Anyone ever read any Soren Kierkegaard?

He just might be my new favorite philosopher. I think his work is absolutely brilliant, and to me it has a decidedly "Eastern" flair to it - lots of talk about inwardness, subjectivity, direct experience, paradox... Existentialism, although clearly its own beast altogether, has always struck me as being somewhat influenced by Eastern thought, and Kierkegaard has sometimes been called the father of Existentialism, after all.

Any thoughts?

 

Yeah, but I like John Paul Sartre better, his book Being and Nothingness was mind boggling.

 

I'm reading a book on existentialism, and so far one of the most interesting things i've read is when the author compared and contrasted the works of Dostoevsky and Kierkegaard. I like him, and i think his writing style is actaully quite reminiscent to my own, but he definitely isn't my favorite philosopher that i've read. Even though it's sorta of the point of his writing, he can be too dark for me.

Edit to say: If you want some good reading, also at times eastern-influenced, i suggest Jung or (Erik) Fromm. While neither are really existentialists, they have been my favorites to read for some time now.

 

Im just finishing Being and Nothingness, I bought it last week and have a few 50 pages or so left. Im going to re-read it in a couple of months though. Have any of you guys read Critique of Dialectical Reason by Sartre? Personally I agree with the quote that Philosophy will clip and angel's wings. But I still get into it every once in a while.

 

I've read about him.