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International Kierkegaard Commentary #19
The Sickness Unto Death
For the first time in English the world community of scholars is systematically assembling and presenting the results of recent research in the vast literature of Soren Kierkegaard. Based on the definitive English edition of Kierkegaard's works by Princeton University Press, this series of commentaries addresses all the published texts of the influential Danish philosopher and theologian.
- GenresPhilosophy
278 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2002
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 12, 2022
"The fantastic self feels, knows, and wills in the realm of fantasy. Fantastic feeling is the sentimentality that expands itself so as to encompass all and in the process ends up with no one. It is perfectly expressed in the saying, I love humanity—it's my neighbors I can't stand."
"...a) unconscious despair is the most common form of despair and that b) no despair is fully ignorant or unconscious of itself but can seem to be so only through self-deception, distracting its own attention from that of which it is all the time aware."
"In the synthesis lies the possibility, but not the actuality, of despair. For despair to be actual I have to choose it, in greater or lesser consciousness that I am choosing it, and the overcoming or annihilating of despair is itself a choice, not something that happens automatically."
"Even though despair may seem to be over something, it is really over oneself."
"If a physician pronounces a person sick, it is very likely that at one time she was well. If despair manifests itself in a person, it is very likely that she has always been in despair because despair is an affair of spirit and spirit is eternal."
"If I feel tranquil, peaceful, and secure, those feelings could either indicate that I have overcome despair or that, "distracted from distraction by distraction,"51 am engaged in a flight from self that is despair."
"That God could care enough about the human being to become incarnate, suffer, and die for her, and that the human being is infinite enough and individual enough for God to care for it, is shocking and unbelievable to the ordinary consciousness."
"In the contemporary worship of fact, of realism, of moderation, all passion, ideals, and dreams are thrown out of the window into the vague realm of the merely Utopian, irrational, and unverifiable."
"...the real self—hidden behind these social masks—slowly shrivels into nothingness."
"Most men and women are, by Kierkegaard's norm, simply "too spiritless" to qualify for despair. That, however, does not make them immune to despair; for despair is not simply a mode of consciousness intrinsically clear to the person who despairs. It is a negative state of being of which only the more intensive forms become directly conscious. The "lower" forms of despair consist precisely in a state of unawareness about one's spiritual identity in which the person feels nothing negative about himself."
"...a) unconscious despair is the most common form of despair and that b) no despair is fully ignorant or unconscious of itself but can seem to be so only through self-deception, distracting its own attention from that of which it is all the time aware."
"In the synthesis lies the possibility, but not the actuality, of despair. For despair to be actual I have to choose it, in greater or lesser consciousness that I am choosing it, and the overcoming or annihilating of despair is itself a choice, not something that happens automatically."
"Even though despair may seem to be over something, it is really over oneself."
"If a physician pronounces a person sick, it is very likely that at one time she was well. If despair manifests itself in a person, it is very likely that she has always been in despair because despair is an affair of spirit and spirit is eternal."
"If I feel tranquil, peaceful, and secure, those feelings could either indicate that I have overcome despair or that, "distracted from distraction by distraction,"51 am engaged in a flight from self that is despair."
"That God could care enough about the human being to become incarnate, suffer, and die for her, and that the human being is infinite enough and individual enough for God to care for it, is shocking and unbelievable to the ordinary consciousness."
"In the contemporary worship of fact, of realism, of moderation, all passion, ideals, and dreams are thrown out of the window into the vague realm of the merely Utopian, irrational, and unverifiable."
"...the real self—hidden behind these social masks—slowly shrivels into nothingness."
"Most men and women are, by Kierkegaard's norm, simply "too spiritless" to qualify for despair. That, however, does not make them immune to despair; for despair is not simply a mode of consciousness intrinsically clear to the person who despairs. It is a negative state of being of which only the more intensive forms become directly conscious. The "lower" forms of despair consist precisely in a state of unawareness about one's spiritual identity in which the person feels nothing negative about himself."
December 17, 2019
If we burned all philosophy books, save Kierkegaard, we would lose nothing of value
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews