Kierkegaard's Influence on Philosophy

Kierkegaard's relation to the field of philosophy is a particularly complex and disputed one. He rejected the model of philosophical inquiry that was mainstream in his day and was careful to have his pseudonymous authors repeatedly disassociate themselves from philosophy. But although it seems clear that Kierkegaard never regarded himself as a philosopher, there can be no doubt that his writings contain philosophical ideas and insights and have been profoundly influential in a number of different philosophical traditions. The present volume documents these different traditions of the philosophical reception of Kierkegaard's thought. The articles featured here demonstrate the vast reach of Kierkegaard's writings in philosophical contexts that were often quite different from his own. Tome I is dedicated to exploring the reception of Kierkegaard in Germanophone and Scandinavian philosophy. Kierkegaard has been a major influence for such different philosophical projects as phenomenology, hermeneutics, dialogical thinking, critical theory, Marxism, logical positivism and ordinary language philosophy. Similarly in Denmark and Norway Kierkegaard's writings have been more or less constantly discussed by important philosophers, despite the later dominance of analytic philosophy in these countries. The present volume features articles on the leading Germanophone and Scandinavian philosophers influenced by Kierkegaard's thought.

Jon Stewart is an Associate Research Professor in the SA﹐ren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark.