ABSTRACT
Merold Westphal's Becoming a Self: A Reading of Kierkegaard's Concluding Unscientific Postscript, which was published in 1996, is a book that tries best to put the Postscript in its proper context. When Westphal's book first appeared in 1996 it more or less marked a continuation of the standard theme of anti-Hegel and anti-Hegelianism in Soren Kierkegaard scholarship with respect to both Kierkegaard's signed and pseudonymous authorship. By interpreting the book in terms of a singular theme of anti-Hegel and Hegelianism, Westphal seems to limit the scope of Kierkegaard's book. What Westphal's book seemingly fails to provide is a kind of carefully researched outline of historical development with respect to Kierkegaard's relationship to Hegel that, for instance, Stewart sufficiently provides in his book. Therefore, it risks misrepresenting the essential theme of the Postscript and other works by Kierkegaard as being a singular confrontation of Hegel and Hegelianism, which the new research contradicts.
