ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with Soren Kierkegaard’s religious ethics in both his pseudonymous and authorship. Michael Plekon draws heavily from Works of Love to offer an alternative to the received view of Kierkegaard as asocial and apolitical. Bruce Kirmmse’s contribution presents Kierkegaard in his immediate historical context within the confines of the Danish Golden Age, and Kirmmse argues that the political changes in Denmark surrounding the bloodless 1848–49 revolution shaped Kierkegaard’s later authorship. Both Nicoletti and Kirmmse see Kierkegaard’s thought as a response to the secularization and democratization in modern political life. The chapter offers a framework for rejecting Kierkegaard’s penchant for misogyny while appreciating the relevance of Kierkegaard’s thought for understanding gender relations. It presents a Kierkegaard whose concerns Christianity, faith, and the God-relation do not detract from social and political engagement but enhance it.
