Customer Reviews

Kierkegaard's Philosophy: Self Deception and Cowardice in the Present Age

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OK, so the book's not available. Be patient! You'll get a copy someday and find out what a great and challenging thinker Kierkegaard is. This book is extremely well written, but I'll follow in the author's footsteps and point to Kierkegaard's insights into YOU and the item of importance here. Kierkegaard asks us to look at ourselves deeply and honestly, and decide whether we can really be proud of our lives as we are living them (as Mullen puts it). This line of thinking is not "enjoyable"; it is edifying and important. In so far as Kierkegaard "makes faith possible" for us moderns, and because Mullen does such a great job, I would say the book is a challenging and joyous (joyous in the big sense of the word) enterprise. Read this book even if you think you won't like it. Were we really born just to read Tom Clancy novels?

Mullen outlines the 'false solutions' to the 'what gives life meaning' question. He goes through descriptions of how Kierkegaard rejected bourgeois morality, romantic rebellion, sexual hedonism, organized religion, ironic detachment, pure action, pure thought, pure art in the course of examining his own life. He also examines how Kierkegaard made his 'leap of faith' into the kind of passionate relation with God which constitutes for him the only true way , the only true religion.
This book provides a basic understanding of the path of Kierkegaard. It may be that I did not have the right mind- set while reading it, but I did not feel it was leading me to the depths of new revelation in regard to Kierkegaard.
For me his example is definitely in the remarkable process of self- examination and questioning he goes through. It is also in the original use of literary forms, the combination of philosophical and literary means. And it is too in the image of the lone thinker striving by himself against the world to find and define a new way for himself and for mankind. And this when rejecting the idea of a Hegelian impersonal objective answer, and exemplifying the answer found through individual quest alone.

I just finished reading the book. It is still sinking in. I thought I had understood what little I had read of Kirkegaard. I know now I was seriously wrong and that I must reacquaint myself with his works and thought.

The margins of my copy (which I stole from my brother) are full of observations of relevance to my "style" of living. In one case, under the discussion of "The Group - In One Dimension," in VERY LARGE LETTERS, I wrote "OUCH! That hurts!" This is an illustration of the degree to which Mullen and his subject can pierce your armour.

While I will not agree with Kirkegaard's stance on Christianity as the only possible life of faith, I see where there is a need for "faith" in something larger than ourselves--whatever we deem that something to be--so as to round out what all too often turn out to be one dimensional existences, focused on the immediate.

After letting the book sink in some more, I intend to browse through it again . . . and to have it handy when I open Either/Or to READ it for the "first" time.

As a technical person just beginning philosophy study, this book was recommended as a prerequisite. It is that and more. Very well written. John Mullen obviously knows his Kierkegaard and communicates the essence of his works very fluently and clearly. I am grateful that I was directed to this book before tackling the personal philosopher himself. This book is a road map and indispensable reference. It is not light or humorous -- in keeping with the subject matter -- but it is very engaging and readable. I do intend to re-read it to extract the finer points I missed the first time.