This work investigates crucial aspects of Kant's epistemology and ethics in relation to Kierkegaard's thinking. The challenge is taken up of developing a systematic reconstruction of Kant's and Kierkegaard's position. Kant forms a matrix for the interpretation of Kierkegaard, and considerable space is devoted to the exposition of Kant at those various points at which contact with Kierkegaard's thought is to be demonstrated. The burden of the argument is that Kierkegaard in his account of the stages is much closer to Kant than the texts initially reveal. It is possible, then, to arrive at a proper grasp of Kierkegaard's final position by seeing just how radically the stage of Christian faith (Religiousness B) departs from Kant.
Ulrich Knappe works at the Søren Kierkegaard Research Centre at Copenhagen University, Denmark.
"This excellent study of Kierkegaard is based on a very careful reading of the texts and a keen understanding of the issues Kierkegaard confronted. The surprising conclusion to which the author comes, that Kierkegaard's philosophy is in its basic structure very close to that of Kant is elaborated with great frown and clarity and vigourously defended. This book will be of great interest to anyone concerned with the history of ethics in the 19th century and indeed to anyone concerned with ethics as a serious philosophical enterprise."
Raymond Geuss/Reader in Philosophy/University of Cambridge
