"There would be no existence if it were reduced to pure existence. My existence is related to that of others. One of the reasons for the emphasis Kierkegaard placed on anxiety and sin and Sartre (in his novel) on nausea is probably that they separated the individual too much (at least at times) from other individuals. It is true that Kierkegaard does not deny the Other, indeed conceives the communion between minds, and above all conceives a spiritual love and a spiritual Church. Nevertheless existence is very often restricted for him to the relation with God. According to him, I am only when I am in the presence of God. In fact, each of these two antithetical positions, that of Kierkegaard and that of Hegel, has its danger. In the too great intensity of the one and in the too great richness of the other there are nearly equal dangers. It is true, as Hegel says, that we are what we know and think and feel, that we are linked with our culture, with history, and finally with the world, that the romantic idea according to which there are in us beautiful unexpressed feelings leads to a kind of effective laziness and a selfish interiority."
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Absurdists19th-century philosophersChristian existentialistsNovelists from DenmarkPhilosophers from Denmark
Original Language: English
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Jean Wahl The Philosopher’s Way 1948 Oxford University Press p. 46-47
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/S%C3%B8ren_Kierkegaard
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Søren Kierkegaard
1813 – 1855
dänischer Philosoph, Theologe und Schriftsteller
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