2013 marks the 200 year anniversary of the birth of Danish philosopher and writer Søren Kierkegaard.
By Wenche Marit Quist
Board member of the Danish Søren Kierkegaard Society, Head of Research and Education Policy at the Danish Association of Lawyers and Economists.
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The Danish philosopher Kierkegaard was born 200 years ago to this day (5May 1813).
With his emphasis on the single individual and as the father of existentialism Søren Kierkegaard is often seen as a thinker of solitude and abandonment of the world. But this understanding disregards crucial sides of Kierkegaards concept of selfhood. Kierkegaard’s understanding of the individual in itself bears a close and unbreakable connection with people and society at large. Not least because of this Kierkegaard has become an important voice in our efforts to understand how we as individuals in a modern society develop by relating to something or someone different than ourselves.
His birthday is being celebrated all over the world with new books on his thoughts, republishing of his own writings in addition to theatre plays and exhibitions. The celebrations focus on different aspects of his large authorship and his huge influence on modern western philosophy. Kierkegaard is seen as the father of existentialism, and his writing hugely inspired both Jean Paul Sartre and German philosophers such as Martin Heidegger and Karl Jaspers.
In Kierkegaard´s world the emphasis is on the individual. He shows how we are all personally responsible for our own life and existence. He also reminds us that we cannot make it on our own – in total isolation. Kierkegaard shows how each of us is placed in the common world, and that it is the interaction with society that makes us who we are. To understand ourselves we therefore also have to understand people who are different from us. In that respect Kierkegaard can be understood as a critic of the single-minded focus on the individual who lives and makes it on their own. An approach otherwise popular in many types of modern therapy, positive psychology and mindfulness.
The thinking is not just a reminiscence of a philosopher born 200 years ago, but an important reminder to us in times as these, where unemployment and economic crisis often challenge our understanding of the way our lives are connected and entwined. And therefore in many ways challenges who we are. In that respect Kierkegaard’s writing can be recommended to those who wish to gain a both profound and modern understanding of what it means to become oneself – in the midst of others.
For more information visit the website of the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at the University of Copenhagen www.skc.ku.dk
If you want to know more about Kierkegaard 2013 and coming Kierkegaard events around the world visit www.kierkegaard2013.dk