Fear and Trembling

In the novel “Fear and Trembling” by Soren Kierkegaard, one of the main topic discussed was ethical and how it was associated with the universal. Also, how ethical is related to tragic hero and the knight of faith. For instance, the action of a tragic hero, like agamemnon sacrificing his daughter is still ethical because his action was done publicly and for common good. Ethical is temptation for the knight of Faith because they have the choice to do something right. For instance, abraham had the choice between doing something ethical like not sacrificing his son or listening to God 's command. Ethical is a consolation for the tragic hero because people feel bad for the lose and the tragic hero will lose the love one forever. Ethical is a temptation…

In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard’s pseudonymous author, Johannes de Silentio attempts to explain faith by examining the biblical story of Abraham who was told, by God, to sacrifice his son, Isaac. With this objective in mind, we quickly come to bear that this explanation cannot so evidently be made since faith cannot be verbally expressed. Through a close inspection of the role of silence in faith, I will provide the interpretation that one cannot speak when acting in faith because in faith…

Fear and Trembling is a novel that provides the reader with a view into a different culture. A Belgian girl working in corporate Japan, shows the difference between eastern and western cultures. This is important because it illustrates a new taboo culture to western audiences. In the Japanese culture, the regular person sees themselves as a small being who need to start small and the only way to grow is to have experience while in a western culture, a regular person sees themselves as a large,…

The biblical Abraham is a dichotomous figure. His attempt to sacrifice Isaac under God’s command is either lauded as a great act of faith, or the lunacy of a murderer. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard suggests that it is impossible to justify the actions of Abraham from an ethical point of view. From a religious perspective however, Kierkegaard believes that not only is Abraham justified, his decision is also commendable. This argument is prefaced with Kierkegaard’s characterizations of the…

thought in the passionate and reflective ages. In the following essay, I will explore the difference between the two ages to gain a deeper understanding of Kierkegaard’s sentiments behind the example, before explaining the parable and showing how his prophetic analysis is truer than ever. Kierkegaard begins the The Present Age by stating that the present age is “one of understanding and reflection, without passion, momentarily bursting into enthusiasm, and shrewdly relapsing into repose” (1846,…

Kierkegaard, Camus, and Sartre are three main philosophers that have overlapping ideas of Existentialism. Throughout Kierkegaard 's book Fear and Trembling, Camus’ book Absurd Creation, and Sartre’s book Existentialism and play No exit, the idea of the ability for one to make one’s own choices and decisions through free will is shown. These philosophers opened my eyes to a new perspective on what existence precedes essence means. While reading these books, I agreed with some ideas as opposed to…

Søren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher who believed that faith was “to believe something irrespective of the evidence” (Lawrence 139). An introduction to Kierkegaard's philosophy of faith is produced in his work, Fear and Trembling, which discusses certain areas of radical faith and was inspired by his experiences in Copenhagen, Denmark. Those who lived there claimed to be “Christians” as they attended church on Sunday’s and read their Bibles, but continued a life of sin outside of that…

In Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling, he tries to understand and comprehend the concept of faith through the biblical story of Abraham and Isaac. In this story, God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only son, Isaac, and when he goes to do so, he is stopped at the last second by God and is rewarded with a ram. Kierkegaard finds it very difficult to understand how faith works and how Abraham could just take a risk of losing his son. As the book progresses, he tries to put faith in his own perspective…

Ethical belief can grasp at reasons for belief, but faith has nothing to rest on but the self. In Fear and Trembling, Johannes makes the comparison that, “while the tragic hero is great because of his moral virtue, Abraham is great because of a purely personal virtue” (59). The sole reliance of faith on the self and a private relationship to God brings the individual to a realization of their selfhood. In reference to his earlier work Either/Or, both the aesthetic and ethical versions of…

Each "problema" begins by following Hegel in defining the ethical as universal, and drawing premises for that claim. Johannes then shows how Abraham directly violates Hegel's philosophy and understanding of Abraham. Johannes eventually concludes that either Hegel is wrong or Abraham is irredeemably lost. The ethical versus the religious is the major distinction that runs throughout "Fear and Trembling". The ethical is associated with the universal, the tragic hero, with the state, infinite…