•  1527
    Kierkegaard's Phenomenology of Spirit
    European Journal of Philosophy 24 (3): 629-650. 2014.
    Kierkegaard's preoccupation with a separation between the ‘inner’ and the ‘outer’ runs through his work and is widely thought to belong to his rejection of Hegel's idealist monism. Focusing on The Concept of Irony and Either/Or, I argue that although Kierkegaard believes in various metaphysical distinctions between inside and outside, he nonetheless understands the task of the philosopher as that of making outside and inside converge in a representation. Drawing on Hegel's philosophy of art, I s…Read more
  •  449
    Love Among the Post-Socratics
    Kierkegaard Studies Yearbook 2013 (1). 2013.
    Victor Eremita proposes that the reader understand parts I and II of Either/Or as parties in a dialogue; most readers in fact view II as a devastating reply to I. I suggest that part I be read as a reaction or follow-up to Kierkegaard’s dissertation. Much of part I presents reflective characters who are aware of their freedom but reluctant or unable to adopt the ethical life. The modern Antigone and the Silhouettes are sisters of Alcibiades—failed students of Socrates. I articulate and defend th…Read more
  •  149
    Love as a Problem of Knowledge in Kierkegaard's Either/Or and Plato's Symposium
    Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 53 (1): 41-67. 2010.
    At the end of the essay “Silhouettes” in Either/Or , Kierkegaard writes, “only the person who has been bitten by snakes knows what one who has been bitten by snakes must suffer.” I interpret this as an allusion to Alcibiades' speech in Plato's Symposium. Kierkegaard invites the reader to compare Socrates to Don Giovanni, and Alcibiades to the seduced women. Socrates' philosophical method, in this light, is a deceptive seduction: just as Don Giovanni's seduction leads his conquests to unhappy lov…Read more
  •  106
    Tragedy and Resentment
    Mind 127 (508): 1169-1191. 2018.
    According to Kantian ethics, immoral actions convey disrespect. This negative attitude makes injuries inflicted by other persons worse than injuries caused by nature, ceteris paribus. As Strawson would later put it, the perpetrator’s attitude of disregard prompts in the victim the reactive attitude of resentment. But, I point out, we harbour and display plenty of other negative attitudes toward people aside from disrespect. What, if any, reactive attitudes are natural and appropriate in response…Read more
  •  64
    The folk metaphysics of love
    European Journal of Philosophy 26 (4): 1398-1409. 2018.
    I argue against the intellectualist view of love according to which we (must) love for reasons so that love is rational. Engaging primarily with the quality appraisal view of love, I concede that qualities can cause love but insist that it is misguided to think of love as having reasons. A number of features of human psychology complicate the issue of how lover relates to beloved's qualities. (a) The lover may be attracted to a quality without appraising that quality reflectively. (b) Personal q…Read more
  •  36
    _ Freedom, Resentment and the Metaphysics of Morals _, by HieronymiPamela. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2020. Pp. xx + 145.
  •  18
    In a bold new argument, Ulrika Carlsson grasps hold of the figure of Eros that haunts Søren Kierkegaard's The Concept of Irony, and for the first time, uses it as key to interpret that text and his second book, Either/Or. According to Carlsson, Kierkegaard adopts Plato's idea of Eros as the fundamental force that drives humans in all their pursuits. For him, every existential stance-every way of living and relating to the outside world-is at heart a way of loving. By intensely examining Kierkeg…Read more
  •  1
    The Ethical Life of Aesthetes
    In Patrick Stokes, Eleanor Helms & Adam Buben (eds.), The Kierkegaardian Mind, Routledge. pp. 135-144. 2019.
    Judge Wilhelm’s ethical critique of the aesthetic life, in Either/Or, is usually thought to be devastating. But it is rare for interpreters to consider whether the Judge’s characterization of the aesthetic life-view does justice to Aesthete A’s writings, let alone whether A could give a retort to the ethicist. This paper argues that much of the Judge’s criticism misses its mark. Part of the criticism is better directed at Johannes the Seducer, who cannot necessarily be identified with A. Further…Read more