The Paradoxical Rationality of Sren Kierkegaard [Hardcover]

Richard McCombs presents S?ren Kierkegaard as an author who deliberately pretended to be irrational in many of his pseudonymous writings in order to provoke his readers to discover the hidden and paradoxical rationality of faith. Focusing on pseudonymous works by Johannes Climacus, McCombs interprets Kierkegaardian rationality as a striving to become a self consistently unified in all its dimensions: thinking, feeling, willing, acting, and communicating. McCombs argues that Kierkegaards strategy of feigning irrationality is sometimes brilliantly instructive, but also partly misguided. This fresh reading of Kierkegaard addresses an essential problem in the philosophy of religionthe relation between faith and reason.

A strong and original argument that goes against popular understandings of Kierkegaard.As the title The Paradoxical Rationality of S?ren Kierkegaard suggests, Richard McCombs sets out to dispel the . . . common view that Kierkegaard is an irrationalist, especially when it comes to matters of faith. Much of the book is dedicated to the idea that despite Kierkegaards many direct statements against reason, he is actually making an indirect case for how sensible faith in Christ really is.22.4? 2014

Richard McCombs teaches at St. Johns College in Santa Fe.

Acknowledgments
Abbreviations
1. A Pretense of Irrationalism
2. Paradoxical Rationality
3. Reverse Theology
4. The Subtle Power of Simplicity
5. A Critique of Indirect Communication
6. The Figure of Socrates and the Climacean Capacity of Paradoxical Reason
7. The Figure of Socrates and the Downfall of Paradoxical Reason
8. The Proof of Paradoxical Reason
Notes
Bibliography
Index