December 9th, 2008 / 5:13 pm
I Like __ A Lot

i like SOREN KIERKEGAARD a whole bunch

soren kierkegaard was a philosopher in the eighteen hundreds who didn’t think he was a philosopher.  i read “the sickness unto death” “either/or” “philosophical fragments” “the concept of dread” “fear and trembling” “repetition” “concluding unscientific postscript” “the attack on christendom” and “the modern age.”  i think my favorite of his books is “the sickness unto death.”  i have read it probably eight times and every time i read it i still pause in between every few pages and do like, a little air guitar solo thing that represents how much i like what i am reading.  one time i was on a train to new york and i was reading it and a man who called himself “the gay rabbi” came up to me and started hitting on me.  he called me a skinhead when i ignored him and then he started hitting on this goth kid in the next seat and the goth kid kept threatening to “beat the shit” out of the gay rabbi.  the only things i vividly remember from that trip were “the sickness unto death” and the scab on the end of the gay rabbi’s nose. i think that along with “beyond good and evil” and “being and time,” “the sickness unto death” is the most important, concretely applicable book of philosophy i have read.  my favorite smaller piece of writing from soren kierkegaard is called “what says the fireman?”   if kierkegaard were alive today, i feel that he would be the character in a frat movie that is smart and for some reason helps out a group of kids that are considered rejects but then he would become terrified at how much he is failing as a christian.

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33 Comments

  1. barry

      like national lampoons the return of taj mahal where kumar is taj mahal.

  2. barry

      like national lampoons the return of taj mahal where kumar is taj mahal.

  3. Sam Pink

      barry i could probably beat you at “connect four” and also the game “kerplunk” in which a group of people sit around and remove pieces of wood and try to prevent marbles from falling.

  4. Sam Pink

      barry i could probably beat you at “connect four” and also the game “kerplunk” in which a group of people sit around and remove pieces of wood and try to prevent marbles from falling.

  5. jereme

      i can beat any one at connect 4
      there is a mathematical equation to win
      life isn’t only words
      suck it bitches

  6. jereme

      i can beat any one at connect 4
      there is a mathematical equation to win
      life isn’t only words
      suck it bitches

  7. peter B

      always a goddamn equation

  8. peter B

      always a goddamn equation

  9. J

      I’ve been putting off reading him, as well as other books of philosophy (Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations has been on my shelf for maybe two years now, sheesh). I’ll have to pick up Sickness Unto Death, I always figured Either/Or was the way to go for an intro.

  10. J

      I’ve been putting off reading him, as well as other books of philosophy (Wittgenstein’s Philosophical Investigations has been on my shelf for maybe two years now, sheesh). I’ll have to pick up Sickness Unto Death, I always figured Either/Or was the way to go for an intro.

  11. Brad Green

      I almost named my son Soren, but then my wife got involved.

  12. Brad Green

      I almost named my son Soren, but then my wife got involved.

  13. JW Veldhoen

      Did your mother dress you up as a doll? A pretty doll?

      I used to own a book called “The Concept of Anxiety.” Is that the same as “The Concept of Dread?” What would it be in German? Why bother?

  14. JW Veldhoen

      Did your mother dress you up as a doll? A pretty doll?

      I used to own a book called “The Concept of Anxiety.” Is that the same as “The Concept of Dread?” What would it be in German? Why bother?

  15. JW Veldhoen

      Or Danish (I thought he wrote in German, excuse me…) I mean, what is Philosophy in translation? Words are already so imprecise to have any meaning.

  16. JW Veldhoen

      Or Danish (I thought he wrote in German, excuse me…) I mean, what is Philosophy in translation? Words are already so imprecise to have any meaning.

  17. pr

      begrebet angest

  18. JW Veldhoen

      Danish and Dutch words are so close, the ‘be’ suffix relates to nostalgia, it reminds me of a Dutch word, on the tip of my tongue (or buried in the vault of my linguistic memory). Certain dialects of Dutch come very close to English. “Angest” is closer to angst than dread, and angst is closer than anxiety. A better translation would be “About angst.” The theological context for Kierkegaard is very difficult, but if the word is the covenant then the issue of doubt and language is immediately in the foreground, how slippery it all is…

  19. JW Veldhoen

      Danish and Dutch words are so close, the ‘be’ suffix relates to nostalgia, it reminds me of a Dutch word, on the tip of my tongue (or buried in the vault of my linguistic memory). Certain dialects of Dutch come very close to English. “Angest” is closer to angst than dread, and angst is closer than anxiety. A better translation would be “About angst.” The theological context for Kierkegaard is very difficult, but if the word is the covenant then the issue of doubt and language is immediately in the foreground, how slippery it all is…

  20. JW Veldhoen

      Erg, prefix, I mean.

  21. JW Veldhoen

      Erg, prefix, I mean.

  22. Justin Taylor

      Sam, me too! _Fear and Trembling_ is a masterpiece. I’m about 4/5 of the way through _Training in Christianity_ right now. It’s such a slog, but I’m getting there…

  23. Justin Taylor

      Sam, me too! _Fear and Trembling_ is a masterpiece. I’m about 4/5 of the way through _Training in Christianity_ right now. It’s such a slog, but I’m getting there…

  24. barry

      sam:

      connect 4 yes. i wont dispute it.

      but i cant be beat at tic tac toe. ever. by anyone

  25. barry

      sam:

      connect 4 yes. i wont dispute it.

      but i cant be beat at tic tac toe. ever. by anyone

  26. jereme

      barry is the prankster waiter at TGIF’s that plays me tic tac toe for my bar tab.

      so crafty.

  27. jereme

      barry is the prankster waiter at TGIF’s that plays me tic tac toe for my bar tab.

      so crafty.

  28. matthew savoca

      soren kierkegaard and elliott smith were the same person

  29. matthew savoca

      soren kierkegaard and elliott smith were the same person

  30. sam pink

      i think the concept of dread is the same as concept of anxiety.

      jereme, come to awp and bring a fucking connect four board and i’m finna connect my foot to yo face son.

      i read wittgenstein’s “tractatus” twice in a row and now it impacts every waking second of my life.

  31. sam pink

      i think the concept of dread is the same as concept of anxiety.

      jereme, come to awp and bring a fucking connect four board and i’m finna connect my foot to yo face son.

      i read wittgenstein’s “tractatus” twice in a row and now it impacts every waking second of my life.

  32. Josh Maday

      sam, you are the first person besides adam robinson who i know has read and appreciated kierkegaard. the sickness unto death is a huge book for me, too. reading it when i was 20 helped me survive the deepest depression i had ever been in. kierkegaard will always be one of the writers/thinkers who had the greatest impact on me. he was at least as much a fiction writer as a philosopher. it’s amazing how far reaching his influence has been on philosophy, lit crit, linguistics, theology, psychology, etc, and yet his influence is rarely mentioned. walker percy’s novel The Moviegoer was informed by percy’s reading of kierkegaard; i think a lot of his work was influenced by k. thanks for posting this, sam.

  33. Josh Maday

      sam, you are the first person besides adam robinson who i know has read and appreciated kierkegaard. the sickness unto death is a huge book for me, too. reading it when i was 20 helped me survive the deepest depression i had ever been in. kierkegaard will always be one of the writers/thinkers who had the greatest impact on me. he was at least as much a fiction writer as a philosopher. it’s amazing how far reaching his influence has been on philosophy, lit crit, linguistics, theology, psychology, etc, and yet his influence is rarely mentioned. walker percy’s novel The Moviegoer was informed by percy’s reading of kierkegaard; i think a lot of his work was influenced by k. thanks for posting this, sam.