ABSTRACT
Kierkegaard and Schopenhauer stand as intriguingly similar figures in the history of nineteenth-century philosophy: two outsiders in their respective intellectual communities, with overlapping concerns about the nature of suffering and some shared mutual opponents. Yet they are also markedly different, not least given Kierkegaard's explicitly religious philosophical project. Kierkegaard was both beguiled and troubled by Schopenhauer, reading him as both a kindred spirit of sorts and a cautionary tale. For Kierkegaard, Schopenhauer both misunderstands the necessity of suffering in life and also fails to take a sufficiently ironic stance toward his own work as an author. For Kierkegaard, this leads Schopenhauer into a serious contradiction: he preaches rejection of worldly goods yet longs for the fame and recognition he thinks are rightly his. Noticing this contradiction in an author he otherwise admired may well have sharpened Kierkegaard's awareness of the fatal showdown with organized Christianity that his own authorship demanded.
