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Book Cover for: The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard, Richard McCombs

The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard

Richard McCombs

Richard McCombs presents Søren Kierkegaard as an author who deliberately pretended to be irrational in many of his pseudonymous writings in order to provoke his readers to discover the hidden and paradoxical rationality of faith. Focusing on pseudonymous works by Johannes Climacus, McCombs interprets Kierkegaardian rationality as a striving to become a self consistently unified in all its dimensions: thinking, feeling, willing, acting, and communicating. McCombs argues that Kierkegaard's strategy of feigning irrationality is sometimes brilliantly instructive, but also partly misguided. This fresh reading of Kierkegaard addresses an essential problem in the philosophy of religion--the relation between faith and reason.

Book Details

  • Publisher: Indiana University Press
  • Publish Date: Mar 4th, 2013
  • Pages: 264
  • Language: English
  • Edition: undefined - undefined
  • Dimensions: 9.20in - 6.40in - 1.10in - 1.25lb
  • EAN: 9780253006479
  • Categories: ReligiousPhilosophyHistory & Surveys - Modern

About the Author

Richard McCombs teaches at St. John's College in Santa Fe.

Praise for this book

"A strong and original argument that goes against popular understandings of Kierkegaard."--C. Stephen Evans, Baylor University

"As the title The Paradoxical Rationality of Søren Kierkegaard suggests, Richard McCombs sets out to dispel the . . . common view that Kierkegaard is an irrationalist, especially when it comes to matters of faith. Much of the book is dedicated to the idea that despite Kierkegaard's many direct statements against reason, he is actually making an indirect case for how sensible faith in Christ really is.22.4 2014"--International Journal of Philosophiical Studies