Kierkegaard's Relation to Hegel Reconsidered

“In Kierkegaard’s Relation to Hegel Reconsidered, Jon Stewart provides a detailed historical argument which challenges the standard assumption that Kierkegaard’s position was developed in opposition to Hegel’s philosophy, and as such is antithetical to it.”

“It is worth noting that, in Hegel: Myths and Legends, Stewart criticized the ’either / or’ from the other direction, arguing that Hegel is not the arch-rationalist he is often taken to be”

“Without denying the existence of a certain “metalevel” dispute between Hegel and Kierkegaard, Stewart argues that (a) many of Kierkegaard’s central ideas, such as the theory of stages, are creatively, i.e., not uncritically, adopted from Hegel, and, (b) the true target of Kierkegaard’s critique is not Hegel per se, but prominent Danish Hegelians of his time.”

“Stewart divides Kierkegaard’s corpus into three distinct stages:”

“(1) 1834 – 1843, from early unpublished writings to The Concept of Irony and Either / Or, a period in which Kierkegaard is relatively open to, and influenced by, Hegel’s philosophy”

“(2) 1843 – 1846, from Fear and Trembling to Concluding Unscientific Postscript, a period of polemical attacks on Hegelianism”

“(3) 1847 – 1855, from Works of Love to his death, a period in which the criticisms of Hegel subside, yet a positive influence still remains”

“Instead of simply rejecting Hegel, Kierkegaard consistently borrowed from and reinterpreted Hegelian concepts and methodologies to suit his purposes, even when his purpose ran counter to that of Hegel. Hence, Kierkegaard simply cannot be the rabid anti-Hegelian he is often made out to be.”

“Stewart is no doubt right to insist that many of the left Hegelians were extremely critical of Hegel, and hence that the categories ’Hegelian’ and ’anti-Hegelian’ can seem somewhat arbitrary.”

“Nonetheless, the criticisms raised by Marx, for example, are for the most part immanent criticisms, and his philosophical project is thus fairly continuous with Hegel’s, e.g., both privilege rationality and universality, and both develop a teleological view of history.”

“Kierkegaard sought to challenge Hegel’s philosophy from the margins, as it were, and for this reason he is rightly regarded as an initiator, along with Nietzsche, of the counter discourse that resulted in existentialism and postmodernism.”