Søren Kierkegaard

Best known as a philosopher, one of the founders of existentialism, Kierkegaard also wrote books whose themes were primarily religious, psychological or literary. He was opposed to much in organised Christianity, stressing the necessity for individual choice against prescribed dogma and ritual. In this book, he concentrates his penetrating psychological observations on the theme of despair.

The Sickness Unto Death

maia

[…] the torment of despair is precisely the inability to die.

When death is the greatest danger, one hopes for life. But when one learns to know the even more horrifying danger, one hopes for death. When the danger is so great that death has become the hope, then despair is the hopelessness of not even being able to die.

A Christian Psychological Exposition of Edification and Awakening by Anti-Climacus

Kieran Wood

Kierkegaard is interesting, his views on existential dread (called despair in his wording) are interesting. One thing that caught me was his mention of finitude and infinitudes that people wrap themselves up in. Hearing it phrased in his way is a formulation I wouldn't have considered until he mentioned it. I wouldn't say it's the most provocative existential work, but it's interesting to trace the routes of where many existential thinkers came from.

Jonas Derz

Anas A

Howard Vincent Hong

Edna Hatlestad Hong

A companion piece to The Concept of Anxiety, this work continues Søren Kierkegaard's radical and comprehensive analysis of human nature in a spectrum of possibilities of existence. Present here is a remarkable combination of the insight of the poet and the contemplation of the philosopher. In The Sickness unto Death, Kierkegaard moves beyond anxiety on the mental-emotional level to the spiritual level, where--in contact with the eternal--anxiety becomes despair. Both anxiety and despair reflect the misrelation that arises in the self when the elements of the synthesis--the infinite and the finite--do not come into proper relation to each other. Despair is a deeper expression for anxiety and is a mark of the eternal, which is intended to penetrate temporal existence.