“This impressive [anthology] succeeds admirably at demonstrating how the Kierkegaardian corpus presents . . . a philosophy of finite existence” (Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews). Few philosophers have devoted such sustained, almost obsessive attention to the topic of death as Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard and Death brings together new work on Kierkegaard’s multifaceted discussions of death and provides a thorough guide to the development, in various texts and contexts, of Kierkegaard’s ideas concerning death. Essays by an international group of scholars take up essential topics such as dying to the world, living death, immortality, suicide, mortality and subjectivity, death and the meaning of life, remembrance of the dead, and the question of the afterlife. While bringing Kierkegaard’s philosophy of death into focus, this volume connects Kierkegaard with important debates in contemporary philosophy.

Few philosophers have devoted such sustained, almost obsessive attention to the topic of death as Søren Kierkegaard. Kierkegaard and Death brings together new work on Kierkegaard's multifaceted discussions of death and provides a thorough guide to the development, in various texts and contexts, of Kierkegaard's ideas concerning death. Essays by an international group of scholars take up essential topics such as dying to the world, living death, immortality, suicide, mortality and subjectivity, death and the meaning of life, remembrance of the dead, and the question of the afterlife. While bringing Kierkegaard's philosophy of death into focus, this volume connects Kierkegaard with important debates in contemporary philosophy.

Man is spirit. But what is spirit? Spirit is the self. But what is the self? The self is a relation which relates itself to its own self, or it is that in the relation [which accounts for it] that the relation relates itself to its own self; the self is not the relation but [consists in the fact] that the relation relates itself to its own self. Man is a synthesis of the infinite and the finite, of the temporal and the eternal, of freedom and necessity; in short, it is a synthesis.

Death is one of those few topics that attract the attention of just about every significant thinker in the history of Western philosophy, and this attention has resulted in diverse and complex views on death and what comes after. In Meaning and Mortality, Adam Buben offers a remarkably useful new framework for understanding the ways in which philosophy has discussed death by focusing first on two traditional strains in the discussion, the Platonic and the Epicurean. After providing a thorough account of this ancient dichotomy, he describes the development of an alternative means of handling death in Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, whose work on death tends to overshadow Kierkegaard's despite the undeniable influence exerted on him by the nineteenth-century Dane. Buben argues that Kierkegaard and Heidegger prescribe a peculiar way of living with death that offers a kind of compromise between the Platonic and the Epicurean strains.

Walter Lowrie's classic, bestselling translation of Søren Kierkegaard's most important and popular books remains unmatched for its readability and literary quality. Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death established Kierkegaard as the father of existentialism and have come to define his contribution to philosophy. Lowrie's translation, first published in 1941 and later revised, was the first in English, and it has introduced hundreds of thousands of readers to Kierkegaard's thought. Kierkegaard counted Fear and Trembling and The Sickness Unto Death among "the most perfect books I have written," and in them he introduces two terms--"the absurd" and "despair"--that have become key terms in modern thought. Fear and Trembling takes up the story of Abraham and Isaac to explore a faith that transcends the ethical, persists in the face of the absurd, and meets its reward in the return of all that the faithful one is willing to sacrifice, while The Sickness Unto Death examines the spiritual anxiety of despair. Walter Lowrie's magnificent translation of these seminal works continues to provide an ideal introduction to Kierkegaard. And, as Gordon Marino argues in a new introduction, these books are as relevant as ever in today's age of anxiety.

A part of Harper Perennial’s special “Resistance Library” highlighting classic works that illuminate the “Age of Trump”: Soren Kierkegaard’s stunningly prescient essay on the dangers of mass media—particularly advertising, marketing, and publicity. An essential read as we reckon with, and try to understand, the media forces that have helped create our present political moment. “The Present Age shows just how original Kierkegaard was. He brilliantly foresaw the dangers of the lack of commitment and responsibility in the Public Sphere. When everything is up for endless detached critical comment as on blogs and cable news, action finally becomes impossible.”— Hubert L. Dreyfus, University of California, Berkeley “A revolutionary age is an age of action; ours is the age of advertisement and publicity. Nothing ever happens but there is immediate publicity everywhere.”— From The Present Age In The Present Age (1846), Søren Kierkegaard analyzes the philosophical implications of a society dominated by the mass-media. What makes the essay so remarkable is the way it seems to speak directly to our time—i.e. the Information Age—where life is dominated by mere “information” not true “knowledge.” Kierkegaard even goes so far as to say that advertising and publicity almost immediately co-opts and suppresses revolutionary actions/thoughts. The Present Age is essential reading for anyone who wishes to better understand the modern world.

Noted Kierkegaard scholar Edward Mooney guides the reader through the major themes of the Danish philosopher's life and thought. Each chapter frames a striking issue, usually encapsulated in a short passage from Kierkegaard, and pursues it directly and deeply. Kierkegaard speaks to our need for self-understanding, our need to negotiate the tensions between surprisingly subtle capacities for communication and surprisingly easy descent into clichés and banality. The chapter of this book follow and re-animate Kierkegaard's brilliant and humorous discussions of death and authenticity, of the maternal and paternal in faith and self-transformations, of self-deception and obsessive judgmentalism, of love and the search for stable centers, of subjectivity as refinement of responsiveness to others, the world, and all we can value. These evocative explications aim to match his stride in tracking deep human concerns that evade academic and cultural pigeonholes. Like Hamlet, Kierkegaard gives us a "poem unlimited" that is open to endless reflection. Mooney's aim is to bring his matchless impulse and aspiration once more alive.