한
All perspectives

1849

Kierkegaard — Despair as a sickness in the self-relation

If despair is not merely sadness but a failed relation of not willing—or willing by oneself alone—to be oneself, what requires care?

Søren KierkegaardThe Sickness Unto Death

Evidence-backed account

The pseudonymous Anti-Climacus describes the self as a relation relating to itself—a synthesis of finite/infinite and possibility/necessity—and despair as a misrelation.

Open evidence

This is an evidence-linked editorial paraphrase, not a direct quotation.

  • Søren Kierkegaard

    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

    Locator: §5 Religion; The Sickness Unto Death and the self as relation

    Open source

Reading despair as another name for depression or physical death confuses existential-religious diagnosis with a clinical category; the pseudonym's elevated Christian standpoint must also be distinguished from Kierkegaard's direct voice.

Open evidence

This is an evidence-linked editorial paraphrase, not a direct quotation.

  • Søren Kierkegaard

    Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

    Locator: §2 Aesthetics of Authorship; §5 Religion and Anti-Climacus

    Open source
Return to the full question