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Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments (Danish: Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de philosophiske Smuler) is a major work by Søren Kierkegaard. The work is a poignant attack against Hegelianism, the philosophy of G. W. F. Hegel. The work is also famous for its dictum, Subjectivity is Truth. It was an attack on what Kierkegaard saw as Hegel's deterministic philosophy. Against Hegel's system, Kierkegaard is often interpreted as taking the side of metaphysical libertarianism or freewill, though it has been argued that an incompatibilist conception of free will is not essential to Kierkegaard's formulation of existentialism.

As the title suggests, the Postscript is sequel to the earlier Philosophical Fragments. The title of the work is ironic because the Postscript is almost five times larger than the Fragments. The Postscript credits "Johannes Climacus" as the author and Kierkegaard as its editor. Like his other pseudonymous works, the Postscript is not a reflection of Kierkegaard's own beliefs. However, unlike his other pseudonymous works, Kierkegaard attaches his name as editor to this work, showing the importance of the Postscript to Kierkegaard's overall authorship.

Contrasts in Concluding Unscientific Postscript

See also

External links

• D. Anthony on Concluding Unscientific Postscript
• Bob Zunjic's Outline of the Postscript

Søren Kierkegaard Major works On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates · Either/Or · Repetition · The Concept of Anxiety · Fear and Trembling · Philosophical Fragments · Stages on Life's Way · Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments · Works of Love · The Sickness Unto Death · Practice in Christianity · The Book on Adler · For Self-Examination · The Point of View of My Work as an Author · The Journals Ideas Philosophy  · Theology · Angst · Anguish · Authenticity · Double-mindedness · Indirect communication · Infinite qualitative distinction · Knight of faith · Leap of faith · Ressentiment · Rotation method Schools influenced Absurdism · Danish Golden Age · Existential phenomenology · Existential psychology · Existentialism (Agnostic, Atheistic, Christian) · Gestalt therapy · Humanism (Christian · Existential · Psychology) · Kyoto School · Neo-orthodoxy · Postmodernism (Christian) · Poststructuralism Related topics List of works · Regine Olsen · Peter Kierkegaard · Danish Golden Age · Comparisons with Nietzsche · Søren Kierkegaard Research Center · Howard V. and Edna H. Hong Kierkegaard Library

From Wikiquote

Concluding Unscientific Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments (Danish: Afsluttende uvidenskabelig Efterskrift til de philosophiske Smuler) is a major work by Søren Kierkegaard. The work is poignant attack against Hegelianism, the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel. The work is also famous for its dictum, Subjectivity is Truth.

As the title suggests, the Postscript is sequel to the earlier Philosophical Fragments. The title of the work is ironic because the Postscript is almost five times larger than the Fragments. The Postscript credits Johannes Climacus as the author and Kierkegaard as its editor. Like his other pseudonymous works, the Postscript is not a reflection of Kierkegaard's own beliefs. However, unlike his other pseudonymous works, Kierkegaard attaches his name as editor to this work, showing the importance of the Postscript to Kierkegaard's overall authorship.

Preface & Part One

• Can a historical point of departure be given for an eternal consciousness; how can such a point of departure be of more than historical interest; can an eternal happiness be built on historical knowledge?

• The issue is not about the truth of Christianity but about the individual's relation to Christianity...

• Simply stated: How can I, Johannes Climacus, share in the happiness that Christianity promises?

Part Two

• The subjective existing thinker is aware of the dialectic of communication.

• He wants to convince [others] that he is not a lunatic and therefore paces up and down the floor and continually says, "Boom! The Earth is round!". But is the earth not round? ... is he a lunatic, the man who hopes to prove that he is not a lunatic by stating a truth universally accepted and universally regarded as objective?

• The objective way deems itself to have a security which the subjective way does not have (and, of course, existence and existing cannot be thought in combination with objective security); it thinks to escape a danger which threatens the subjective way and this danger is at its maximum: madness. In a merely subjective determination of the truth, madness and truth become in the last analysis indistinguishable.

• God does not think, he creates; God does not exist, he is eternal.

• Irony is the cultivation of the spirit and therefore follows next after immediacy; then comes the ethicist, then the humourist, then the religious person.

• Subjectivity is Truth.

• Truth is subjectivity.

• It is subjectivity that Christianity is concerned with, and it is only in subjectivity that its truth exists, if it exists at all; objectively, Christianity has no existence.

• If I am capable of grasping God objectively, I do not believe, but precisely because I cannot do this I must believe. If I wish to preserve myself in faith I must constantly be intent upon holding fast the objective uncertainty, so as to remain out upon the deep, over seventy fathoms of water still preserving my faith.

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Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments