Kierkegaard: Difficulty and Contemporaneity

Abstract: Born in Copenhagen in 1813, Kierkegaard showed initial promise as a student of languages and logic, as well as mathematics and science, but soon abandoned these pursuits to write strange books about biblical figures, the arts, the press, moods like despair and anxiety, and the tensions between duty and desire. He appeared to disparage “objective” thinking, and concerned himself almost exclusively with the human condition. In this talk, I’ll ask whether Kierkegaard's investigations remain vital, introduce his unusual methods of presentation, highlight his stance against pseudoscience, and focus on two crucial concepts that appear consistently across his texts: difficulty and contemporaneity.