Who was Soren Kierkegaard?
Biographical Data Kierkegaard lived from 1813 to 1855, in Denmark (Evans, 468). His father was well-off and he was sent to university (468). He started college in 1831 and finished off with his dissertation, On the Concept of Irony with Continual Reference to Socrates, in 1841. He was preparing for life in the church as a pastor and became engaged to Regine Olson. This was not to be. Kierkegaard mysteriously called off his engagement to Regine and quite the track that would lead him into the Church (468). After this incident, he then began a short but prolific writing career. One of his most important works, Either/Or, is a phenomenal piece of philosophy and seems to have been written in an effort to cast himself in such a way that Regine would reject him (Hong & Hong, xiv-xv). Place in Philosophy Much of Kierkegaard’s writing is in response to Hegelian philosophy and toward the state sponsored Lutheran Church (Evans, 470). Kierkegaard’s writings were an effort to restore Christianity
