Volume 1

K. Brian Soderquist
 

The Isolated Self

Truth and Untruth in Søren Kierkegaard's
On the Concept of Irony

 

Date of Publication: 2007
Hardback. viii+247pp. ISBN 978-87-635-3090-3

While many studies of On the Concept of Irony treat Kierkegaard’s “irony” primarily from a literary perspective, The Isolated Self also examines irony with an eye to the fundamental problem in Kierkegaard’s authorship, namely, the challenge of becoming a “self.” Kierkegaard’s “irony” is a cavalier way of life that seeks isolation from the other—an isolation he considers necessary to becoming a self.

At the same time, irony is said to be a hindrance to selfhood because the self fails to become a part of the social world in which it resides. The Isolated Self thus puts the existential tension of On the Concept of Irony into relief and suggests how it sets the stage for the rest of Kierkegaard’s authorship.

As the basis for these findings, The Isolated Self reconstructs the horizon of understanding during Kierkegaard’s time, including Hegel’s interpretation of Socrates and Friedrich Schlegel’s romantic literature. In addition, the work explores material from the little-known Danish discussion of irony in the works of Poul Martin Møller, Johan Ludvig Heiberg and Hans Lassen Martensen.


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