Kierkegaard Pt. 1 #6

During the 19^th century, the nation of Denmark was home to an important philosopher, Søren Kierkegaard. Known by some as the Father of Existentialism, Kierkegaard focused on one’s self, and how they can behave in order to know the truth. Kierkegaard’s main influences are said to be the writings of Socrates and Plato. In this installment, we will focus on the timeline of Kierkegaard’s life, and will leave the deeper analysis of his philosophical theories to the 2^nd installment. To begin with, we will start out with his general life details.

 

Kierkegaard was born into a wealthy family in the city of Copenhagen on May 5, 1813. His father had already been through a previous marriage, making Kierkegaard the youngest child out of 7. Søren attended the University of Copenhagen with a focus on theological study, however that last too long. Ironically, Kierkegaard did not like the philosophical study, and began to shift his focus to literature. However he would soon meet another distraction, who carried the name of Regine Olsen. Søren and Regine instantly connected and were soon engaged, to be married, by 1840. Yet as Kierkegaard thought harder about the idea of marriage, he called the ceremony off. With much more free time on his hands, and the money from his family in his pocket, Søren began to invest his time into a career of literature. The newly graduated author began to write books, but did so writing under different pseudonyms.

 

From 1841 – 1844, Kierkegaard published 7 different books, in which 4 carried the same theme of “Upbuilding Discourses”. As time passed, Søren began to publish many of these books in his name. As the clock hit 1845, Kierkegaard would publish two more books. However he would soon take a writing break to spend some time in Berlin. After his return, Søren published a whole collection of his “Upbuilding Discourse” series, which had reached 18 volumes. He would continue to turn out major works until the year of 1950.

In his final years of life, Kierkegaard spent time behaving as his role model Martin Luther did, by attacking the national church for what he believed to be misdeeds done by the church. He issued statement by posting Newspaper articles which would become a series he called “The Moment”. Kierkegaard would soon collapse in the streets of Copenhagen during 1855. While some believed he dies of natural health complications, other’s believe it was a form of tuberculosis.