Pseudonymous Authorship

The Philosophy of Kierkegaard

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.

Pseudonymous Authorship

In this module, we provide a brief introduction to Kierkegaard before thinking about his reasons for the use of pseudonymous authorship, i.e. the use of fictional characters as the 'authors' of his books.