Kierkegaard and the existential philosophy

by Lev Shestov

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0821400606
• ISBN13: 9780821400609
• Release Date: January 1969
• Publisher: Ohio University Press
• Length: 314 Pages
• Weight: 1.45 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Opened my eyes

This is an easy-to-read book which gets the harder to understand the more you want to make sense of it. I guess the crucial thing is to understand Shestov's challenge, which is to say something that is unutterable. So perhaps the best place to start is the effacement of time. And when time stands still, cause and effect lose their significance too. But we humans like cause and effect! They give a meaning to our actions: if we act in this way, we get that result. However, we are fooling ourselves. We have this childish need to be rewarded for our good actions and to be punished for the bad. So we make up good and bad, cause and effect, in our minds, because that has been the human condition ever since the Fall.You won't necessarily understand Kierkegaard much better after reading Shestov's interpretation of him. For instance, Shestov never mentions the different levels of existence, which are normally regarded as the key to understanding Kierkegaard. However, after I had finished reading this book, I noticed that I could finally make sense of -- Nietzsche! I guess the book has its shortcomings, but still, it must be the best book I have read (no joke).