Soren Kierkegaard - Fear and trembling ; The book on Adler

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The Confessions

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Poems and Prophecies

S0REN

N

Trembling and The Book on Adler-addressed ro a CONFUCIUS

The Analects

KIERKEGAARD

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The Divine Comedy

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"Fear and Trembling is among the best-known and influential works matched Kierkegaard's ability to give ideas so MARCUS AURElIUS

Meditations

in nineteenth- and twentieth-century philosophic theology and FEAR AND

FEAR AND

compellingly vivid and dramatic a shape.

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On Liberty and Utilitarianism

literature ... The Book on Adler [is] one of the dark jewels in the TREMBLING

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the mind, of the associative pulses of the imagination, Kierkegaard THOMAS MORE

Utopia

THE BOOK

TREMBLING

Waiter Lowrie

has only two peers. His inquisition into Adler stands beside those PLATO

The Republic

ON ADLER

descents into the deeps of the human psyche performed AND

Symposium and Phaedrus

by Dostoevsky and by Nietzsche."

JEAN-JACQUES ROUSSEAU

Confessions

THE

-FROM THE INTRODUCTION

The Social Contract and The Discourses

ON ADLER

IS B N 978-0-679-43130-5

52000

E

V E R Y M A N ' S

L I B R A R Y

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S0REN

KIERKEGAARD

FEAR AND

TREMBLING

THE BOOK

ON ADLER

TRANSLATED BY WALTER LOWRIE

WITH AN INTRODUCTION

BY GEORGE STEINER

EVERYMAN'S LIBRARY

Alfred A. Knopf New York London Toronro

THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK

PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF

First included in Everyman's Library, 1994

Fear and Trembling

Copyright 1941, 1954, by Princeton University Press On Authority and Revelation: The Book on Adler Copyright 1955, by Princeton University Press Published by arrangement with Princeton University Press Introduction Copyright 1994 by George Steiner Bibliography and Chronology Copyright 1994 by Everyman's Library Typography by Peter B. Willberg

Sixth printing (US)

All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., New York, and in Canada by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. Distributed by Random House, Inc., New York. Published in the United K.ingdom by Everyman's Library, Northburgh House, 10 Northburgh Street, London ECl V OAT, and distributed by Random House (UK) Ltd.

US website: www.randomhouse.com/everymans

ISBN: 978-0-679-43130-5 (US)

LC 94-75208

978-1-85715-178-7 (UK)

A ClP catalogue reference for this book is available from the British Library

Book design I!J Barbara de Wi/de and Carol Devine Carson Typeset in the UK by AccComputing, North Barrow, Somerset Printed and bound in Germany by GGP Media GmbH, Pbssneck

F E A R A N D T R E M B L I N G

T H E B O O K O N A D L E R

C O N T E N T S

Introduction ..

XI

Select Bibliography ..

XXV

Chronology ..

XXVI

FEAR AND TREMBLING

fufue

Prelude

A Panegyric upon Abraham

I I

Problemata: Preliminary Expectoration

Problem I : Is there such a thing as a teleological suspension of the ethical? ..

Problem I I : Is there such a thing as an absolute duty toward God?

.

Problem Ill: Was Abraham ethically defensible in keeping silent about his purpose before Sarah, before before lsaac?

7 I

ON AUTHORITY AND REVELATION:

THE BOOK ON ADLER

Chapter I The Historical Situation ..

Chapter I I The So-Called Fact of Revelation 160

Chapter I I I Adler Does Not Himself Believe He Has Had a Revelation

I

Documents concerning his deposition

2 Adler's four last books

Supplement. Recapitulation

23 I

IX

KIERKEGA A R D

Chapter IV Psychological View of Adler as a Phenomenon or as a Satire upon the Hegelian Philosophy and upon the Present Age

I

Psychological exposition

2 The catastrophe in Magister Adler's

life

3 Magister Adler's advantage ..

4 The fundamental fimlt in Magister

Adler

5 Magister Adler as an epigram upon

Christendom of our day

Postscript ..

Appendix

Translator's Notes to Fear and Trembling

S.K . 's Prefaces to The Book on Adler

x