16062

SoSe 23: Søren Kierkegaard (Englisch)

Federica Gregoratto

Information for students

Achtung! Diese Lehrveranstaltung beginnt erst in der zweiten Vorlesungswoche!

Comments

The seminar offers an introduction in the philosophy of one of the outstanding iconoclasts and rebels of 19th-century European thought, Søren A. Kierkegaard (1813–1855). The Danish philosopher has been rather influential for various subsequent Western philosophical traditions, especially Existentialism, but also Critical Theory. In the seminar, we will have to figure out how his work can be still regarded as meaningful and relevant for us today. We will engage in a close reading and discussion of some of his central and most famous works (Either/Or, 1843, Repetition, 1843, The Concept of Anxiety, 1844 and The Sickness unto Death, 1849), all written under pseudonyms. We will address issues like: What are the central characteristics defining the human condition, and what role do emotions and affects play in such definition? What is human freedom and what does it mean to exist as free individuals? What does it mean that subjectivity has primacy over objectivity, and singularity over universality, and how is this to be regarded as a radical philosophical idea, one that even challenges the limits of philosophy? What are the limits of rationality and reason, and how can we cope with such limits philosophically? What are the criticisms that Kierkegaard addresses at the social and moral norms of his time, and what can we learn from them? Moreover, we will reflect on the form of his writing as an integral part of his philosophical project: how to interpret the fictionalization, multiplication, and masking of philosophical authorship and authority? How is the singular existence to be put into words and, if any, concepts? At the end of the seminar, we will analyze a movie – Agnès Varda’s Cléo from 5 to 7 (1962) – from the Kierkegaardian lenses developed during the whole semester. close