Passionate Reason: Making Sense Of Kierkegaard's Philosophical Fragments

Johannes Climacus, Søren Kierkegaard''s pseudonymous author of Philosophical Fragments, "invents" a religion suspiciously resembling Christianity as an alternative to the assumption that humans possess the Truth within themselves. Through this literary device, Climacus raises in a fresh and audacious way age-old questions about the relation of Christian faith to human reason. Is the idea of a human incarnation of God logically coherent? Is religious faith the product of a voluntary choice? In a comprehensive discussion of one of Kierkegaard''s most important books, C. Stephen Evans elucidates Kierkegaard''s novel explanation that the tension between faith and reason must be understood as a consequence of the passionate character of reason itself. Passionate Reason situates Kierkegaard''s philosophy in the context of postmodern religious thought, providing a contemporary reading of Fragments as a challenge to both the modern Enlightenment critique of reason and the postmodern abandonment of truth.