On Kierkegaard and the Truth

Download or read book On Kierkegaard and the Truth written by Lee C Barrett and published by James Clarke & Company. This book was released on 2012-09-27 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Paul L. Holmer (1916-2004) was one of the most significant American students of Kierkegaard of his generation. Although written in the 1950s and 1960s, Holmer's theological and philosophical engagement with Kierkegaard challenges much contemporary scholarly discussion. Unlike many, Holmer refuses reductionist readings that tie Kierkegaard to any particular school. He likewise criticizes biographical readings of Kierkegaard, much in vogue recently, seeing Kierkegaard rather as an indirect communicator aiming at his reader's own ethical and religious capacities. Holmer also rejects popular existentialist readings of Kierkegaard, seeing him as an analyzer of concepts, while at the same time denying that he is a crypto-analyst. In his important reading of Kierkegaard on truth, Holmer pits Kierkegaard against those who see truth empirically, idealistically, or relativistically. His carefully textured account of Kierkegaard's conceptual grammar of truth in ethical and religious contexts addresses immediately current discussions of truth, meaning, reference, and realism versus antirealism, relativism, and hermeneutics. It will be of great interest to all interested in Kierkegaard and his importance for contemporary theology and philosophy.