Soren Kierkegaard
Existentialism's melancholy father
Søren Kierkegaard was a nineteenth-century Danish philosopher and theologian, widely considered the father of existentialism.
His writings explored anxiety, despair, and the individual's relationship to God, emphasizing subjective experience over systematic philosophy.
Works like *Fear and Trembling* and *Either/Or* influenced thinkers from Nietzsche to Sartre.
The name appears in discussions of faith, authentic choice, and the "leap of faith"—a concept associated with him.
- existentialismPhilosophy stressing self-created meaning
- anxietyPersistent apprehensive distress
- despairTotal absence of hope
- faithTrust without proof
- leap of faithTrust without verification
leap · Abraham · fear and trembling · dread · melancholy · Copenhagen · philosopher · irony · repetition · existence · subjectivity · individualism · absurd · knight · single individual · fear · trembling · either
Soren KierkegaardImmanuel Kant
Bertrand Russell · rationalism · René Descartes · objectivism
Soren KierkegaardFriedrich Nietzsche
Karl Marx · Bertrand Russell · secular humanism · atheism · materialism
Soren KierkegaardKarl Marx
Friedrich Engels · collectivism · class consciousness · communism · socialism