Kierkegaard's "Sickness Unto Death"

Paper Summary:

This paper considers how Soren Kierkegaard in his work "Sickness Unto Death" examines the nature of the human being specifically in terms of Christianity. Kierkegaard was an early proponent of a philosophy that would become Existentialism, expressed as a reaction to the abstract rationalism of Hegel. The paper further discusses that when Kierkegaard refers to the "sickness unto death," he is referring to a lack of awareness of the self, which he says afflicts those who are not Christians. He also refers to the sickness unto death as despair and so as a sickness of the spirit, with the human being described as spirit.

From the Paper:

"Soren Kierkegaard in his work 'Sickness Unto Death' examines the nature of the human being specifically in terms of Christianity. Kierkegaard was an early proponent of a philosophy that would become Kierkegaard describes the mind as awakening itself to self-awareness by following a series of stages leading to universal consciousness and to Absolute Thought. Those suffering from the sickness unto death do not experience this level of development, of course, for they are beset by a despair that Kierkegaard describes as an "agonizing contradiction, this sickness in the self, everlastingly to die, to die and yet not to die, to die the death. For dying means that it is all over, but dying the death means to live to experience death; and if for a single instant this experience is possible, it is tantamount to experiencing it forever" (Chapter 1 Section C)."

More papers on Kierkegaard's "Sickness Unto Death":

• Essay # 71430 : "The Sickness Unto Death"
• Book Review # 108332 : "Soren Kierkegaard's "The Sickness Unto Death"
• Analytical Essay # 16905 : "Fear and Trembling"

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