Can an atheist gain anything by reading Kirky? Is there a secular interpretation of his work?
Can an atheist gain anything by reading Kirky? Is there a secular interpretation of his work?
Josiah Russell
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Landon Campbell
You came to the right place, OP. I happen to be an expert on this topic
:^)
I'd argue Kierkegaard is actually better read secular. The point of the leap of faith and his dialectics is not "God is gr8" but "some form of faith is necessary to overcome the despair of finitude".
It doesn't need to be a religious faith, but something Camus would later term "philosophical suicide". Kierkegaard's reason for the leap of faith can be summed up:
Because the individual truth sphere lies inside of the universal truth sphere, we must have faith that the individual is higher than the universal. This paradox is what, though not understanding the object, allows us to overcome the despair of finitude and learn to understand ourselves.
The despair of finitude comes about when the finite and infinite elements of a human being get thrown off balance.
Kierkegaard also did a lot on why we experience things like angst, despair, anxiety, anguish, boredom, etc.
He's brilliant to read just for the writing, or just because he's influential. There's a section near the end of (I think) a chapter on the aesthetic validity of marriage in Either/Or. which stuck with me.
It's a Serbian myth about a hungry giant. Has a good message about prayer, and how it's not the point that it influences God but the pray-er.
You can read this in a secular way too, and he does, about how preparation for the existential is half the battle.
Good stuff. The great thing about Kierkegaard is that he *never* forces any message on the reader. He lets you come to your own conclusions. He's a cool cat.
Caleb Flores
Damn philo-user, thats some heavy stuff.
Well you've now you actually got me EXCITED to read him. If I understood you right. we have comprehend and consider things greater than ourselves such as god/universe to properly consider lives purpose?
Grayson Davis
Precisely!
Juan Gonzalez
Thats awesome, do you know who else he inspired?
Samuel Reed
The entire branch of existential philosophy! And not only that, but the entirety of postmodern theology, Derrida, Wittgenstein and Adorno.
I haven't even gotten into the most interesting part, which is his dialectics, but I think I'll let you get into that. I know an essay on it which is britty gud.
Isaac Clark
Thanks philo-user! I was little concerned it wouldn't make sense to a non-Christain like me :)
Ryan Sanchez
Stop talking to yourself, Rebel.
Gavin Smith
Certainly you will! Well, Kierkegaard is hard(ish, not nearly as much as Hegel or Kant) to read but not because of his religion! Albert Camus really loved Kierkegaard and he was very much an atheist.
Caleb Flores
Well I do want to read Camus. Anything I should read before Kirky?
Christopher Sanchez
I think it may help to
1. Take it slowly and know his terminology, maybe find a Hegelian dictionary on the net
2 (optional). Read Hegel for maximum e.z's
3. Read an intro on aesthetics
Henry Adams
I guess it entirely depends on the book you're reading though.
I would first read Fear and Trembling which is really easy to read. You practically only need to know what the word "teleological" means.
Either/Or is the one you wanna take slow.
Sickness Unto Death's intro is a parody of Hegel so don't feel the need to take it seriously tbh.
James Thompson
How does this relate to leftism again?
Mason Peterson
Not directly, but we used to have philosophy threads everyday, man. Now theory threads slide off fast.
Kierkegaard had a huge distaste for bourgeois culture, and attended lectures with Bakunin and Engels. He never advocated anything political at all because he wasn't interested in it, but I think he would be a commie if he was.
Also, you gotta understand most the existentialists he inspired were rad-left.
谢谢
Sebastian Torres
...
Henry Ortiz
Well its much easier to troll leftypol/ with dumb shit, or start fights between randoms
Luke Sanchez
That's because leftypol is full of 白痴
Leo Long
ITT:REDDIT_OBESITY talks to himself.
Oliver Campbell
ITT: Salty anons experiencing cognitive dissonance over the fact that somebody they don't like has actually read a book trying to derail a perfectly good philosophy thread in favour of keeping on the never ending train of idpol and veganism threads.
Austin Barnes
Ian Turner
Why would anybody read poor man's Nietzsche when they could read the real thing?
Jack Barnes
There is literally nothing wrong with discussing Kierkegaard other indirectly related philosophers on lefty/pol/.
Nicholas Gomez
Confirmed for never having read Kierkegaard at all.
Levi Sullivan
Why would anybody read poor man's Stirner when they could read the real thing?
Kevin Barnes
Why would anybody read poor man's Ayn Rand when they could just read the real thing?
Benjamin Edwards
Kek'd
You made my day user
Ethan Walker
You ruined the joke.
Henry Roberts
kys
Joseph Long
Confirmed for having read all the wikipedia articles relating to kierkegaard
Levi Kelly
Or maybe, just maybe, I've actually read Kierkegaard. You think about that?
Jace Bell
Say I've never read any philosophy in my life, would fear and trembling still be easy to understand?
Ryan Murphy
If you've read the biblical story of abraham and isaac, you'd be absolutely fine to read fear and trembling no matter your background in philosophy
Cameron Myers
I've thought about it, reddit. It seems highly unlikely.
Ethan Mitchell
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Camden Russell
Can we just kill this meme once and for all?
Jaxson Brooks
Back to reddit with you, reddit.
Henry Reyes
...
Levi Brooks
Interesting talk by a philosopher on Kierkegaard at worldofideas.wbur.org
Justin Kelly
Yeah, I think that's somewhere near the end of Either/Or. It leads onto him saying about how to have faith is at the same time to be deepest within doubt. Which is part of the reason I really hate apologists and the whole reasonable faith crowd.
Levi Martinez
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Alexander Perry
Kierkegaard on the right pretty much cancels all the shit stuff out.
Go get syphilis, NEETzsche.
Dylan Butler
Kierkegaard was a reactionary fuck.
Josiah Martinez
We get it user, you think everyone's a fucking reactionary.
Dominic Nguyen
No, not really. There's plenty of individuals that orthodox Marxists would identify as counter-revolutionary that I'd disagree with.
If Kierkegaard wasn't a reactionary (even though he inspired scores of them) then he was an apolitcal liberal - which is even worse.
Jordan Flores
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Andrew Gomez
Works of Love is literally a reactionary screed against Communism.
Liam Nguyen
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Nolan Rodriguez
Where the fuck did you get that lmao
Ian Hill
Bull. Shit. It's about agape. It doesn't even mention communism from what I remember.
Read a fucking book.
Josiah Sanders
You are cancer.
Parker Russell
[anxious reaction lmao]
[looks up wikipedia]
[gets frustrated]
Cameron Russell
Oh please. Kierky's bourgeois individualism was a reaction against Proudhon, et al. I imagine if he had read Marx, his work would have been even more reactionary and unbearable.
Also, Kierkegaard himself describes portions of Works of Love as being a polemic against communism. "Read a fucking book" indeed.
Everything is politics. It can't be avoided. Certainly not by being a fucking hipster that reads Kierkegaard.
Christian Wilson
See? Almost immediately descends into memeing
Thomas Harris
Well Captain Kirk didn't seem to think so if his ideas are only related to the non-political, as are others
Tyler Taylor
no, I asked because it's bullshit. You didn't answer because you were wrong.
now stop covering your ass and tell me where you got this bullshit notion that Kierkegaard was reactionary from.
Confirmed for never reading Kierkegaard. Disregarded. Kierkegaard spent much time criticising the hypocrisy of bourgeois life.
It as a polemic against a lot of things, communist movements included.
Get over yourself.
William Turner
Oh and to prove my point, because admittedly works of love is one of the few books of Kierkegaard I haven't read, and its one of his less popular,
He describes it as a polemic against MANY things.
So yes, I stand by my original statement:
READ A FUCKING BOOK