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The moral implications of Kierkegaard's analysis of despair

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 December 2014

SHARON KRISHEK
SHARON KRISHEK*
Affiliation:
Department of Philosophy, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Mt Scopus, Jerusalem 9190501, Israel e-mail: sharon.krishek@mail.huji.ac.il
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Abstract

Kierkegaard's The Sickness unto Death famously characterizes despair as the sickness of any human being who does not live a life of faith. Kierkegaard supports this claim by providing a detailed analysis of despair in the first part of this essay. This analysis, I claim, presents the thesis that to be healed of despair is not only to maintain a correct relation to God but also to the world and, moreover, that the two relations are interdependent. Thus, in contrast to prominent readings of this essay, I claim that Kierkegaard's analysis of despair bears the important moral implication that a believer's relationship with other humans is indispensable to a life of faith.

Type
Articles
Information
Religious Studies , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , March 2016 , pp. 25 - 43
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

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