ABSTRACT
Ludwig Wittgenstein and Soren Kierkegaard are placed in dialogue for the purpose of mutual illumination. Charles L. Creegan is certainly correct that the kind of full-length comparison of Wittgenstein and Kierkegaard he attempts was not as well developed a field as it is at present. At any rate, Creegan’s attempt to remedy this relative paucity of literature is undertaken with the conviction that the similarities and differences a comparative study of the two thinkers reveals will generate a better understanding of both thinkers. One of the most perceptive of Creegan’s notations of similarity is his observation that, like Kierkegaard, Wittgenstein possesses a certain severity of “demeanor”, and that the “root of each man’s unease lies in religious concern”. Creegan provides an appropriately brief synopsis of Kierkegaard’s theory, with particular reference to The Point of View. The attempt to find a parallel to Kierkegaard’s indirect method in the Tractatus is a daring venture, as Creegan well knows.
