Patrick Stokes

This chapter analyses the views of Soren Kierkegaard about the concept of death. It examines the historical reasons why death might have featured with especial prominence in the work of a writer concerned with the parlous state of post-Hegelian Christianity and explains that Kierkegaard saw more of death before his thirtieth birthday than most people see in a lifetime. The chapter also explains the meaning of death in the mention of death in some of his works, including Either/Or, For Self-Examination, and The Sickness Unto Death.

Uses insights from Kierkegaard to explore contemporary problems of self, time, narrative and death Is each of us the main character in a story we tell about ourselves, or is this narrative understanding of selfhood misguided and possibly harmful? Are selves and persons the same thing? And what does the possibility of sudden death mean for our ability to understand the narrative of ourselves? These questions have been much discussed both in recent philosophy and by scholars grappling with the work of the enigmatic 19th-century thinker Søren Kierkegaard. For the first time, this collection brings together figures in both contemporary philosophy and Kierkegaard studies to explore pressing issues in the philosophy of personal identity and moral psychology. It serves both to advance important ongoing discussions of selfhood and to explore the light that, 200 years after his birth, Kierkegaard is still able to shed on contemporary problems.