16 ms·

I still love Kierkegaard

189 points by lermontov 9y ago

pmoriarty 9y ago
Reading Kierkegaard was one of the low points of my philosophy studies. K writes in such a rambling, self-indulgent, muddle-headed way. Every few hundred pages there might be a small gem, but for me it was not anywhere near worth digging through all the refuse for. As far as proto-existentialists go, give me Leopardi over Kierkegaard any day.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  > K writes in such a rambling, self-indulgent, muddle-headed way. When he chose to, it was on purpose. He was wholly capable of writing clearly. Nesting levels of meta-text, intentionally adopting a different authorial voice as a metatextual gambit, etc. were all pretty new things when he was alive. They're trite or annoying now, but it's still important to know that he wasn't just being a whiny prat. They're signs that maybe you should or should not take this or that particular penname totally seriously. ('johannes silentio' was super prolix, etc. )
  - baldfat 9y ago
    I blame the professor's reading material. Read Soren K. when he was writing with his own name. I taught the Philosophy class on Kierkegaard every semester, because our Philosophy Chair hated him so much. We ended up being good friends and he now actually enjoys S.K. now. S.K. is the most influential and impacting philosopher of the 20th Century (Arguably but I'm pretty sure I'm right). You might not like what you know of him but he took over almost all the theological/philosophy thought by storm 50 years after his death. Heck there were no English translations till the 1940s. He went from a forgotten Danish philosopher to the founder of Existentialism. Hegel never even knew he was alive let alone read his rebuke to his system of philosophy, but S.K. surpassed all of his contemporaries.
- muxator 9y ago
  I cannot but appreciate the reference to Leopardi. His poetics is lucid and implacably rational, while the aesthetics of the language is fascinating, both in prose and in the poems. Definitely one of my favourite authors.
bambax 9y ago
> Kierkegaard’s greatest illustration of this is his retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling (1843). Abraham is often held up as a paradigm of faith because he trusted God so much he was prepared to sacrifice his only son on his command. Kierkegaard makes us realize that Abraham acted on faith not because he obeyed a difficult order but because lifting the knife over his son defied all morality and reason. No reasonable man would have done what Abraham did. (...) So when Abraham took his leap of faith, he took leave of reason and morality. I don't know if Kierkegaard actually said any of this, but it's wrong. Child sacrifice is as old as time. Many myths or actual rituals involved killing one's own children. It's found in most ancient cultures from the Middle East to the Americas. It was therefore not "irrational" to do so, but, rather, quite reasonable and normal (if horrible), esp. in dire times. The innovation found in some books of the Bible was just the opposite: to declare that child sacrifice is in fact bad and should be avoided. And of course Jesus is that exact same myth of child sacrifice (with a twist: he dies but lives again).
- coliveira 9y ago
  Like in mostly everything, the Bible is ambiguous about child sacrifice. A lesser known character, Jephthah, committed child sacrifice after wining a battle with the help of god, and in that case there was no scapegoat as in Isaac's tale.
  - hprotagonist 9y ago
    and meanwhile, anything related to Moloch, It-Who-Feeds-On-Children, is 10000% bad and should be destroyed on sight.
  - doulos 9y ago
    The account of Jephthah is vastly different than of Abraham; though neither indicate any ambiguity on God's stance regarding child sacrifice. Judges 11 1) The Spirit of the Lord had already come upon Jephthah before he made his vow; showing that God was already intending to give him victory. (v29) 2) Jephthah rashly made a vow to God of his own accord, which was never affirmed by God nor required by God. (v30-31) Even on a surface level reading of the passage, it would be difficult to defend that it was ever God's desire that Jephthah sacrifice his daughter. And, if he knew the character of God as proclaimed by God himself in Exodus 34:6-7, he could have repented and received grace and he still would have had his daughter.
jksmith 9y ago
"Don't be a little Soren" -- Old professor of mine.
- baldfat 9y ago
  Soren K. was beloved and his funeral was HUGE. BUT Soren got out trolled and he became the meme of his era.
mschaef 9y ago
Whenever I see Kierkegaard referenced, I can't help but think of Michael Swaine's comments (1998) on how it influenced Stroustrup as he developed C++: > Is modesty a virtue in a programming language? Stroustrup thinks so. Invisibility, even. "If you know what language you are using," he says, "there is something wrong. You shouldn't be able to tell." The "you" in this case is the user, I guess. Even Bjarne isn't modest enough to suggest that the programmer shouldn't be able to tell the difference between C++ and Java. But he may be mystical enough. Red Herring notes that Stroustrup's thinking was heavily influenced by the Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard. Gosling, as we know, was influenced by an oak tree growing outside his window. http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/science/rpn/biblio/ddj/Website/articles/DDJ/1998/9808/9808l/9808l.htm http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/science/rpn/biblio/ddj/Web...
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  When I'm feeling contemplative, I really want to read something continental for the evening. But when I have shit to do, I snap into an analytic frame of mind. I feel the same way about programming languages; the Kierkegaardian crowd (C++, Perl) are great for evening enjoyment, but I'd prefer something from the more analytic tradition to language design when there's work to be done.
  - mschaef 9y ago
    I tend to agree... for me, C++ is a great solution for problems I don't tend to have in my workaday life.
  - miloshadzic 9y ago
    so you program in prolog or coq when you really need to get stuff done?
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      It's just an analogy, and I didn't claim it's perfect :-) But there's a divide between language authors who sound like engineers/mathematicians and language authors who sound like continental philosphers. I'd include languages like Java, Python, Go, Haskell, OCaml to be in the "analytic tradition" as well. And yes. lots of people get lots of work done in those languages :-)
yarrel 9y ago
Fear and Trembling reads like the fan of an aging rock band trying to convince a bored listener that the comeback album really is as good as the old material if they just listen to it enough times. I cannot imagine being impressed by the contorted peregrinations of its attempt at gaslighting.
kraig911 9y ago
Søren has always kind of put me off to philosophy and existentialism. Creating foundations within religion as matter of fact then using it as a principal to state everything is meaningless... my mind couldn't make the connection.
- burntrelish1273 9y ago
  Exactly. It's noncommittal, inconsistent and still at the mercy and vulnerability of magical thinking. The positive part was watering-down ideas enough to be palatable to those whom were predominantly religious. Reality is too much for most people to accept, so they lie to themselves and each other.
  - runesoerensen 9y ago
    > still at the mercy and vulnerability of magical thinking What magical thinking are you referring to?
    - mirimir 9y ago
      religion = magical thinking
      - theoh 9y ago
        Or, religion is, at least, a form of seeing meaning in things, which is the same category of activity as magical thinking.
        mirimir 9y ago
        It's seeing agency in things, and reality overall, I think.
        theoh 9y ago
        You mean this idea? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_detection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_detection There's another aspect to proto-religion which has to do with power rather than agency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana#Pre-animism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana#Pre-animism All this is speculative, AFAIK.
interfixus 9y ago
Kierkegaard annoys the crap out out of me, as almost all philosophers do. But I will say this for the guy: He had humour. A weird, understated, tangled one, but he had it. Mind you, it is so tied up with his native language and culture, it ought not travel well. And judging by whatever translations I have seen, it hasn't. His worldwide fame is still a mystery to me. And by the way, correct pronunciation is something like Kierkegore. Fittingly, it means churchyard.
- racer-v 9y ago
  For a translation of his humor into English, see The Humor of Kierkegaard, ed. Thomas C. Oden. Some of it is laugh-out-loud funny, like his description of the ridiculousness of state religion: "Rather than taking part in official Christianity with the thousandth part of my little-finger nail, I would rather engage in the following display of seriousness. A flag is purchased at a hardware store, it is unfurled; with great reverence I approach it, lift up three fingers and swear fidelity to the flag. Thereupon, rigged out in a cocked hat, a cartridge-belt and sword (all from the hardware store), I mount a hobbyhorse, proposing in union with others to make an attack upon the enemy, with contempt for the mortal danger into which I am evidently casting myself, with the seriousness of one who knows what it signifies to have sworn fidelity to the flag." Kierkegaard's "Attack upon 'Christendom'" [277-78]
  - StavrosK 9y ago
    Oh man, I couldn't even understand what he meant, let alone find the humour in it.
    - throwawayjava 9y ago
      Yeah, translations need to take into account changes in writing style over the centuries in addition to changes in language. Here's the joke in "modern English": Instead of joining the state's church, I propose instead the following. I will buy a flag, a uniform, a gun, and one of those battery-powered toy jeeps that little kids drive around their yards. Then, with grave seriousness, I will declare my faith in God's protection, furl out my flag, and call for the members of the state's church to follow me into battle. I will then hop in my toy jeep and begin driving toward the battle field.
nrjames 9y ago
I always preferred Kierkegaard's contemporary, N.F.S. Grundtvig. If Kierkegaard was "you have to be a good Christian before you can be a good person," then Grundtvig was, "you have to be a good person before you can be a good Christian." As the ideological founder of the folk high school system in Scandinavia, he's had a long and lasting impact on the importance of education.
jyriand 9y ago
I would suggest listening to Hubert Dreyfus's lectures on Kierkegaard. You can find some on youtube[0].Tried to read Kierkegaard before and did't really understand anything. But these lectures give some good context. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKIWraaouu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKIWraaouu4
- eevilspock 9y ago
  I took Dreyfus's Existentialism in Literature and Film class at Berkeley, and it is my favorite class to date. It had a profound effect on my life. It was sad to hear he did earlier this year[1]. The thoughts of Kierkegaard that made him great had nothing to do with religion, so those who are unable to read him due to his religiosity (see other comments) are missing out. It may seem like hyperbole, but I agree with: > He was an existentialist a century before Jean-Paul Sarte, more rigorously post-modern than postmodernism, and a theist whose attacks on religion bit far deeper than many of those of today’s new atheists. Kierkegaard is not so much a thinker for our time but a timeless thinker, whose work is pertinent for all ages yet destined to be fully attuned to none. Ahead of his time? Absolutely. Think about all the men in the news and not in the news toady who use their power over women for sex, and then read this: http://www.readingtheology.com/the-king-and-the-maiden-by-søren-kierkegaard http://www.readingtheology.com/the-king-and-the-maiden-by-sø... -- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14259009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14259009
  - mynameishere 9y ago
    and then read this I read that and it seemed to end abruptly, so I looked for a full version elsewhere on the internet. No, that's the full version. Why did you link to it? It's like half a story a child would write. As for men using power for sex, well yeah. That's why we're humans and not still lungfish.
cerealbad 9y ago
There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; given memories, things, and time.
baldfat 9y ago
My son is named Soren after Kierkegaard. I was a Theology/Philosophy Major and there isn't a single theologian/philosopher that means as much to me. I figure if I named my son after him he will have to read some of his writing and POSSIBLY gain some thoughts that lead to other thoughts that he will always hold dear.
- 59nadir 9y ago
  Sören/Søren or Soren? They're not the same.
  - mborch 9y ago
    But they are... Unless you want to be pedantic.
    - 59nadir 9y ago
      They're not pronounced at all the same, no. Naming your child Soren after Sören makes about as much sense as naming a child Ålän after Alan. You do realize that the "o" and "ö" are different letters representing different sounds, right? Edit: As a dane you should realize how stupid it sounds for you to argue that Soren and Sören are the same, both with swedish and danish pronunciation. It's not at all being pedantic. Do you also think that ч is a 4 and н is a h? The only thing that "ö" and "o" have in common is that they're vowels.
      - 3131s 9y ago
        I mean, neither the letter ø nor the sounds /œ/ or /ø/ exist in English, so presuming the GP lives in an English speaking country they probably didn't want to curse their kid with a name that nobody could pronounce. So, as has been an American custom for a long time, they modified the name slightly by substituting out a visually similar character with vaguely similar phonological characteristics (the /ɔ/ in "Soren" is rounded, open-mid like /œ/). And as they say, it's the thought that counts!
wyclif 9y ago
I still prefer Hegel, particularly his Philosophy of Right.
- kunimu 9y ago
  As for me, one of his successors, Marx.
nocoder 9y ago
SO I have no clue about Kierkegaard, in India very few people know about him. Having seen the discussion here, I am fascinated to learn more about him and his ideas. What will be a good place for me to start? Any books or articles that are recommended?
- molteanu 9y ago
  The Present Age. Short, witty and fun. https://www.amazon.com/Present-Age-Rebellion-Harperperennial-Thought/dp/0061990035 https://www.amazon.com/Present-Age-Rebellion-Harperperennial...

189 points by lermontov 9y ago

Reading Kierkegaard was one of the low points of my philosophy studies. K writes in such a rambling, self-indulgent, muddle-headed way. Every few hundred pages there might be a small gem, but for me it was not anywhere near worth digging through all the refuse for. As far as proto-existentialists go, give me Leopardi over Kierkegaard any day.

hprotagonist 9y ago
> K writes in such a rambling, self-indulgent, muddle-headed way. When he chose to, it was on purpose. He was wholly capable of writing clearly. Nesting levels of meta-text, intentionally adopting a different authorial voice as a metatextual gambit, etc. were all pretty new things when he was alive. They're trite or annoying now, but it's still important to know that he wasn't just being a whiny prat. They're signs that maybe you should or should not take this or that particular penname totally seriously. ('johannes silentio' was super prolix, etc. )
- baldfat 9y ago
  I blame the professor's reading material. Read Soren K. when he was writing with his own name. I taught the Philosophy class on Kierkegaard every semester, because our Philosophy Chair hated him so much. We ended up being good friends and he now actually enjoys S.K. now. S.K. is the most influential and impacting philosopher of the 20th Century (Arguably but I'm pretty sure I'm right). You might not like what you know of him but he took over almost all the theological/philosophy thought by storm 50 years after his death. Heck there were no English translations till the 1940s. He went from a forgotten Danish philosopher to the founder of Existentialism. Hegel never even knew he was alive let alone read his rebuke to his system of philosophy, but S.K. surpassed all of his contemporaries.
muxator 9y ago
I cannot but appreciate the reference to Leopardi. His poetics is lucid and implacably rational, while the aesthetics of the language is fascinating, both in prose and in the poems. Definitely one of my favourite authors.

bambax 9y ago

> Kierkegaard’s greatest illustration of this is his retelling of the story of Abraham and Isaac in Fear and Trembling (1843). Abraham is often held up as a paradigm of faith because he trusted God so much he was prepared to sacrifice his only son on his command. Kierkegaard makes us realize that Abraham acted on faith not because he obeyed a difficult order but because lifting the knife over his son defied all morality and reason. No reasonable man would have done what Abraham did. (...) So when Abraham took his leap of faith, he took leave of reason and morality. I don't know if Kierkegaard actually said any of this, but it's wrong. Child sacrifice is as old as time. Many myths or actual rituals involved killing one's own children. It's found in most ancient cultures from the Middle East to the Americas. It was therefore not "irrational" to do so, but, rather, quite reasonable and normal (if horrible), esp. in dire times. The innovation found in some books of the Bible was just the opposite: to declare that child sacrifice is in fact bad and should be avoided. And of course Jesus is that exact same myth of child sacrifice (with a twist: he dies but lives again).

coliveira 9y ago
Like in mostly everything, the Bible is ambiguous about child sacrifice. A lesser known character, Jephthah, committed child sacrifice after wining a battle with the help of god, and in that case there was no scapegoat as in Isaac's tale.
- hprotagonist 9y ago
  and meanwhile, anything related to Moloch, It-Who-Feeds-On-Children, is 10000% bad and should be destroyed on sight.
- doulos 9y ago
  The account of Jephthah is vastly different than of Abraham; though neither indicate any ambiguity on God's stance regarding child sacrifice. Judges 11 1) The Spirit of the Lord had already come upon Jephthah before he made his vow; showing that God was already intending to give him victory. (v29) 2) Jephthah rashly made a vow to God of his own accord, which was never affirmed by God nor required by God. (v30-31) Even on a surface level reading of the passage, it would be difficult to defend that it was ever God's desire that Jephthah sacrifice his daughter. And, if he knew the character of God as proclaimed by God himself in Exodus 34:6-7, he could have repented and received grace and he still would have had his daughter.

jksmith 9y ago

"Don't be a little Soren" -- Old professor of mine.

baldfat 9y ago
Soren K. was beloved and his funeral was HUGE. BUT Soren got out trolled and he became the meme of his era.

mschaef 9y ago

Whenever I see Kierkegaard referenced, I can't help but think of Michael Swaine's comments (1998) on how it influenced Stroustrup as he developed C++: > Is modesty a virtue in a programming language? Stroustrup thinks so. Invisibility, even. "If you know what language you are using," he says, "there is something wrong. You shouldn't be able to tell." The "you" in this case is the user, I guess. Even Bjarne isn't modest enough to suggest that the programmer shouldn't be able to tell the difference between C++ and Java. But he may be mystical enough. Red Herring notes that Stroustrup's thinking was heavily influenced by the Danish philosopher Sören Kierkegaard. Gosling, as we know, was influenced by an oak tree growing outside his window. http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/science/rpn/biblio/ddj/Website/articles/DDJ/1998/9808/9808l/9808l.htm http://collaboration.cmc.ec.gc.ca/science/rpn/biblio/ddj/Web...

throwawayjava 9y ago
When I'm feeling contemplative, I really want to read something continental for the evening. But when I have shit to do, I snap into an analytic frame of mind. I feel the same way about programming languages; the Kierkegaardian crowd (C++, Perl) are great for evening enjoyment, but I'd prefer something from the more analytic tradition to language design when there's work to be done.
- mschaef 9y ago
  I tend to agree... for me, C++ is a great solution for problems I don't tend to have in my workaday life.
- miloshadzic 9y ago
  so you program in prolog or coq when you really need to get stuff done?
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    It's just an analogy, and I didn't claim it's perfect :-) But there's a divide between language authors who sound like engineers/mathematicians and language authors who sound like continental philosphers. I'd include languages like Java, Python, Go, Haskell, OCaml to be in the "analytic tradition" as well. And yes. lots of people get lots of work done in those languages :-)

yarrel 9y ago

Fear and Trembling reads like the fan of an aging rock band trying to convince a bored listener that the comeback album really is as good as the old material if they just listen to it enough times. I cannot imagine being impressed by the contorted peregrinations of its attempt at gaslighting.

kraig911 9y ago

Søren has always kind of put me off to philosophy and existentialism. Creating foundations within religion as matter of fact then using it as a principal to state everything is meaningless... my mind couldn't make the connection.

burntrelish1273 9y ago
Exactly. It's noncommittal, inconsistent and still at the mercy and vulnerability of magical thinking. The positive part was watering-down ideas enough to be palatable to those whom were predominantly religious. Reality is too much for most people to accept, so they lie to themselves and each other.
- runesoerensen 9y ago
  > still at the mercy and vulnerability of magical thinking What magical thinking are you referring to?
  - mirimir 9y ago
    religion = magical thinking
    - theoh 9y ago
      Or, religion is, at least, a form of seeing meaning in things, which is the same category of activity as magical thinking.
      - mirimir 9y ago
        It's seeing agency in things, and reality overall, I think.
        theoh 9y ago
        You mean this idea? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_detection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agent_detection There's another aspect to proto-religion which has to do with power rather than agency. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana#Pre-animism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mana#Pre-animism All this is speculative, AFAIK.

interfixus 9y ago

Kierkegaard annoys the crap out out of me, as almost all philosophers do. But I will say this for the guy: He had humour. A weird, understated, tangled one, but he had it. Mind you, it is so tied up with his native language and culture, it ought not travel well. And judging by whatever translations I have seen, it hasn't. His worldwide fame is still a mystery to me. And by the way, correct pronunciation is something like Kierkegore. Fittingly, it means churchyard.

racer-v 9y ago
For a translation of his humor into English, see The Humor of Kierkegaard, ed. Thomas C. Oden. Some of it is laugh-out-loud funny, like his description of the ridiculousness of state religion: "Rather than taking part in official Christianity with the thousandth part of my little-finger nail, I would rather engage in the following display of seriousness. A flag is purchased at a hardware store, it is unfurled; with great reverence I approach it, lift up three fingers and swear fidelity to the flag. Thereupon, rigged out in a cocked hat, a cartridge-belt and sword (all from the hardware store), I mount a hobbyhorse, proposing in union with others to make an attack upon the enemy, with contempt for the mortal danger into which I am evidently casting myself, with the seriousness of one who knows what it signifies to have sworn fidelity to the flag." Kierkegaard's "Attack upon 'Christendom'" [277-78]
- StavrosK 9y ago
  Oh man, I couldn't even understand what he meant, let alone find the humour in it.
  - throwawayjava 9y ago
    Yeah, translations need to take into account changes in writing style over the centuries in addition to changes in language. Here's the joke in "modern English": Instead of joining the state's church, I propose instead the following. I will buy a flag, a uniform, a gun, and one of those battery-powered toy jeeps that little kids drive around their yards. Then, with grave seriousness, I will declare my faith in God's protection, furl out my flag, and call for the members of the state's church to follow me into battle. I will then hop in my toy jeep and begin driving toward the battle field.

nrjames 9y ago

I always preferred Kierkegaard's contemporary, N.F.S. Grundtvig. If Kierkegaard was "you have to be a good Christian before you can be a good person," then Grundtvig was, "you have to be a good person before you can be a good Christian." As the ideological founder of the folk high school system in Scandinavia, he's had a long and lasting impact on the importance of education.

jyriand 9y ago

I would suggest listening to Hubert Dreyfus's lectures on Kierkegaard. You can find some on youtube[0].Tried to read Kierkegaard before and did't really understand anything. But these lectures give some good context. [0] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKIWraaouu4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKIWraaouu4

eevilspock 9y ago
I took Dreyfus's Existentialism in Literature and Film class at Berkeley, and it is my favorite class to date. It had a profound effect on my life. It was sad to hear he did earlier this year[1]. The thoughts of Kierkegaard that made him great had nothing to do with religion, so those who are unable to read him due to his religiosity (see other comments) are missing out. It may seem like hyperbole, but I agree with: > He was an existentialist a century before Jean-Paul Sarte, more rigorously post-modern than postmodernism, and a theist whose attacks on religion bit far deeper than many of those of today’s new atheists. Kierkegaard is not so much a thinker for our time but a timeless thinker, whose work is pertinent for all ages yet destined to be fully attuned to none. Ahead of his time? Absolutely. Think about all the men in the news and not in the news toady who use their power over women for sex, and then read this: http://www.readingtheology.com/the-king-and-the-maiden-by-søren-kierkegaard http://www.readingtheology.com/the-king-and-the-maiden-by-sø... -- [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14259009 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14259009
- mynameishere 9y ago
  and then read this I read that and it seemed to end abruptly, so I looked for a full version elsewhere on the internet. No, that's the full version. Why did you link to it? It's like half a story a child would write. As for men using power for sex, well yeah. That's why we're humans and not still lungfish.

cerealbad 9y ago

There is no remembrance of former things; neither shall there be any remembrance of things that are to come with those that shall come after. A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance; given memories, things, and time.

baldfat 9y ago

My son is named Soren after Kierkegaard. I was a Theology/Philosophy Major and there isn't a single theologian/philosopher that means as much to me. I figure if I named my son after him he will have to read some of his writing and POSSIBLY gain some thoughts that lead to other thoughts that he will always hold dear.

59nadir 9y ago
Sören/Søren or Soren? They're not the same.
- mborch 9y ago
  But they are... Unless you want to be pedantic.
  - 59nadir 9y ago
    They're not pronounced at all the same, no. Naming your child Soren after Sören makes about as much sense as naming a child Ålän after Alan. You do realize that the "o" and "ö" are different letters representing different sounds, right? Edit: As a dane you should realize how stupid it sounds for you to argue that Soren and Sören are the same, both with swedish and danish pronunciation. It's not at all being pedantic. Do you also think that ч is a 4 and н is a h? The only thing that "ö" and "o" have in common is that they're vowels.
    - 3131s 9y ago
      I mean, neither the letter ø nor the sounds /œ/ or /ø/ exist in English, so presuming the GP lives in an English speaking country they probably didn't want to curse their kid with a name that nobody could pronounce. So, as has been an American custom for a long time, they modified the name slightly by substituting out a visually similar character with vaguely similar phonological characteristics (the /ɔ/ in "Soren" is rounded, open-mid like /œ/). And as they say, it's the thought that counts!

wyclif 9y ago

I still prefer Hegel, particularly his Philosophy of Right.

kunimu 9y ago
As for me, one of his successors, Marx.

nocoder 9y ago

SO I have no clue about Kierkegaard, in India very few people know about him. Having seen the discussion here, I am fascinated to learn more about him and his ideas. What will be a good place for me to start? Any books or articles that are recommended?

molteanu 9y ago
The Present Age. Short, witty and fun. https://www.amazon.com/Present-Age-Rebellion-Harperperennial-Thought/dp/0061990035 https://www.amazon.com/Present-Age-Rebellion-Harperperennial...