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Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death
Fear and Trembling and the Sickness Unto Death Author:Soren Kierkegaard, Walter Lowrie (Translator) Kierkegaard's FEAR AND TREMBLING, written under the pseudonym Johannes de Silentio, uses the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac to delve into the meaning of ethics and religion. For Kierkegaard, Abraham's "leap to faith" (frequently misquoted as a "leap of faith") is admirable, but utterly incomprehensible, and his w... more »illingness to murder his own son is clearly an anti-ethical act. As a result, Kierkegaard determines that ethics and religion are separate entities: ethics are concerned with the universal good and the community at large whereas religion involves an individual's interaction with God. Since religious experience can bring about anti-ethical actions such as Abraham's a willingness to sacrifice Isaac, religion moves in a sphere above and beyond the dictates of ethics. Since religion derives from an internal passion and is both unknowable and fundamentally irrational, Kierkegaard acknowledges the underlying irrationality at the root of human spiritual experience. These ecstatic and disturbing themes, and Kierkegaard's rich language, have made FEAR AND TREMBLING one of the most influential and accessible works of modern philosophy.« less