Kierkegaard and the skeptics

British Journal for the History of Philosophy

Volumn 6, Issue 1, 1998, Pages 71-88

  Rudd, A J ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL   (United Kingdom)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 61249655286     PISSN: 09608788     EISSN: 14693526     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/09608789808570982     Document Type: Article

References (19)

1. The Journals of Kierkegaard, a selection ed. and trans. A. Dru (Collins, Fontana Books, London, 1958), p. 68
2. Philosophical Fragments (PF), ed. and trans. H. and E. Hong, published in one volume with Johannes Climacus (Princeton University Press, Princeton, NJ, 1985), p. 82. (Referred to hereafter in these Notes as PF.)
3. Sextus Empiricus, Outlines of Pyrrhonism I, 4. As translated by S. G. Etheridge, in P. Hallie (ed.) Sextus Empiricus: Major Writings on Scepticism, Man and God (Indianapolis, Hackett Publishing Co., 1985), pp. 32-3
4. Fear and Trembling, ed. and trans. H. and E. Hong, (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1983) p.5
5. Philosophical Fragments, trans. D. Swenson, (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, revised edn, 1962) p. 102. I have used Swenson's older translation of the Fragments here because, while there is no substantial difference in meaning at this point between his version and the Hongs', Swenson brings out the sarcastic flavour of Kierkegaard's remark better. See p. 82 in the Hongs' translation
6. Concluding Unscientific Postscript, trans. D. Swenson and W. Lowrie, (Princeton, NJ, Prince- ton University Press, 1941) p. 282 (hereafter, CUP)
7. Johannes Climacus, or De Omnibus Dubitandum Est, (see note 2 for details) pp. 166-72 (hereafter, JC)
8. Phenomenology of Spirit, trans. A. V. Miller (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1977), pp. 58-66
9. See Hegel's Introduction to the Phenomenology
10. See, for instance, H. Putnam, Reason, Truth and History, (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1981); A. C. Grayling, The Refutation of Scepticism, (London, Duckworth, 1985); M. Sacks, The World We Found (London, Duckworth, 1989)
11. For an interesting comparison of Kierkegaard and Hume, see R. H. Popkin, 'Hume and Kierkegaard' in his collection, The High Road to Pyrrhonism, (Indianapolis, Hackett Pub- lishing Co., 1993); see also P. Gardiner, Kierkegaard (Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1988), pp. 76-8
12. M. Burnyeat, 'Can the Skeptic Live his Skepticism?' in M. Burnyeat (ed.) The Skeptical Tra- dition, (Berkeley, University of California Press, 1983); J. Barnes, 'The Beliefs of a Pyrrhon- ist', Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society, 1982
13. M. Frede, 'The Skeptics' Beliefs' in his Essays in Ancient Philosophy (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1987); L. Groarke, Greek Scepticism, (Montreal, McGill-Queens University Press, 1990)
14. G. E. Moore, 'Proof of an External World' in his Philosophical Papers (London, Allen and Unwin, 1959)
15. Quoted in Groarke, Greek Scepticism, p. 15, from Against the Ethicists, 49
16. See T. Penelhum, God and Scepticism (Dordrecht, Kluwer, 1983), pp. 14-16, and Chs 2-5 passim
17. M. J. Ferreira, Transforming Vision: Imagination and Will in Kierkegaardian Faith (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1991). This book is a very valuable corrective to simplistic voluntaristic accounts of the transition between different spheres of existence
18. On this, see M. G. Piety, op. cit.; C. Stephen Evans, Kierkegaard's Fragments and Postscript (Atlantic Highlands, NJ, Humanities Press, 1983) especially Chs 7, 11 and 12), and idem, Pas- sionate Reason (Bloomington, Indiana University Press, 1992). I have attempted to give a fuller account of Kierkegaard's understanding of rationality and the progress through the stages of life in my book, Kierkegaard and the Limits of the Ethical, (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1993)
19. Penelhum interprets Kierkegaard as an irrationalist. See God and Scepticism, op. cit., pp. 75-84, and esp. p. 82