Philosopher of the Heart is the groundbreaking biography of renowned existentialist Søren Kierkegaard’s life and creativity, and a searching exploration of how to be a human being in the world. Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most passionate and challenging of all modern philosophers, and is often regarded as the founder of existentialism. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen pursuing the question of existence—how to be a human being in the world?—while exploring the possibilities of Christianity and confronting the failures of its institutional manifestation around him. Much of his creativity sprang from his relationship with the young woman whom he promised to marry, then left to devote himself to writing, a relationship which remained decisive for the rest of his life. He deliberately lived in the swim of human life in Copenhagen, but alone, and died exhausted in 1855 at the age of 42, bequeathing his remarkable writings to his erstwhile fiancée. Clare Carlisle’s innovative and moving biography writes Kierkegaard’s life as far as possible from his own perspective, to convey what it was like actually being this Socrates of Christendom—as he put it, living life forwards yet only understanding it backwards.

This volume contains a new translation, with a historical introduction by the translators, of two works written under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. Through Climacus, Kierkegaard contrasts the paradoxes of Christianity with Greek and modern philosophical thinking. In Philosophical Fragments he begins with Greek Platonic philosophy, exploring the implications of venturing beyond the Socratic understanding of truth acquired through recollection to the Christian experience of acquiring truth through grace. Published in 1844 and not originally planned to appear under the pseudonym Climacus, the book varies in tone and substance from the other works so attributed, but it is dialectically related to them, as well as to the other pseudonymous writings. The central issue of Johannes Climacus is doubt. Probably written between November 1842 and April 1843 but unfinished and published only posthumously, this book was described by Kierkegaard as an attack on modern speculative philosophy by "means of the melancholy irony, which did not consist in any single utterance on the part of Johannes Climacus but in his whole life. . . . Johannes does what we are told to do--he actually doubts everything--he suffers through all the pain of doing that, becomes cunning, almost acquires a bad conscience. When he has gone as far in that direction as he can go and wants to come back, he cannot do so. . . . Now he despairs, his life is wasted, his youth is spent in these deliberations. Life does not acquire any meaning for him, and all this is the fault of philosophy." A note by Kierkegaard suggests how he might have finished the work: "Doubt is conquered not by the system but by faith, just as it is faith that has brought doubt into the world!."

Now recognized as one of the nineteenth century's leading psychologists and philosophers. Kierkegaard was among other things the harbinger of exisentialisim. In FEAR AND TREMBLING he explores the psychology of religion, addressing the question 'What is Faith?' in terms of the emotional and psychological relationship between the individual and God. But this difficult question is addressed in the most vivid terms, as Kierkegaard explores different ways of interpreting the ancient story of Abraham and Isaac to make his point.

A comprehensive anthology of Kierkegaard’s writings that offers an unmatched introduction to one of the most original and influential modern philosophers This is the most comprehensive anthology of Søren Kierkegaard’s works ever published in English. Drawn from the volumes of Princeton’s authoritative Kierkegaard’s Writings series by editors Howard and Edna Hong, these carefully chosen selections represent every major aspect of Kierkegaard’s extraordinary output, which changed the course of modern intellectual history with its mix of philosophy, psychology, theology, and literary criticism. The anthology reveals the most important themes of his work, especially what it means to exist and to be human, and captures the unique character of his writings, with their shifting pseudonyms, complex dialogues, and powerful combination of irony, satire, sermon, polemic, humor, and fiction. A superb introduction and guide to the Danish philosopher, The Essential Kierkegaard vividly demonstrates why his work continues to speak so directly to so many readers. Traces the full span of Kierkegaard’s writings, from his early journals to his final work Features generous selections from all of Kierkegaard’s most important works, including Either/Or, Fear and Trembling, Works of Love, and The Sickness unto Death Presents selections from lesser-known writings, including Three Discourses on Imagined Occasions and The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air Includes an introduction to Kierkegaard’s writings and explanatory notes for each selection

Soren Kierkegaard's influence has been felt in many areas of human thought from theology to psychology. Nearly 100 of his prayers are gathered here, illuminating his own life of prayer and speaking to the concerns of Christians today.

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.