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Overview
Either/Or, published in Copenhagen in February 1843, is Soren Kierkegaard's first major pseudonymous work. It presents two contrasting ways of living: the aesthetic life of pleasure, interest and avoidance of commitment, and the ethical life of duty, marriage and chosen responsibility. The book does not simply tell the reader which to pick. It shows what each life looks like from inside and asks what it means to choose at all.
Context
Kierkegaard wrote in a Danish society shaped by Hegelian philosophy and a comfortable state church. He disliked systems that explained life without asking the individual to decide. The book appeared after his broken engagement to Regine Olsen and during a period when he was writing rapidly under several pseudonyms.
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Curator's notes
- Why it matters
- Father of existentialism. Anxiety and the leap of choice; the individual before the crowd.
- Use in training and coaching
- Anxiety as the price of freedom; making committed choices
- Connects to
- Abraham story; Sartre; Camus
- What to read
- Selected passages
- Text (date)
- Kierkegaard, Fear and Trembling; Either/Or (1843)
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