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15th out of 465 books
—
434 voters
Fear and Trembling
Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian and religious author interested in human psychology. He is regarded as a leading pioneer of existentialism and one of the greatest philosophers of the 19th Century.
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard wanted to understand the anxiety that must have been present in Abraham when God commanded him to offer his son as a huma...more
In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard wanted to understand the anxiety that must have been present in Abraham when God commanded him to offer his son as a huma...more
Paperback, 160 pages
Published
May 30th 2006
by Penguin Books
(first published October 16th 1843)
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Sep 14, 2007
Ryan
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
pretentious atheists (i.e., my generation)
dear reader,
you don't even read this stuff anymore, do you?! i wouldn't if i were you! but that's the difference between me and you! you have no life, are pathetic, sit in front of your computer all day stalking your peers on various social networking sites, while i go on constantly mocking your efforts through half jest and utter disregard for the values you hold dear to your heart!
alas, perhaps the joke is on me?!
haha, boy do i get ahead of myself sometimes! silly me! yes, that is what i say!...more
you don't even read this stuff anymore, do you?! i wouldn't if i were you! but that's the difference between me and you! you have no life, are pathetic, sit in front of your computer all day stalking your peers on various social networking sites, while i go on constantly mocking your efforts through half jest and utter disregard for the values you hold dear to your heart!
alas, perhaps the joke is on me?!
haha, boy do i get ahead of myself sometimes! silly me! yes, that is what i say!...more
I was going to write that I still come back to this book, even ten years after reading it for the first time. But that's not quite true. What is true is that this book has never really left me; it has worked itself into my psyche and become an automatic philosophical reference point for my life.
Kierkegaard's discussion of faith versus resignation is an exhileration to read. His unfolding of the concept of the absurd in the universe is sublime. Everyone should dive into this work, grapple with i...more
Kierkegaard's discussion of faith versus resignation is an exhileration to read. His unfolding of the concept of the absurd in the universe is sublime. Everyone should dive into this work, grapple with i...more
21 likes · like · see review
It is a meditation on the faith of Abraham. God promises Abraham that his descendants (through Isaac) will out number the stars and that they will be a blessing to the entire world. All Abraham must do is sacrifice his son, Isaac. But how can this blessing happen if Isaac is dead? It doesn't make sense, yet Abraham has faith and does not rely on his own reasoning. He trusts god, and he gets ready to sacrifice his only hope for worldly happiness.
So, in this picture we have two things. First, Abr...more
So, in this picture we have two things. First, Abr...more
I first read this piece in a philosophy class devoted entirely to Kierkegaard. At the time I wasn't overly enthralled with his work. I think I was partly turned off by the know it all sophomore in the graduate level class who insisted on being smack dab in the middle and dominating every conversation.
In the years since, however, after reading other existentialist authors, and seeing K's influence on them, I've gone back to some of his more accessible works. I especially like that most of his ph...more
In the years since, however, after reading other existentialist authors, and seeing K's influence on them, I've gone back to some of his more accessible works. I especially like that most of his ph...more
7 likes · like · see review
I don't read much philosophy (possibly because I am too dumb) but a lot of what Kierkegaard says in Fear and Trembling really resonates with me. I love his concept of Knights of Faith and Knights of Resignation, and his multiple views Abraham on top of Moria is possibly the first ever "Five Things" fic. *g*
Something different, always something different and chilling. Even though Kierkegaard was no theologian, he sure knew how to interpret it the best and how to deal with holy scriptures and in this case, the story of Abraham sacrificing his son. Reading this, you will get one of your concepts altered somehow. Its rare now to find an honest and sincere writer and seeker of truth like Kierkegaard, he sure had the courage to stand for his faith and everything he believed in, opposing the intellectual...more
This one actually took me all last summer to get through. In my defense, though, it was my first experience with Kierkegaard.
The books turns out to be aptly named, as the reader--immediately, upon encountering the first few pages--experiences copious amounts of both fear and trembling.
Ok. But. Worth the effort.
Incredible insight into the life of someone truly passionate about Christianity, and truly desiring to live differently because of it.
The books turns out to be aptly named, as the reader--immediately, upon encountering the first few pages--experiences copious amounts of both fear and trembling.
Ok. But. Worth the effort.
Incredible insight into the life of someone truly passionate about Christianity, and truly desiring to live differently because of it.
Keirkegaard is one of my favorite philosophers. He is so thought-provoking. I always have a fun time reading him. Please remember that agreeing with a writer is not the basis for my enjoying his/her writing.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Kierkegaard is an intense read, but profound. I fell in love with him when I was going through a reorganization of my faith. In this book he presents the idea of the "knight of faith" -- the one who stands alone in direct relation to God, beyond the safety of a creed or institution. He uses Abraham as the ultimate example of the knight of faith. This is theistic existentialism -- and existential angst -- at its most sublime. Although reading Kierkegaard is difficult at times, there are many mome...more
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I'll be honest. I don't understand this book. But the parts I do understand are SO GOOD and express things that are SO TRUE, I love to carry it around and read it in pieces anyway. To get you started, my favorite excerpt from the intro:
"In our age, everyone is unwilling to stop with faith, but goes further. It was different in those ancient days. Faith was then a task for a whole lifetime. The faithful one’s heart was still young enough not to have forgotten the anxiety and trembling that discip...more
"In our age, everyone is unwilling to stop with faith, but goes further. It was different in those ancient days. Faith was then a task for a whole lifetime. The faithful one’s heart was still young enough not to have forgotten the anxiety and trembling that discip...more
La storia di Abramo ha una proprietà singolare, quella di essere sempre magnifica per poco che la si capisca purché si voglia lavorare ed affaticarsi. Ma nel nostro tempo nessuno vuole lavorare e però si vuole capire questa storia. Si dà a tutta la faccenda una espressione del tutto generica : “la cosa grande fu che egli amò Dio in modo da voler sacrificargli la cosa migliore”. E’ verissimo ma “ la cosa migliore” è un termine del tutto generico . Se il giovane ricco che incontrò Gesù per via ave...more
SK's best contribution : that faith requires a leap.
SK's biggest mistake : that he took the leap.
He struggles mightily, yet stays locked in the paradox of the Abraham / Issaac sacrifice problem.
Brilliantly argues the problems with this, yet . . . "faith" arghh. IMO the only way to deal satisfactorily with the paradox is not to try to reconcile it , but to step out of it entirely. ie no god anyway.
This test is the opposite of the star trek Kobayashi Maru. A god is invented in order to make the...more
SK's biggest mistake : that he took the leap.
He struggles mightily, yet stays locked in the paradox of the Abraham / Issaac sacrifice problem.
Brilliantly argues the problems with this, yet . . . "faith" arghh. IMO the only way to deal satisfactorily with the paradox is not to try to reconcile it , but to step out of it entirely. ie no god anyway.
This test is the opposite of the star trek Kobayashi Maru. A god is invented in order to make the...more
This is a heady theological and philosophical work. A classic that every thinking person should read at some point. A little hard to understand at times but if you stick with it, very rewarding. This work influenced a lot of modern philosophy with its unique perspective on the story of Abraham in the Bible. This was the book in which he really starts getting into the meat of his philosophy, which later morphed into existentialism but also influenced how modern day Christians interpret the Bible....more
سورن کی یرکگور این کتاب را با نام یوهانس دو سیلنتیو نوشته است. غالب کتاب های وی با نام های دیگر است و جایی گفته است که نمی توان کتاب ها را به وی نسبت داد بلکه به آن نام نسبت دهید.
این کتاب تحلیل داستان ذبح اسحاق -و به روایت قرآنی اسماعیل- است . نویسنده رفتن ابراهیم به سمت کوه موریه را ایمان ابراهیم می داند و وی را شهسوار ایمان می داند.
در این کتاب ایمان، ساحتی فراتر از اخلاق است و در آن ساحت اخلاق تعلیق می شود، نه به این معنا که فعل وی غیر اخلاقی است، بلکه در وادی ایمان، گزاره های اخلاقی معلقند...more
این کتاب تحلیل داستان ذبح اسحاق -و به روایت قرآنی اسماعیل- است . نویسنده رفتن ابراهیم به سمت کوه موریه را ایمان ابراهیم می داند و وی را شهسوار ایمان می داند.
در این کتاب ایمان، ساحتی فراتر از اخلاق است و در آن ساحت اخلاق تعلیق می شود، نه به این معنا که فعل وی غیر اخلاقی است، بلکه در وادی ایمان، گزاره های اخلاقی معلقند...more
I'm not sure how many times I've read Kierkegaard's Fear and Trembling but I'm sure this won't be the last time. Once or twice a year I return to this little book and marvel at the depth, wit and intuition of it's message.
Ostensibly an analysis of the Old Testament account of Abraham's trek to sacrifice his son, Isaac at God's bidding, the book quickly burrows deeply into the deeper meanings found in the mind-bending actions of the semi-mythical patriach of three of the world's great religions.
K...more
Ostensibly an analysis of the Old Testament account of Abraham's trek to sacrifice his son, Isaac at God's bidding, the book quickly burrows deeply into the deeper meanings found in the mind-bending actions of the semi-mythical patriach of three of the world's great religions.
K...more
A very difficult text by the somewhat mystical Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard (who in this piece use the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio). From the little I did understand, in this piece S.K. distinguishes between the knight of infinite resignation, which he identifies himself with (and with his painful and immoral decision to disassociate-from/leave his beloved Regina) and the night of faith which he aspires to become but tragically enough never succeeds (he sees Abraham as such a knight a...more
I'm glad I read Hegel before this; it's not clear to me that Kierkegaard would be plausible, interesting or worthwhile before reading his incomprehensible predecessor. F&T, unlike Hegel, is fairly short, pursues a single idea in a consistent (consistently inconsistent?) manner, doesn't claim to have proved anything other than a disjunction (Abraham is meaningless or universal Sittlichkeit is not the highest moment of human history) and is quite readable. That's all for the good. The bad news...more
Kierkegaard first takes issue with the prevailing (i.e., Hegelian) notion that faith is something to be "transcended" by means of systematic philosophy, and almost baits the reader to consider what it means to go "beyond" faith.
He then proceeds to talk about Abraham's faith when he is ordered by God (Yahweh) to sacrifice his son, Isaac. The discussion begins to swirl around these questions: are good and evil intrinsic to the universe itself? Or are the qualities of good and evil decided upon by...more
He then proceeds to talk about Abraham's faith when he is ordered by God (Yahweh) to sacrifice his son, Isaac. The discussion begins to swirl around these questions: are good and evil intrinsic to the universe itself? Or are the qualities of good and evil decided upon by...more
Faith picks up where thinking leaves off. This is of course the same sentiment lamented by those frustrated with religion; Christianity, they say, creates pews of people who have given up thinking. Faith can not be described with logic, following a proof of steps from action to action. Like CS Lewis did time and again, Kierkegaard asks the question better than any non-Christian ever has. If Abraham's actions are borderline insane, why do we call him great?
Kierkegaard suggests that Abraham knew h...more
Kierkegaard suggests that Abraham knew h...more
Kierkegaard is a philosopher who gets mentioned in interesting places, but for whom there doesn't seem an obvious entry point into his thought. I'm not sure if Fear & Trembling is this, or if appreciating the book better requires more understanding of the philosophical context. Hence three stars from me, for what I got out of it more a proper appraisal of the book.
In the view of many atheists, Abraham is an example of the terrible effect of religion - a man who is willing to sacrifice his so...more
In the view of many atheists, Abraham is an example of the terrible effect of religion - a man who is willing to sacrifice his so...more
The Abrahamic faith, or more correctly, Abraham's faith has always fascinated me. How does one draw the line at being religious, offering your child as a sacrifice vis-a-vis being a lunatic and murdering your child?
It is one thing to acquiesce or resist the absurdities in life , but another to believe the absurd will prevail. To have faith, Kierkegaard tells us, is infinitely harder than cynicism and atheism. The faithful knight is the knight who believes in the strength of the absurd. It compe...more
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Deeply contoured personality, immeasurably insightful, Kierkegaard is known for being the father existentialism. Kierkegaard defines the self as a relation that relates itself to itself. According to Hubert Dreyfus, "That means that who I am depends on the stand I take on being a self. Moreover, how I interpret myself is not a question of what I think, but of what I do."
Kierkegaard thus opposes the traditional philosophical methodology of detached analysis and uninvolved reflection. Kierkegaard...more
Kierkegaard thus opposes the traditional philosophical methodology of detached analysis and uninvolved reflection. Kierkegaard...more
Encore une fois, je suis fâché de ne pas connaître assez Hegel : tant d'auteurs qui se liguent contre lui, et je ne comprends jamais vraiment pourquoi! Dans cet ouvrage, Søren Kierkegaard, un philosophe danois du XIXème siècle nous propose d'examiner quelques paradoxes afin d'éprouver la relation entre la foi et la raison. Pour ce faire, il part à la racine de la foi monothéiste, l'histoire d'Abraham, dont le moment clef est l'épreuve que Yahvé lui impose en lui demandant de sacrifier l'un de se...more
Kierkegaard's work is a turn against the tradition. Plato, Aristotle, Kant, and Hegel all had their own philosophic systems, but how is the individual suppose to reconcile these methodologies into their own lives? I think that's one of the primary questions of Fear and Trembling. Thus Kierkegaard places the particular, i.e. the individual, over the universal, or absolute. We live in a world of both universals and particulars, yet we ARE particulars in ourselves. Everyone must be their own partic...more
Much has been said of Kierkegaard writing style, of its beauty and clarity. His writing is clear his subject matter is not so, like Camus I believe that the text is at times appealing to our emotions, aesthetics, passions, rather than to any logic or rationality, which is no bad thing.
I have already been intorduced to Kierkegaard's ideas beforehand, so did find certain parts very easy (thanks to lectures found on i-tunes from Herbert Dreyfus on existentialism). The other elements of his thought...more
I have already been intorduced to Kierkegaard's ideas beforehand, so did find certain parts very easy (thanks to lectures found on i-tunes from Herbert Dreyfus on existentialism). The other elements of his thought...more
Det är tveklöst något som tilltalar mig i Kierkegaard och kanske är det modet att tackla svåra ämnen, som berättelsen om Abraham, och kanske är det kreativiteten som även den visar sig i Frukt och bävan. Inledningen i sig känns nästan postmodern med sina flera omskrivningar av berättelsen. Kombinationen av litteratur och teologi känns även den aktuell och nutida. Jag är inte helt säker på att han kommer till någon direkt slutsats kring berättelsen om offrandet av Isak, men det är en intressant l...more
I remember once taking someone to church who was perhaps religious but not a christian and had went their entire life having never heard the story of Abraham and how Yahweh(God) had commanded him to take his son Issac up a mountain and sacrifice him. I remember the pastor preaching with great admiration about how this great sacrifice was required of Abram, and how without hesitation Abram obeyed God, the person with me just had a look of horror, how could this loving and benevolent God require s...more
I finished this book yesterday at my favourite Café. As I was sitting outside in my beret, smoking and drinking black coffee, I became a little self-conscious at the glances from passersby. Was the beret a little too 'Café philosophique'?
Nah.
So Fear and Trembling* discusses Abraham 'the father of faith' and his no-questions-asked agreement to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, at God's command.
Kierkegaard says we cannot possibly understand Abrahams actions, his willingness to do the deed is incom...more
Nah.
So Fear and Trembling* discusses Abraham 'the father of faith' and his no-questions-asked agreement to sacrifice Isaac, his only son, at God's command.
Kierkegaard says we cannot possibly understand Abrahams actions, his willingness to do the deed is incom...more
10 likes · like · see review
I'm loving this book, particularly the earlier sections. I cried my way through the various possibilities he describes, in which Abraham responds to God's demands in ever so slightly different ways. For a moment I wondered why, oh why I had to name my own son Isaac. Beyond the various snippets of theory I was exposed to in graduate school, this is my first foray into the world of philosophy, and as such I am under equipped to understand Kierkegaard quickly or easily, and I am absolutely stuck on...more
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Søren Aabye Kierkegaard was a prolific 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian. Kierkegaard strongly criticised both the Hegelianism of his time and what he saw as the empty formalities of the Church of Denmark. Much of his work deals with religious themes such as faith in God, the institution of the Christian Church, Christian ethics and theology, and the emotions and feelings of individua...more
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“If anyone on the verge of action should judge himself according to the outcome, he would never begin.”
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“If there were no eternal consciousness in a man, if at the bottom of everything there were only a wild ferment, a power that twisting in dark passions produced everything great or inconsequential; if an unfathomable, insatiable emptiness lay hid beneath everything, what would life be but despair?”
—
44 people liked it
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