ABSTRACT
John Elrod’s Being and Existence in Kierkegaard’s Pseudonymous Works proposes a certain structure of the self that is the organizing principle behind human existence. The mechanics of this principle are remarkably systematic, and the importance of this system echoes throughout the book. It is also what underlies the book’s significance in Kierkegaardiana. John Elrod’s approach in 1975 was original, and this makes the volume memorable. The influence of Schelling was no less, given Kierkegaard’s attendance at some of Schelling’s Berlin lectures. There are multiple cases where Elrod’s writing is cloudier than Kierkegaard’s famously elliptical prose. There is no doubt the work is meticulously argued and pioneering in its approach to the dialectical/systematic vestiges in Kierkegaard’s thought about being. The usual inclusion of Kierkegaard’s life in expositions about his philosophy is a product of his belief that inwardness and subjectivity are essential to the stages of life, self-understanding, and philosophy in general.
