Ralph H. Johnson, The Concept of Existence in the “Concluding Unscientific Postscript,”

Ralph Johnson’s The Concept of Existence in the “Concluding Unscientific Postscript ” was published by Martinus Nijhoff in 1972. Johnson levels certain criticisms against the confusion within the Kierkegaard scholarship of his day, including the tendency to read Kierkegaard’s works too biographically, with so much focus on “Kierkegaard’s eccentricities that they never get to his writings.” Johnson holds to the view that many misunderstandings in interpreting Kierkegaard can be cleared up by adhering to the criteria of interpretation that Kierkegaard himself provides. He makes two interpretive commitments in this regard. Johnson provides a helpful analogy for the contemporary reader who is unfamiliar with the Hegelian philosophical community of Kierkegaard’s own day, and he uses the modern scientific community as a stand-in.