The Humor of Kierkegaard : : An Anthology / / Søren Kierkegaard; Thomas C. Oden.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Princeton eBook Package Backlist 2000-2013
• VerfasserIn: Kierkegaard, Søren,
• HerausgeberIn: Oden, Thomas C.,
• Place / Publishing House: Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2020]; ©2004
• Year of Publication: 2020
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (352 p.)

Who might reasonably be nominated as the funniest philosopher of all time? With this anthology, Thomas Oden provisionally declares Søren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)--despite his enduring stereotype as the melancholy, despairing Dane--as, among philosophers, the most amusing. Kierkegaard not only explored comic perception to its depths but also practiced the art of comedy as astutely as any writer of his time. This collection shows how his theory of comedy is integrated into his practice of comic perception, and how both are integral to his entire authorship. Kierkegaard's humor ranges from the droll to the rollicking; from farce to intricate, subtle analysis; from nimble stories to amusing aphorisms. In these pages you are invited to meet the wife of an author who burned her husband's manuscript and a businessman who, even with an abundance of calling cards, forgot his own name. You will hear of an interminable vacillator whom archeologists found still pacing thousands of years later, trying to come to a decision. Then there is the emperor who became a barkeeper in order to stay in the know. The Humor of Kierkegaard is for anyone ready to be amused by human follies. Those new to Kierkegaard will discover a dazzling mind worth meeting. Those already familiar with his theory of comedy will be delighted to see it concisely set forth and exemplified. Others may have read Kierkegaard intensively without having ever really noticed his comic side. Here they will find what they have been missing.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- The Human Condition -- The Absurd -- Vacillation -- Beginning and Risking -- Stages in Becoming Oneself -- Aesthetic Existence -- Ethical Existence -- Religious Existence -- Inwardness -- Incongruities -- Suffering -- Finding and Losing Oneself -- Death -- Christianity -- Becoming a Christian -- Incarnation and Atonement -- Offense and Paradox -- Eternal Happiness in Time -- Theology -- God -- Explaining Hegel to God -- The Hazards of Regnant Theology -- Immortality -- "Christendom" -- Sin -- Prayer -- The Status of Christianity within Modernity -- The Bible -- The Clergy -- Repentance -- Denmark -- Relationships -- The Hazards of Love -- Love and Duty -- Marriage and the Single State -- The Vulnerability of the Male -- The Strength of Woman -- Children and Youth -- Truth and Communication -- Literary and Artistic Criticism -- Comedy and Contradiction -- Laughter as the Test of Truth -- The Vocation of Authorship -- The Culture of Modernity -- The Present Age -- Objective Knowledge and Science -- Medicine -- Authority and Establishment -- World History -- Sociological and Cultural Analysis -- Cheap Talk on a Grand Scale -- Journalism and the Press -- Public Opinion and the Crowd -- Advertising and Impression Management -- Politics, Revolution, and Reform -- Equality -- Economics -- Psychological Analysis -- Behavior Change -- Anxiety, Guilt, and Boredom -- Contradictions within Academia -- Education and the Universities -- Philosophical Systems -- Pure Thought -- Doubt -- Speculation and Idealism -- Socrates -- Teaching -- Appendix: How Comic Episodes Correlate with the Stages -- Bibliography -- Index