Søren Kierkegaard: Life, Philosophy, and Existentialism

Kierkegaard as a Person

Born on May 5, 1813, in the Danish capital of Copenhagen, Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a renowned philosopher and theologian. He claimed his physical frailty was an oppressive weight that dragged down his healthy spirit, which longed for freedom. At the age of 17, Søren enrolled at the University of Copenhagen and majored in theology, as his father wished; however, he subsequently shifted to philosophy. While his education did influence his thinking, the inspiration for his written works actually came from two key relationships — with his father, Michael Kierkegaard, and a failed engagement to Regine Olsen — as well as two major conflicts: one with the Church and the other with the print media, particularly Corsaren (The Corsair). His health began to fail, and Søren died on November 11, 1855, at the age of 42 (Obinyan, 2014).

Any analysis of the philosopher's life would be incomplete without a discussion of his father, who had a great and lasting impact on Søren. Michael Kierkegaard came from a poor household on the western side of Jutland. At eleven years of age, however, his uncle — a merchant — invited Michael to Copenhagen to work as his apprentice. Intelligent and hardworking, Michael helped the business thrive. He eventually inherited his uncle's business and invested shrewdly during the country's financial difficulties, which arose from Denmark's alignment with the losing side in the nineteenth-century Napoleonic Wars. Michael ultimately became one of Copenhagen's wealthiest men. Despite his financial success, he was described as "melancholic," or suffering from depression. His first wife died childless a couple of years after their marriage, and the following year Michael wed Anne Sorensdatter Lund, a servant who was already expecting their first child. Søren, the last of seven siblings, was born when his father was 56 and his mother 45 years old (Evans, n.d.).

Like his father, Søren was "melancholic" and guilt-ridden throughout his life. His relationship with his father was probably the greatest influence during the most decisive phase of his life, which included his failed engagement to Regine Olsen. Although Kierkegaard fell in love with and became engaged to Ms. Olsen in 1840, he almost immediately felt he had made a serious mistake. Following a painful period in which he behaved poorly in order to make Regine leave him, he ultimately returned the engagement ring in 1841, ending the engagement, and departed for Berlin, Germany, where he engaged in intense writing. Why he severed ties with Regine was perhaps not even entirely clear to him; the world will likely never know what drove him to that decision. Nevertheless, Søren felt he possessed a personal shortcoming or impairment that meant he could never marry. He felt he could not confide in Regine without revealing deep secrets about his father. He interpreted his circumstances from a religious standpoint, believing God wanted him to become an "exception" — sacrificing love and the happiness of marriage (Evans, n.d.).

Even after the broken engagement, Søren loved Regine intensely; she appeared in his thoughts and personal journals throughout his life. Considerable evidence suggests that his written works, particularly his earliest books, were in some way a means of expressing his thoughts and feelings to her. It was this broken engagement that truly liberated Søren to pursue his career as a writer, and from 1843 to 1846 he produced a remarkable number of books. Several early works are fictional and pseudonymous. Repetition and Either/Or resemble novels (Garff, 2005). It is important to note, however, that from the very beginning Søren also wrote numerous religious works, which he labeled "Edifying Discourses" (Opbyggelige), translated literally by the Hongs as "Upbuilding Discourses."

Søren's life is also incomplete without a mention of his conflict with the Church during his final years and the Corsaren controversy. In 1846, he decided to end his literary career and become a pastor, ideally in a country parish. That very same year, however, Søren became embroiled in a dispute with Corsaren, a national satirical literary magazine that mocked the country's leading intellectuals. Because much of the writing in Corsaren was anonymous, careless and slanderous attacks were common (Rosenau, 1995; Garff, 2005).

References

Bertman, Martin A. (1990). Kierkegaard and/or philosophy. History of European Ideas, 12(1), 117–126.

Evans, C. Stephen. (n.d.). Kierkegaard: An introduction. Cambridge University Press.

Garff, Joachim. (2005). Søren Kierkegaard: A biography (B. H. Kirmmse, Trans.). Princeton University Press.

Malik, Habib C. (1997). Receiving Søren Kierkegaard: The early impact and transmission of his thought. The Catholic University of America Press.

Obinyan, V. E. (2014). Nature of human existence in Kierkegaard's ethical philosophy: A step towards self-valuation and transformation in our contemporary world. International Journal of Philosophy, 2(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.11648/j.ijp.20140201.11

Rosenau, Hartmut. (1995). Self-reflection and autobiography — Kierkegaard's writings about himself. History of European Ideas, 20(1–3), 183–188.