Features September 2001
What did Kierkegaard want?
Reflections on the philosopher, occasioned by the recent biography by Alastair Hannay.
Unfortunately, my life is far too subjunctive; would to God I had some indicative power.
—Journals, 1837
I sit and listen to the sounds in my inner being, the happy intimations of music, the deep, earnestness of the organ.
—Journals, 1843
He did not belong to reality, and yet he had much to do with it.
—Diary of the Seducer, 1843
What an impression Kierkegaard makes when you first read him! Especially, I must add, if that first time happens to occur in adolescence. How electrifying, at that time of life, to encounter the statement “Subjectivity is truth.” Perhaps you had suspected that all along. But to have it indited there in black and white in the middle of a 576-page book of philosophy called Concluding Unscientific Postscript is something else again. (Actually, the book is called Concluding Unscientific...
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