Kierkegaard on Faith and Love

Description

Kierkegaard's writings are interspersed with remarkable stories of love, commonly understood as a literary device that illustrates the problematic nature of aesthetic and ethical forms of life, and the contrasting desirability of the life of faith. Sharon Krishek argues that for Kierkegaard the connection between love and faith is far from being merely illustrative. Rather, love and faith have a common structure, and are involved with one another in a way that makes it impossible to love well without faith. Remarkably, this applies to romantic love no less than to neighbourly love. Krishek's original and compelling interpretation of the Works of Love in the light of Kierkegaard's famous analysis of the paradoxicality of faith in Fear and Trembling shows that preferential love, and in particular romantic love, plays a much more important and positive role in his thinking than has usually been assumed.

Sharon Krishek is a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Philosophy Department at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

'... [Krishek's] analysis makes illuminating distinctions and in the process introduces the reader to the most recent scholarship on Works of Love. For these reasons, the book is worthwhile reading for any Kierkegaard student or scholar.' M. Jamie Ferreira, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews 'It is surely no easy task to offer a significant new interpretation of Kierkegaard's central concepts of faith and love, and yet this is what one finds in Sharon Krishek's bold and stimulating new study. Krishek's work is especially valuable for its insights into Kierkegaard's overall philosophy of love, in particular with her attempt to deal with thorny issues raised from the lack of a univocal conception of love in Works of Love by considering Fear and Trembling as a corrective. This is both provocative and novel when one considers that it is sometimes the reverse textual relationship that is seen to hold ...' Michael Strawser, Soren Kierkegaard Newsletter '... we have a book by an avowed Kierkegaardian who is willing to call her mentor's hand regarding the concept of love that he developed in Works of Love. What makes this refreshing and unusual is that Sharon Krishek (SK) presents us with a critique of Kierkegaard's (SK's) view of love that is based on Kierkegaard's view of faith.' Ronald L. Hall, International Journal for Philosophy of Religion 'Sharon Krishek's Kierkegaard on Faith and Love argues that romantic love is a central and abiding theme in Kierkegaard's writings and of philosophical importance.' George Pattison, Journal of European Philosophy