3. Either/Or and the Three Existence Spheres

About this Lecture

Lecture

In this module, we introduce one of Kierkegaard's major works, Either/Or (the title of which stands as a response to Hegel's concept of 'mediation'), as well as the concept of 'existence spheres'.

Course

In this course, Professor Genia Schönbaumsfeld (University of Southampton) explores the philosophy of the 19th-century Danish philosophy, Søren Kierkegaard. In the first module, we provide a brief introduction to Kierkegaard himself, before thinking about his reasons for presenting his philosophy as being authored by a range of fictional characters – e.g. 'A', 'Judge William', 'Johannes de Silentio', etc. In the second module, we think about the ways in which Kierkegaard responded to the philosophy of Hegel, before moving on to introduce Kierkegaard's Either/Or and his concept of the spheres of existence. In following three modules, we look at each of the three spheres of existence in turn – the aesthetic sphere in the fourth module, the ethical sphere in the fifth, and the religious sphere in the sixth – before turning in the seventh and final module to Kierkegaard's concept of the knight of faith.

Lecturer

Genia Schӧnbaumsfeld is a Professor of Philosophy at the University of Southampton who specializes in Wittgenstein, Epistemology, Kierkegaard and the Philosophy of Religion. She has just completed a new book called The Illusion of Doubt, which will come out with Oxford University Press in 2016.
.
Genia Schönbaumsfeld took up her position at Southampton in 1999. In 2003 she was awarded a Hertha Firnberg Research Fellowship by the Austrian Science Fund.