The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard (Philosophy of Religion)

Richard McCombs presents Søren Kierkegaard as an author who deliberately pretended to be irrational in many of his pseudonymous writings in order to provoke his readers to discover the hidden and paradoxical rationality of faith. Focusing on pseudonymous works by Johannes Climacus, McCombs interprets Kierkegaardian rationality as a striving to become a self consistently unified in all its dimensions: thinking, feeling, willing, acting, and communicating. McCombs argues that Kierkegaard’s strategy of feigning irrationality is sometimes brilliantly instructive, but also partly misguided. This fresh reading of Kierkegaard addresses an essential problem in the philosophy of religion—the relation between faith and reason. Soren Kierkegaard deliberately feigned irrationality in many of his pseudonymous writings in order to present a rational argument about reason and faith. Richard McCombs posits that Kierkegaard's strategy of revealing the philosophical and religious underpinnings of his thought was both instructive and misguided. Focusing on pseudonymous works by Johannes Climacus and Anti-Climacus, McCombs discusses Kierkegaard's irrationality and the manner in which it bolsters important truths about rationality. He reveals Kierkegaard striving for a single, integrated self that thinks, feels, wills, acts, and communicates with purpose. This fresh reading of Kierkegaard engages an essential problem in the philosophy of religion--the difference between what is understood by reason and what must be taken on faith. In this book, the author presents Søren Kierkegaard as an author who deliberately pretended to be irrational in many of his pseudonymous writings in order to provoke his readers to discover the hidden and paradoxical rationality of faith. Focusing on pseudonymous works by Johannes Climacus, the writer interprets Kierkegaardian rationality as a striving to become a self consistently unified in all its dimensions: thinking, feeling, willing, acting, and communicating. The author argues that Kierkegaard's strategy of feigning irrationality is sometimes brilliantly instructive, but also partly misguided. This reading of Kierkegaard addresses an essential problem in the philosophy of religion: the relation between faith and reason A fresh reading of Kierkegaard that engages an essential problem in the philosophy of religion - the difference between what is understood by reason and what must be taken on faith