Kierkegaard and Socrates, A Study in Philosophy and Faith
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loginDuring an idle moment in my office at the university, now well over tenyears ago, I selected from my bookcase a thin blue hardcover volumethat I had never before opened. The book wasPhilosophical FragmentsbyJohannes Climacus, translated into English by David F. Swenson, and pub-lished in1944for the American-Scandinavian Foundation by PrincetonUniversity Press. Of Climacus, I knew only that he was one of a handfulof authorial personae under whose names Søren Kierkegaard publishedsuch pseudonymous works asEither/Or,Fear and Trembling, andStages onLife’s Way. Of Kierkegaard, I knew only what little I could rememberfrom a brief encounter in an undergraduate survey course. But Clima-cus obviously had something to say to me. He talked about the absoluteimportance of the truth in human life, and he wasted no words in doingso. His insights into the essential nature of Socratic teaching and learn-ing were especially striking. His understanding of Socrates, I thought, wasrivaled only by Plato and Xenophon, two authors who had long stood atthe center of my philosophical interests. Yet as far as I could tell, thereal subject of his book was not Socrates, and not even philosophy. It wasreligious faith.
