• Philosopher of the Heart

  • The Restless Life of Søren Kierkegaard
  • By: Clare Carlisle
  • Narrated by: Simon Vance
  • Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (68 ratings)

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Philosopher of the Heart

By: Clare Carlisle
Narrated by: Simon Vance
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Publisher's summary

Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most passionate and challenging of all modern philosophers, and is often regarded as the founder of existentialism. Over about a decade in the 1840s and 1850s, writings poured from his pen pursuing the question of existence - how to be a human being in the world? - while exploring the possibilities of Christianity and confronting the failures of its institutional manifestation around him.

Much of his creativity sprang from his relationship with the young woman whom he promised to marry, then left to devote himself to writing, a relationship which remained decisive for the rest of his life. He deliberately lived in the swim of human life in Copenhagen, but alone, and died exhausted in 1855 at the age of 42, bequeathing his remarkable writings to his erstwhile fiancee.

Clare Carlisle's innovative and moving biography writes Kierkegaard's life as far as possible from his own perspective, to convey what it was like actually being this Socrates of Christendom - as he put it, living life forwards yet only understanding it backwards.

©2019 Clare Carlisle (P)2020 Tantor

What listeners say about Philosopher of the Heart

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

an intimate portrayal of a fascinating individual

I don't know how you can listen or read a biography of Soren K and not be drawn towards this paradoxical, melodramatic and complex creature.

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    4 out of 5 stars

One word wow. Loved the book one of the best

The book beckoned to me from the beginning . She wrote with wonderful words and provided wisdom in thought provoking way. First few chapers I thought to be flavorful, the last few not so muich . The author concisely captured his philosophy with a poet flow. Overall it was still outstanding.

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Excellent

I think the author does an incredible job of introducing sk’s life and psychology. She brilliantly blends his journals and writing into her telling of his life. I really feel like I now “know” SK almost like one knows a friend

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Unique

A unique and valuable approach to understanding Kierkegaard. Gets to the heart of his life.

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Fatally flawed

Would have been an excellent book, but, critically, does not come close to even the barest of mentions of the role that Kierkegaard’s closeted homosexuality played in the philosopher’s moral and philosophical development. As a result, this biography feels incomplete and inadequate, and philosopher himself deeply misunderstood.

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1 person found this helpful