This volume contains a new translation, with a historical
introduction by the translators, of two works written under the
pseudonym Johannes Climacus. Through Climacus, Kierkegaard
contrasts the paradoxes of Christianity with Greek and modern
philosophical thinking. In "Philosophical Fragments" he begins with
Greek Platonic philosophy, exploring the implications of venturing
beyond the Socratic understanding of truth acquired through
recollection to the Christian experience of acquiring truth through
grace. Published in 1844 and not originally planned to appear under
the pseudonym Climacus, the book varies in tone and substance from
the other works so attributed, but it is dialectically related to
them, as well as to the other pseudonymous writings.
The central issue of "Johannes Climacus" is doubt. Probably
written between November 1842 and April 1843 but unfinished and
published only posthumously, this book was described by Kierkegaard
as an attack on modern speculative philosophy by "means of the
melancholy irony, which did not consist in any single utterance on
the part of Johannes Climacus but in his whole life. . . . Johannes
does what we are told to do--he actually doubts everything--he
suffers through all the pain of doing that, becomes cunning, almost
acquires a bad conscience. When he has gone as far in that
direction as he can go and wants to come back, he cannot do so. . .
. Now he despairs, his life is wasted, his youth is spent in these
deliberations. Life does not acquire any meaning for him, and all
this is the fault of philosophy." A note by Kierkegaard suggests
how he might have finished the work: "Doubt is conquered not by the
system but by faith, just as it is faith that has brought doubt
into the world ."
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