Customer Reviews

Sickness Unto Death (International Kierkegaard Commentary)

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This is an absolutely stunning analysis on the roots of despair and the dichotomous struggle of the mind against itself. It is a provocative study well worth reading with friends and discussing, as the rather dense prose can make it easier to miss certain points he makes. Anyone who has suffered a long term depression or knows someone who has should especially read this.

Just to be clear, this book is series of essays on various topics from Kierkegaard's The Sickness Unto Death: A Christian Psychological Exposition For Upbuilding And Awakening (Kierkegaard's Writings, Vol 19) (v. 19). It is not the book itself. I say that because the previous two reviews seem to be reviewing Kierkegaard's book itself. I agree with their reviews as reviews of Kierkegaard's book, but anyone who orders this work expecting to get Kierkegaard's work itself is going to be disappointed.

I actually have not read all the essays in this book and the essays I did read I read quite awhile ago. The reason I am writing a review is to provide a table of contents for readers who are looking for material on The Sickness Unto Death and want to know if there are any essays in this work relevant to their topic. Along time ago I found a website that had tables of contents for all of the International Kierkegaard Commentaries but I have not been able to find it again so I thought I would provide a public service by providing the table of contents for at least a couple of the volumes. I will also add to this review as I read some of the essays. But for now here is a list of the essays in this work:

"The Definition of the Self and the Structure of Kierkegaard's Work" by John D. Glenn, Jr.

"Spirit and the Idea of the Self as a Reflexive Relation" by Alastair Hannay

"Kierkegaard's Psychology and Unconscious Despair" by Merold Westphal

"Kierkegaard's Double Dialectic of Despair and Sin" by James L. Marsh

"The Sickness Unto Death: Critique of the Modern Age" by Louis Dupre

"The Social Dimension of Despair" by John W. Elrod

"On 'Feminine' and 'Masculine' Forms of Despair" by Sylvia I. Walsh

"The Grammar of Sin and the Conceptual Unity of The Sickness Unto Death" by Robert C. Roberts

"Self-Knowledge and the Mirror of the Word" by H.E. Baber and John Donnelly

"Kierkegaard on Vertigo" by John M. Hoberman

"Despair and Everydayness: Kierkegaard's Corrective Contribution to Heidegger's Notion of Fallen Everydayness" by Dan Magurshak

"A Rejection of Kierkegaard's Monism of Despair" by Haim Gordon

Kierkegaard has in this book gone under the surface of despair. The analysis of despair of the self when it not want to be it self is great. It helped me to understand why my self isn't in harmony. And how my self may consolidate.