ABSTRACTS, SLAGMARK #68

Lars Christiansen: “I must never forget Kierkegaard” – The decisive factor in forming the worldview of the intellectual and social critic Georg Brandes was Søren Kierkegaard, whose religious Belief estranged him

Kierkegaard was perhaps the single most important influence for the internationally renowned Danish critic Georg Brandes (1842-1927). As a young student, Brandes eagerly studied and admired the Danish philosopher and theologian. Brandes, a secular Jew, saw in Kierkegaard his initiator into the Christian Faith, but ¨he despaired over the radicalism of Kierkegaard's demands. Brandes later turned into an ardent critic of religion, and his biography of Kierkegaard attempts to give a psychological explanation of Kierkegaard's belief. However, he remained steeped in kierkegaardian ways of thinking, evident in his enthusiastic writing on the rebel Nietzsche.

Keywords: Brandes, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, biography, radicalism

Manuela Hackel: “The untruth must be lived through”: The reception of Kierkegaard in Existentialism

In the history of philosophy, there is a broad consensus that Søren Kierkegaard is the ‘father’ of existentialism. This claim, however, seems to be a contradiction in terms. The first part of the paper offers a fundamental reflection on the question of whether a subjective thinking like Kierkegaard’s can survive his death and in what form. In its second part, the paper inquires into the concrete reception of Kierkegaard’s thinking in the atheistic branch of existentialism (Sartre, Beauvoir, Camus). The paper will examine how Kierkegaard’s fundamental themes and concepts such as understanding, freedom/choice, despair, and anxiety are appropriated and transformed on the basis of a changed historical and philosophical situation. It will be argued that it is only in this way that the reception of Kierkegaard will avoid being a hollow repetition and be a lively conversation.

Keywords: Kierkegaard, existentialism, Sartre, de Beauvoir, Camus

Anders Dræby Sørensen: Søren Kierkegaard’s impact on existential and humanistic psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy

Kierkegaard has long been known as a philosopher and theologican, but his writings have also made an important impact on the fields of psychology, psychiatry and psychotherapy. The article explores the reception of Kierkegaard’s thoughts in the humanistic and existential approaches to the psysciences. Kierkegaard has been most used by Ludwig Binswanger, Carl Rogers, Rollo May and Emmy van Deurzen for whom The Concept of Anxiety and The Sickness unto Death have been the two most influential texts.

Keywords: Kierkegaard, existential, humanistic, psychology, psychotherapy

Odo Marquard: Defense of the capability of being alone

The essay “Forsvar for evnen til at være ensom” (Defense of the capability of being alone) is a critical examination of the growing solitude in modern society. On basis of the assumption that modern age is the age of loneliness, Marquard claims that the problem for modern man is not loneliness in itself, but rather the decreasing capability of being alone. What haunts human beings in modern society is not the increase of solitude but the fact that they become still more unable to experience loneliness in a positive way. Marquard in his essay suggests different forms of such positive experience of loneliness and defends the claim that loneliness is not first and foremost a burden, but rather a fundamental human need.

Keywords: Philosophical anthropology, good life, experience, loneliness, modern society