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The Cambridge Companion to Kierkegaard (Cambridge Companions to Philosophy)

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The "Cambridge Companion to..." series almost invariably provides an excellent introduction to the thought of the thinkers it treats upon, and the volume on Kierkegaard is no exception. It collects 16 essays by current scholars on aspects of Kierkegaard's authorship and life ranging from his relationship with his native Denmark and his family to expositions of some of his most difficult and influential works. The essays on faith in "Philosophical Fragments" and the explication of "The Concept of Anxiety," in my view Kierkegaard's most important work, are standouts, as is Alastair Hannay's piece on "The Sickness Unto Death." Though primarily for undergraduates and grad students who have not yet been exposed to Kierkegaard, even specialists in continental philosophy will find this a wonderful one-stop reference on some of the major issues taken up by the hordes of later philosophers who fall under Kierkegaard's sway, Heidegger in particular.

The essays can be helpful in understanding some of K's works, but the pervasive ignoring of the spiritual/religious aspects of K's works individually and taken all together makes the book incomplete and totally unsatisfactory. The secularists who write and edit this kind of collection of essays just can't get beyond their own prejudices. Most essays are difficult to read because of poor writing and a failure to really look and analyze what K. is saying. Also, the selection of topics are arbitrary, and I am sure most of the writers wish K. had only written Either/Or and perhaps Stages on Life's way. Please do what K. would want you to do: read his works and ignore the intellectual blather in this book which he would have despised.

"Kierkegaard was by far the greatest thinker of the nineteenth century. Kierkegaard was a saint'- Ludwig Wittgenstein. The last major anthology of essays on Kierkegaard was edited by Josiah Thompson and was published in the early seventies as part of the excellent "Anchor Studies in Philosophy " series. While most of the essays in the Thompson collection were and are classics, this anthology is more representative of the present and future state of Kierkegaard studies. People are moving away from the lonely, anguished, subjective Kierkegaard of myth and appreciating his real subtlety and power . It used to still be common to denigrate Kierkegaard as a thinker, and to view him as a romantic mystic rather than a serious philosopher. There is, for instance, no chapter on Kierkegaard in Bryan Magee's book The Great Philosophers. This book is symbolic of a turning of the tide. SK was more than a brilliant Christian apologist; he was a philosopher of a high order.