Kierkegaard's Analysis of Radical Evil

David A. Roberts

• Publisher: Continuum
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781847143709
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Modern Philosophy

For thousands of years philosophers and theologians have grappled with the problem of evil. Traditionally, evil has been seen as a weakness of sorts: the evil person is either ignorant, or weak-willed. But in the most horrifying acts of evil, the perpetrators are resolute, deliberate, and well aware of the pain they are causing. Here David Roberts painstakingly details the matrix of issues that evolved into Kierkegaard's own solution. Kierkegaard's psychological understanding of evil is that it arises out of despair - a despair that can become so vehement and ferocious that it lashes out at existence itself. Roberts shows how the despairing self can become strengthened and intensified through a conscious and free choice against the Good. This type of radical evil is neither ignorant nor weak.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Abbreviations
• Preface
• An Historical Introduction: Kant and Schelling on Radical Evil
• The Struggle of Self-Becoming: Spiritless Self-Evasion
• The Despair of the Aesthetic Stage of Existence
• Ethical Self-Choice
• The Final Movement Toward Defiance: Infinite Resignation
• Defiance: The Essence of Radical Evil
• Bibliography
• Index