimacusJohannes Corrodi Katzenstein offers a contribution to the current debate on Kierkegaard, mostly concerning the rationality of religious belief and the presumed religious neutrality (autonomy) of philosophical and scientific thought. More specifically, his book is an attempt to relate Kierkegaard's theory of the stages of life (aesthetic, ethical, religious) to issues that have been of utmost concern to Anglo-American (analytical) philosophy, such as the nature of truth, rational knowledge, objectivity, etc. From this angle, Kierkegaard turns out to be not the irrationalist he has often been made into but rather the outspoken witness of a passion that guides all thinking, i.e. the passion to think what cannot be thought. An attempt is made to show that for Kierkegaard, anticipating some of the arguments of contemporary postsecular philosophy, the ideal of pure or autonomous reason inevitably has its basis in a pre-rational, often tacit commitment to an origin whose primary home is in religious faith. Rather than precluding dialogue, awareness of these deeper forces and starting-points of our various philosophical and scientific outlooks is a critical requirement for mutual understanding between secularist and religious perspectives and traditions competing for cultural and political dominance. |
Contents
Acknowledgments | 1 |
An Interested Glance at Disinterested Reason | 26 |
Commitment and Performance | 52 |
Explain or Die | 66 |
Indirect Communication | 80 |
Goods not Among Others | 96 |
ThoughtProject | 111 |
Religious Belief All Over | 114 |
Perfection and Affliction | 141 |
Beyond Subjectivism and Objectivism | 155 |
The Many Faces of PaganBased Thought | 171 |
The One and the Many | 194 |
A Suspended Revocation | 211 |
The Absolute Paradox and Religiousness B | 228 |
247 | |
Theoria Against Terror? | 128 |
Common terms and phrases
absolute abstraction acosmism actual aesthetic approximation-knowledge aspects aspectual assumptions become biblical cern Christianity claim Climacus CLOUSER cognitive conception concern confusion context course creation culture disinterested distinction divine essential eternal happiness everything ex nihilo existence explain G.W.F. Hegel gious God-relationship hermeneutics historical hold human Ibid immanent individual infinite intellectual irreducible issue Kierkegaard kind knowledge laws life-view ligious lives logical matter means metaphysical modern moral nature norms notion objective thought one's oneself pagan pagan-based pantheistic passion PHILLIPS Philosophical Fragments possibilities of sense pre-theoretical presumed presupposes presuppositions principles rational reactions reality reason reductionism reductionist relation reli religion religious belief religious categories religious commitment religious faith religious perspective religious tradition scientific and philosophical secular secularist social Søren Kierkegaard sphere subjective tence theological theoretical theoria theory things thinker thinking thought-possibility tion tive transcendent truth turn ultimate uncon unconditional understanding virtue world-view