Søren Kierkegaard - The First Existentialist

Does anybody else find it interesting that Søren Kierkegaard was essentially the first existentialist philosopher, and yet existentialism afterwards was a dominately secular philosophy?

 

It is interesting, I think though that the role of Nietzsche may be important, although he was not really an existentialist. The idea that 'God is dead' compared to Kierkegaard's Christian practice is possibly more compatible with more modern, secular inclinations.

 

Wouldn't you say Hamlet was? Elements of existentialism can be traces back to Aristotle.

Dyodor Dostoyevsky was a distinct existentialist with his work Notes from the Underground. x

 

As an Absurdist, I think that Kierkegaard came close to, but never really fully understood The Absurd. He never could abandon a "leap of faith" no matter if it was religion or false hope in humanity's superiority over nature. So, it makes perfect sense that he was religious, because he was not aware of the 'meat and potatoes' of The Absurd.

 

I think it's important to be careful about applying the word 'existentialist' to Kierkegaard. It only came into use as we know it today with the work of Jean-Paul Sartre. While Sartre does deal with a lot of questions and concepts first fleshed out by Kierkegaard, Kierkegaard can't quite be called an existentialist. He's the 'father of existentialism' only insofar as he dealt with existentialist themes, but he doesn't fit neatly into the category himself.

As for existentialism being dominantly secular, I think we should also be wary about making this claim. There are some very influential Christian existentialist philosophers - Paul Tillich, Lev Shestov, Karl Jaspers, and Gabriel Marcel, for instance. Dostoevsky and Kafka can be found in the grey area between religious and non-religious existentialists. In fact, Camus - one of the most popular existentialists - reserved the label 'existentialist' specifically for the Christian philosophers above.

I think the popular conception of existentialism as a secular philosophical movement is due mainly to the huge popularity of the non-religious existentialists, especially Sartre and Camus. But these more popular existentialists are not the only existentialists, and religious existentialists were very important in the development of the movement.

 

Hamlet, as in the fictional character created by Shakespeare?

Wasn't Dostoyevsky a Christian?

Also, King Solomon (at least according to the Bible's portrayal of him) is very existentialist, and possibly among the first.

I think existentialism arose long ago in a society where religion was dominant and a very 'good' answer to the existentialist dilemma. Now we are moving into a more secular-dominant society, it just means that the existentialists that such a society produces will most likely be looking for meaning in other places than religion.

 

I think Socrates exemplified Existentialism.

 

I find him to be more of a philosophical skeptic than anything.

I think Solomon serves as a far better example of early existentialism.

 

Kierkegaard understood that man could only understand reality from his own existential experience of it----i.e. human experience. He said that Christianity changes the life of an individual in ways that proof, evidence or knowledge cannot----it is the authentic existential leap of faith. Compare this to Sartre who said that man can only understand life from his existential experience of it (using the same definition of existential (no, Kierkegaard didn't use the word existential exactly---but he meant the same thing)), and there is no way to physically prove God from this existential experience in the physical world.

Kierkegaard was the first one to recognize and write about what we call the existential crisis. People are faced with the fear of freedom, dread, as he labelled it---the freedom of the individual; the possibility of freedom, which is presented even before that freedom. Instead of facing this fear, people hide within ideologies controlled by others. He said that the modern age is filled with anxiety that is hard to pin down. There is a sickness unto death, and a neglect of the self.

These are all existentialist issues. And existentialism is a philosophy of the individual---which means that each existentialist philosopher is a unique individual. He can be a Christian, an atheist, whatever. (Oh yes, and Kierkegaard stressed the individual over the group.

There are many influences that led to existentialism---but Kierkegaard is undoubtedly the father of existentialism).

Kant revived philosophy from a state of crisis, which was also a crisis faced by science and religion. And thereby he modernized science, religion, and philosophy. Hegel carried philosophy to the next step, and Kierkegaard took Hegel's philosophy and opened the door to existentialist thought.

 

But what if this particular individual in history accomplished wishes and was as such non-christian? That could still be that the hidden proof for what Christianity existed may not ignore the weight of evidence from a transcendent perspective. That would occur to my understanding of the distinct essay, "Fear and Trembling" a different result for showing a finite Leap of Faith. There are states of historical existential experience by which the leap of faith less followed by the systematic logic we understand; Say in American bureaucratic structures. A certain greater tendency of Christianity successful to the nature of infinite resignation I believe was Kierkegaard portraying the meaning of unawareness of the logical system He applies for the individuals talents when they are disrespected in a community. The christian finds consolation for the presence in the midst of other authentic people He cannot disbelieve as foreignly biased. Uncertainty becomes of greater value: from the "Concluding Unscientific Postscript".

Well then for Sartre it really doesn't mean that it is "life" that is such understood existentially. Some would and could make a science of the anti-life precisely in the Being of the phenomenal becoming for uncertain Experience. Nothing authentic claimed as the project of sincerity is "doomed to failure". Life for the existentialist was and is the biological functioning within the relative passing of desperate filling of discontinuous time determining Space as only cryptic evidence beyond the time of flustered continuity.

Hiding within ideology of others is also ironically an artistic Leap of Faith. In the Infinite despair of Resignation we expose are group hypocrisy of belonging and repetitions for flukes in development for the Hope we hold in Life. That way Life and the leap of faith to It is the authentic tradition as well as resistance to Tradition. Merely professing Faith was God fooling that he was so sensical in "organized" religion. Some Christianity which never made sense for Everybody.

Agreed, and the form of Duty to science as part of religious conscience was conceived with God justified by these philosophers for the Concept, Objectively surpassed beyond Science and Religion distinguishable. Which is of meaning to the End of History in Man or God. The End of History was again by the opening of Heart to existentialist thought in Kierkegaard in the duty to a kind of God/Man recognized indeed subjectively. But that is the matter of knowing Hegel failed at his whole System for the Absolute. Belief in Kierkegaard made a straight forward definition of "GOD", the protestant way of non-Knowledge, the identity for Knowing Humanity and life in the midst of Nature was overcome by the existence of something subjectively Higher. I guess could say we do not know what the absolute Good IS, instead we believe in goodness in the sciences at a Pluralistic level.

Alas Christianity fosters pluralism.

 

A thought: are there not two very close parallels between Christianity - indeed, most religion in its deepest theological sense, as I understand it - and pretty much anything labeled 'existentialism'.

In the first place, both attempt to guide a conscious existence towards its own unique path to coming to terms with the fact that there is no reason for their conscious existence in the first place, nor for its ultimate and absolute annihilation in death.

Secondly, both methods, aimed at all conscious existence, get buried in their own words such that they become obscure, self-referential linguistic edifices to most, who feel they can approach them via the interpretation of others, and this is totally counter to their original raison d'etre.

By way of a word of explanation for this thought: for me, philosophy came about entirely to try to help solve the deepest riddle of one thrust uninvited into being. If a philosophical method does nothing more than provide fodder for scrupulous linguistic argument, and make no direct attempt to help people live, then (in my humble, non-academic opinion) it’s not really much more than a giant version of those pastime logic puzzles.

What got me reading Kierkegaard in the first place was the way he uses words. he almost invariably gets me thinking along with him, and also off along my own tangents. What stops me reading philosophy is when I have to sit and puzzle what this mathematical arrangement of words is supposed to be making me think.

Words are the only means by which we can attempt to transmit thought but, for me, religion and philosophy are both negated when we think to make only the words of them.

 

Even presocratic philosophers thought about philosophical questions of being, though it was Kierkegaard, who first used the term.

 

Word, life that is unobserved is meaningless.