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Journeys to Selfhood, Hegel and Kierkegaard

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If you've read enough Hegel or Kierkegaard to intuit that there are insights of great value within their primary texts, but also enough to realize that an adequate reading of those texts will require a long ascent via other philosophers and the secondary literature, you will appreciate this book as a significant step forward in that "journey."

More helpful and engaging than Kojeve and Kaufmann, more accessible than Harris, and broader than Russon (which is also excellent), Taylor powerfully explicates what is at stake in the Hegel/Kierkegaard debate, and why it should matter to anyone troubled about man's relation to god and the ubiquitous modern malady of "spiritlessness."

The book's greatest strength is its focus on Hegel's Logic and Kierkegaard's critical reaction to it as a central organizing idea. Taylor shows just how far reaching the consequences are of rejecting (Hegel) or accepting (Kierkegaard) the logical law of non-contradiction (i.e., A=A). Through an excellent synopsis of Hegel's Phenomenology and Kierkegaard's pseudonymous works, Taylor spins out the serious religious, philosophical, and ethical implications of that crucial first logical move.

Nevertheless, this may not be the place to start in the secondary literature. Taylor's study contains numerous long block quotes from the primary texts, which can take a serious amount of re-reading to adequately comprehend. But what makes the book special is that its framing renders some of Hegel's and Kierkegaard's most difficult passages comprehensible, if you are willing to put in the time-consuming work. And this helps make it an engaging work in its own right, rather than merely an instrumental step.

The book's main weakness is that Taylor may be more of a Hegel partisan than is warranted given his own cogent explication of and clear affinity with Kierkegaard's insights. Taylor's brief concluding arguments in favor of Hegel may not come as a surprise 200+ pages in, but I had hoped for more of a dialectical reconciliation of Hegel with his critics, a Hegelianism beyond Hegel. However, this is one of Taylor's earliest works, and he ends his study with a promise to take up that very task in subsequent writings.

Highly recommended to the intermediate philosophy student.

In Journeys To Selfhood: Hegel & Kierkegaard, Mark Taylor charted the historical background of philosophy through establishing a creative dialogue between two the 20th Century's most influential philosophers. Hegel and Kierkegaard defined the poles between all significant modern and post-modern theologies ranging from Kierkegaardian neo-orthodoxy to Hegelian "death-of-God" theology, from Hegelian phenomenology and structuralism to Kierkegaardian deconstruction and post-structuralism. This new edition of a classic study, enhanced with an extensive bibliography and index, will be a welcome addition to contemporary philosophy and theology reading lists for students and scholars.