The Legacy of Kierkegaard

John Heywood Thomas was probably the earliest twentieth-century British scholar to study Kierkegaard's texts. Here he offers, as the fruit of a lifetime's devotion to that study, what Kierkegaard would call a "fragment"--a little of what needs to be said about the legacy of this radical Danish writer, philosopher, and theologian. This book, based on lectures given at the University of Calgary, seeks to explore different aspects of Kierkegaard's work in its original context and its legacy. Chapters include studies on Kierkegaard the writer (located within the history and development of European literature and nineteenth-century aesthetic theory) and Kierkegaard the philosopher (understood within the context of the development of philosophy in the first quarter of the nineteenth century). Also, since he always described himself as a religious thinker, Kierkegaard's view of religion is explored and in particular his attitude to the possibility of Christianity without the confines of an established church. Because Kierkegaard's philosophy is never separate from his religious thinking, Heywood Thomas also offers studies on the issues of metaphysics in Kierkegaard--its relation to theology, the scope of reason, the problem of time, and the meaning of death. Finally, to appreciate Kierkegaard as a man of his time as well as a "man for all seasons," his views on education are considered.