Kierkegaard and the Limits of Thought
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 19553347 |
|---|---|
| Authors | David Watts (0000-0002-9255-4515, University of Essex, corresponding author), Daniel Watts |
| Year | 2018 |
| Volume | 39 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 82-105 |
| Publication date | 2018-05-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Hegel Bulletin (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2051-5367 • E-ISSN: 2051-5375 |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1017/hgl.2016.36 |
| OpenAlex | W2511484618 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 4 |
| References cited | 14 |
This essay offers an account of Kierkegaard’s view of the limits of thought and of what makes this view distinctive. With primary reference to Philosophical Fragments , and its putative representation of Christianity as unthinkable, I situate Kierkegaard’s engagement with the problem of the limits of thought, especially with respect to the views of Kant and Hegel. I argue that Kierkegaard builds in this regard on Hegel’s critique of Kant but that, against Hegel, he develops a radical distinction between two types of thinking and inquiry: the ‘aesthetic-intellectual’ and the ‘ethico-religious’. I clarify this distinction and show how it guides Kierkegaard’s conception of a form of philosophical practice that involves drawing limits to the proper sphere of disinterested contemplation. With reference to two rival interpretations of Kierkegaard’s approach to the limits of thought—which I call ‘bullet-biting’ and ‘relativizing’—I further show how my ‘disambiguating’ account can better explain how, and why, his work courts a form of self-referential incoherence, in which it appears that certain limits of thought are at once affirmed and violated
Contemplation · Epistemology · Hegelianism · Politics · Kierkegaardian Philosophy and Influence · Law · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.57 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2026 (8) |
| Highly cited | No |