You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
The life and thought of the Danish religious philosopher has for the past few years been the center of much discussion; many of his works translated for the first time into English and several biographies of this curious and fascinating figure have appeared. Although he was born over a hundred years ago and remained unknown for almost as long, he seems to have a peculiar interest for his present day readers. He seems to epitomize for his admirers the modern dilemma.
The volume under review is one of the more recent studies of Kierkegaard to reach the public. The author attempts what he calls a new interpretation of the gloomy Dane. He relates Kierkegaard's central, personal problem to the modern problem of “lebens angst” which Nietzche had already termed the “European disease”—and which Kierkegaard seems to have suffered and debated as a personal problem and fate. Kunzli, who appears to be an analytically oriented philosopher, brings this problem of anxiety into line with the contemporary problems of existence, using the Dane as a prime example of this conflict. The author employing depth psychology, philosophy and sociological themes undertakes to show that Kierkegaard's attempt to come to grips with this anxiety-laden splitting and modern over-evaluation of intellect at the expense of other moral, religious and philosophical functions of human beings, failed. Kunzli emphasises that by this overevaluated culture of the intellect modern western man has lost his footing both in the world and in the religion of Christendom. Religion, meaning Christianity, has become an intellectual, not spiritual, exercise. He believes the Danish philosopher and theologian was the first to clearly see this split and to attempt to make the reforms necessary to heal the wound. The Dane, however, remained too much a child of his times and a prisoner of his own personality to have been able to complete the task. He continued throughout his life to struggle but remained unhappily “advocatin