What does Kierkegaard mean by the universal?
The second of Kierkegaard’s three “stages on life’s way”: the aesthetic, the ethical, and the religious. The ethical is the expression of the universal, where all actions are done publicly and for the common good. One acts for the betterment of others rather than for oneself.
What is Kierkegaard’s paradox of faith?
Kierkegaard defines faith as “paradox” by which “the particular is higher than the universal.” This paradox leads Abraham, by virtue of the absurd, to the plane of faith. Rejecting Hegel’s universalism, Kierkegaard posits the existence of a religious plane that surpasses universal ethics.
What is the absolute For Kierkegaard?
That which we cannot think is the unknown, and the unknown is God (“the god”). Kierkegaard describes the unknown (God) as “the absolutely different.” Thought cannot by itself come to know the absolutely different, since doing so would require thought to negate itself completely.
What did Sartre mean by nothingness?
For Sartre, nothingness is the defining characteristic of the for-itself. A tree is a tree and lacks the ability to change or create its being. Instead of simply being, as the object-in-itself does, man, as an object-for-itself, must actuate his own being.
What is a spiritual trial Kierkegaard?
Spiritual trial, in Kierkegaard’s strict sense, is therefore best understood as a special form of a very ordinary, basic experience, a kind of primordial trauma, of which Emmanuel Levinas has so far given us the most complete phenomenological description.
What does Kierkegaard think of Abraham?
According to Kierkegaard, Abraham is a hero not by virtue of his obedience to God’s command, but because he maintains his relationship to Isaac after giving him up. When Abraham raises his knife over Isaac’s body, this symbolises the fact that every human relationship is haunted by the prospect of death.
Why did Kierkegaard believe that truth was subjective?
Kierkegaard provides a suitable definition of subjective truth. He wrote that it is an uncertainty that cannot be solved objectively. The uncertainty is developed throughout the course of a lifetime on a journey that develops a passionate inwardness within the individual.