Kierkegaard’s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered

Jon Stewart’s study is a major re-evaluation of the complex relations between the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Hegel. The standard view on the subject is that Kierkegaard defined himself as explicitly anti-Hegelian, indeed that he viewed Hegel’s philosophy with disdain. Jon Stewart shows convincingly that Kierkegaard’s criticism was not of Hegel but of a number of contemporary Danish Hegelians. Kierkegaard’s own view of Hegel was in fact much more positive to the point where he was directly influenced by some of Hegel’s work. Any scholar working in the tradition of Continental philosophy will find this an insightful and provocative book with implications for the subsequent history of philosophy in the twentieth century. The book will also appeal to scholars in religious studies and the history of ideas.

• A study that overturns the traditional view of the relations between the philosophies of Kierkegaard and Hegel • Appeal beyond philosophy to scholars in religious studies and history of ideas

Acknowledgements; Abbreviations of primary texts; Preface; Introduction; 1. Kierkegaard and Danish Hegelianism; 2. Traces of Hegel in From Papers of One Still Living and the early works; 3. The ironic thesis and Hegel’s presence in The Concept of Irony; 4. Hegel’s Aufhebung and Kierkegaard’s Either/Or; 5. Kierkegaard’s polemic with Martensen in Johannes Climacus, or De omnibus dubitandum est; 6. Kierkegaard’s repetition and Hegel’s dialectical mediation; 7. Hegel’s view of moral conscience and Kierkegaard’s interpretation of Abraham; 8. Martensen’s doctrine of immanence and Kierkegaard’s transcendence in the Philosophical Fragments; 9. The dispute with Adler in The Concept of Anxiety; 10. The polemic with Heiberg in Prefaces; 11. Subjective and objective thinking: Hegel in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript; 12. Adler’s confusions and the results of Hegel’s philosophy; 13. Kierkegaard’s phenomenology of despair in The Sickness unto Death; 14. Kierkegaard and the development of nineteenth-century continental philosophy: conclusions, reflections and re-evaluations; Foreign language summaries; Bibliographies; Subject index; Index of persons.

‘Jon Stewart\'s Kierkegaard\'s Relations to Hegel Reconsidered is an outstanding and original scholarly achievement which will forever change the simplistic and widely shared stereotype of Kierkegaard as a lifelong, implacable, knee-jerk opponent of Hegel … In his eye-opening study Stewart takes us beyond the sterility of a relation of absolute, mutual negation between Kierkegaard and Hegel and has demonstrated beyond dispute the many ways in which Kierkegaard was influenced not only negatively, but even more important, positively, by Hegel. Kierkegaard borrowed and adapted arguments and methodology from the great German philosopher, not only during his early years but throughout his entire career.’ – Bruce Kirmmse, Connecticut College

‘… a major achievement in contemporary Kierkegaard scholarship … As Stewart points out, the relationship between Kierkegaard and Hegel has been a common topic of comment in general histories of nineteenth-century thought, and the book will therefore be of interest beyond the world of those taking or conducting courses in Kierkegaard’s thought.’ – George Pattison, King’s College Cambridge