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Works of Love (Harper Perennial Modern Thought) Paperback – March 10, 2009
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“By far the most profound thinker of the 19th century” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
One of Soren Kierkegaard's most important writings, Works of Love is a profound examination of the human heart, in which the great philosopher conducts the reader into the inmost secrets of Love.
"Deep within every man," Kierkegaard writes, "there lies the dread of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the household of millions upon millions." Love, for Kierkegaard, is one of the central aspects of existence; it saves us from isolation and unites us with one another and with God. This new edition of Works of Love features an original foreword by Kierkegaard scholar George Pattison.
- Print length400 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Perennial Modern Classics
- Publication dateMarch 10, 2009
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.9 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100061713279
- ISBN-13978-0061713279
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“The one book in which all these aspects of Kierkegaard’s authorship flow together into a single work. . . . Works of Love is the central work in Kierkegaard’s entire authorship . . . Be warned! Works of Love is the kind of book that can change your life.” — George Pattison, Oxford University, from the "Introduction"
“By far the most profound thinker of the 19th century” — Ludwig Wittgenstein
“Kierkegaard’s great contribution to Western philosophy was to assert, or to reassert with Romantic urgency, that, subjectively speaking, each existence is the center of the universe. He offered himself as a corrective to idealism, from Plato to Hegel.” — John Updike, The New Yorker
“The father of existentialism, Kierkegaard asserted the primacy of the individual in all his or her raging contradiction” — New York Times
From the Back Cover
One of Soren Kierkegaard's most important writings, Works of Love is a profound examination of the human heart, in which the great philosopher conducts the reader into the inmost secrets of Love. "Deep within every man," Kierkegaard writes, "there lies the dread of being alone in the world, forgotten by God, overlooked among the household of millions upon millions." Love, for Kierkegaard, is one of the central aspects of existence; it saves us from isolation and unites us with one another and with God. This new edition of Works of Love features an original foreword by Kierkegaard scholar George Pattison.
About the Author
Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) lived in Copenhagen, Denmark. His books include Works of Love and Spiritual Writings (translated and edited by George Pattison).
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Works of Love
By Soren KierkegaardHarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
Copyright © 2009 Soren KierkegaardAll right reserved.
ISBN: 9780061713279
Chapter One
Love's Hidden Life and Its Recognisability
by Its Fruits
"For each tree is known by its own fruit. For figs are not gathered from thorns, nor are grapes picked from a bramble bush." Luke 6: 44
If it were true--as conceited shrewdness, proud of not being deceived, thinks--that one should believe nothing which he cannot see by means of his physical eyes, then first and foremost one ought to give up believing in love. If one did this and did it out of fear of being deceived, would not one then be deceived? Indeed, one can be deceived in many ways; one can be deceived in believing what is untrue, but on the other hand, one is also deceived in not believing what is true; one can be deceived by appearances, but one can also be deceived by the superficiality of shrewdness, by the flattering conceit which is absolutely certain that it cannot be deceived. Which deception is most dangerous? Whose recovery is more doubtful, that of him who does not see or of him who sees and still does not see? Which is more difficult, to awaken one who sleeps or to awaken one who, awake, dreams that he is awake? Which sight is more sorrowful, that which immediately and unrestrainedly moves to tears, like the sight of one unhappily deceived in love, or that which in a certain sense could tempt laughter, the sight of one who is self-deceived, whose foolish conceit of not being deceived is ludicrous, something to be laughed at, if its ludicrousness were not a still stronger expression for horror by signifying that he is not worth a tear?
To cheat oneself out of love is the most terrible deception; it is an eternal loss for which there is no reparation, either in time or in eternity. For usually, whatever variations there may be, when there is talk about being deceived in love the one deceived is still related to love, and the deception is simply that it is not present where it was thought to be; but one who is self-deceived has locked himself out and continues to lock himself out from love. There is also talk about being deceived by life or in life; but he who self-deceptively cheated himself out of living--his loss is irredeemable. One who throughout his whole life has been deceived by life--for him the eternal can treasure rich compensation; but the person who has deceived himself has prevented himself from winning the eternal. He who because of love became a sacrifice to human deceit--what has he really lost when in eternity it turns out that love endures; whereas the deception is no more! But one who ingeniously deceived himself by cleverly falling into the snare of cleverness, alas, even if throughout his entire life he has in his own conceit considered himself happy, what has he not lost when in eternity it appears that he deceived himself! In the temporal world a man may succeed in getting along without love; he may succeed in .slipping through life without discovering the self-deception; he mayhave the terrible success, in his conceit, of becoming proud of it; but in eternity he cannot dispense with love and cannot escape discovering that he has lost everything. How earnest existence is, how terrible it is, precisely when in chastisement it permits the wilful person to counsel himself, permits him to live on proud of--being deceived--until finally he is permitted to verify that he has deceived himself for eternity! The eternal does not let itself be mocked; it is rather that which does not need to use might but almightily uses a little mockery in order to punish the presumptuous in a terrible way. What is it that really binds the temporal and the eternal? What is it other than love, which therefore is before everything else and remains when all else is past. But just because love is the bond of the eternal and just because the temporal and the eternal are heterogeneous, to the earthly prudence of temporality love may seem to be a burden, and therefore in the temporal world it may seem a great relief to the sensualist to cast this bond of eternity away.
One who is self-deceived thinks, of course, that he is able to console himself, yes, to have more than conquered; a fool's conceit hides for him how inconsolable his life is. That he " has ceased sorrowing " we will not deny, but, nevertheless, what gain is this when salvation consists precisely in his beginning to sorrow earnestly over himself! Perhaps one who is self-deceived even thinks he is able to console others, who would become a sacrifice to the deceit of perfidy; but what madness, when he who himself has lost the eternal wants to heal him who is at the extremity of sickness unto death. Perhaps the self-deceived, by an odd self-contradiction, even thinks he is being sympathetic with one who is unhappily deceived. But if you scrutinise his comforting words and healing wisdom, you will know love by its fruits-by the bitterness of mockery, by the sharpness of "good sense," by the poisonous spirit of distrust, by the penetrating chill of callousness-that is, by the fruits it will be known that there is no love in this kind of sympathy.
By its fruits one recognises the tree. " Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles? " (Matthew 7: 16). If you expect to gather them there, you will not only pick in vain but the thorns will show you that you pick in vain. For every tree is recognised by its OWN fruit. It may well be that there are two fruits which very closely resemble each other; the one is healthful and good-tasting, the other is bitter and poisonous; sometimes, too, the poisonous fruit is goodtasting and the healthful fruit somewhat bitter in taste. In the same way love also is known by its own fruit. If one makes a mistake, it must be either because one does not know the fruit or because one does not know how to discriminate rightly in particular instances..
Continues...
Excerpted from Works of Loveby Soren Kierkegaard Copyright © 2009 by Soren Kierkegaard. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Perennial Modern Classics; unknown edition (March 10, 2009)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 400 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0061713279
- ISBN-13 : 978-0061713279
- Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.9 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #77,218 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #35 in Existentialist Philosophy
- #168 in Religious Philosophy (Books)
- #322 in Philosophy of Ethics & Morality
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855) was a 19th century Danish philosopher and theologian, generally recognized as the first existentialist philosopher.
Photo by Neils Christian Kierkegaard [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons.
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- Reviewed in the United States on April 26, 2013In his genius Kierkegaard wants us to know that by "works of love" he is describing the rigor of being a loving Christian. Kierkegaard advises that God wants us to love our neighbors, which Kierkegaard considers God's "royal law." Kierkegaard stresses this point three times with the emphasis on three different points: YOU shall love your neighbor. You SHALL LOVE your neighbor. You shall love YOUR NEIGHBOR. But who is your neighbor? Your neighbor is anyone whom you see. Your neighbor lives next to you. He is a homeless man in the street. Your neighbor collectively is humanity. So how shall we love our neighbor? Kierkegaard believes that in his words: "Love builds up." By this he means that love is a constructive spiritual force working for humanity in our universe. The opposite of love tears down, deconstructs and destroys. So a loving person builds up his neighbor and in doing so strengthens both himself and his neighbor, as well as their community. This continuous method of conducting yourself every day in the best interests of your neighbor may be considered "eccentric" by many of your neighbors. You are expected by your neighbors always to act of out of self-interest. But it is by conducting yourself as a loving person by acting in the best interest of others that you achieve integrity and integrity has a positive power of its own. Through self-renunciation one gives up oneself to gain one's own soul -- very gnostic. K. says that we should, however, not conduct ourselves with love with the expectation that it will be reciprocated because then this act of love simply becomes another expression of self-interest. "Love seeks not its own," he advises us. Kierkegaard says that love believes all things and yet is never deceived. We are not deceived by our works of love because an omniscient God sees them and expects them no matter what other people may think. This is the height of understanding and can never be perceived as leaving you a victim of deception because God is love and God knows what you're doing when you love your neighbor: an omniscient God cannot be deceived. Love hides the multiplicity of sin. This recognizes that sin has a natural tendency to have a multiplying effect on other people, including you. But you do not need to add to the effects of a sin. You often have an opportunity to prevent its damage from multiplying and spreading to create more damage. When a loving person sees an opportunity to keep sin from multiplying he or she can seek to prevent its multiplicity. How? You can through your own love offer forgiveness. Kierkegaard writes: "Christianity's view is: forgiveness is forgiveness; your forgiveness is your forgiveness; your forgiveness of another is your own forgiveness: the forgiveness that you give you also receive... If honestly before God you wholeheartedly forgive your enemy, then you dare to hope for your own forgiveness." You can also prevent the multiplicity of sin through your own love when you offer mercy. You can act through love not to make matters worse. If you are a victor over an adversary, then you can build up your adversary. When you love your adversary in this way, then you construct a bridge for both of you to build up an enduring relationship based upon love. Is there a neighbor whom you cannot love or forgive or offer mercy? If so, why is that so? Perhaps, you harbor illusions about why you consider that neighbor unworthy of your love, forgiveness and mercy. Kierkegaard writes:" You can expect good from even the lowest fellow, for it is still possible that his baseness is an illusion." As a homeless man, Kierkegaard knew this truth from his own experience. "Christianly understood, loving is loving the very person one sees." "Christian love teaches love of all men, unconditionally all." You can offer love, forgiveness and mercy to your neighbor because God is your omniscient partner, your co-worker, and God is love. Mercy and forgiveness are works of love. "They are the ways that love conducts itself." Rather than argue to God for self-interest "the lover who forgets himself is remembered by love. There is One who thinks of him in God and in this way it comes about that the lover gets what he gives." So is hope, which is to pray for the best possible result for your neighbor -- whose future is unseen and in jeopardy: this is the divine use of hope and it is a work of love. God knows what to do: leave God's business to God. Only a loving person hopes because hope is "a faith in the possibility of the good... Blessed is the man of faith: he believes what he cannot see. Blessed is the lover: he believes away what he can see." Kierkegaard advises that the work of love of remembering one who is dead is a work of the most unselfish love. A proof of human love is that it abides. When loves abides within you, then you know that you are experiencing love within the context of God's view of time. God's view of time is one that looks toward eternity: infinitising the moment. And "love is the flower of eternity." Love is the most powerful force on earth and "it is God who put love in man." Kierkegaard also wrote "Fear and Trembling" about the miraculous faith of Abraham when he understood that God wanted him to sacrifice his beloved son as a proof of faith. In his faith Abraham became father of three of the world's great religions. Kierkegaard quotes Paul on love in 1st Corinthians: 13 - "Love is patient...Love does not insist on its own way... Love does not rejoice at wrong... Love bears all things. Love believes all things... Love hopes all things... Love endures all things." God is love. "Beloved, let us love one another." Because to love human beings is still the only thing worth living for.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 19, 2022This is my second Kierkegaard read, after Fear and Trembling. I was pleased to find a lot of similarities between these two works: SK's humor, pathos, and meticulous logic carried over into Works of Love. As in F&T, SK begins with a brief scripture passage that he analyzes in minute detail and from which he extracts a complex framework of psychological and spiritual reasoning. This style perhaps does not make for the best exegesis (SK pays little heed to context or authorial intent), but it shows his deep reverence for God and his desire to make all of his philosophy essentially spiritual in nature.
Readers should be aware that this book is not primarily intellectual but rather spiritual and emotional in nature. SK's logic is complex, to be sure, and his sentences often difficult to untangle, but the time it takes to digest his lines of reasoning is well worth the result. I cannot emphasize enough that this book is profoundly Christian in nature, and that anyone approaching it either unfamiliar with or opposed to Christianity will find it utterly unendurable. That being said, pious Christians reading WoL might find it jarring for SK's radical critique of self-righteous, surface-level religion. You should prepare to be challenged in all of your assumptions and have your heart changed.
With regard to this particular edition, readers should be aware that the translation (despite the modern-looking cover) is about eighty years old, so the prose will sound slightly dated and the scholarship (if you're that kind of person) behind the times. The translation is slightly choppy in parts, but is aided by helpful endnotes that tie into other works by Kierkegaard and explain the numerous literary, philosophical, and cultural allusions that Kierkegaard makes. In a few places, literary devices that are apparent in the original Danish but do not easily come across in translation are clarified by the Danish being put in brackets alongside their English equivalents.
- Reviewed in the United States on August 16, 2013"Works of Love" is argument-driven and therefore fits well into our modern day back-and-forth between secular and religious perspectives. Kierkegaard's position is simple: Love itself is a hidden in the lives and actions of individuals, and therefore much of our rhetoric about love is superficial and selfish. As a prescription, Kierkegaard argues that the Christian God is essential to understanding and realizing love - just as love is hidden, so to is God, and finding one is entangled with finding the other.
Kierkegaard's arguments are more compelling and thoughtful Christian argument than modern readers are used to (though they are not targeted to atheists and do not deal with scientific materialism). Kierkegaard rewards non-Christian readers by taking the Christian directive "love your neighbor as yourself" and examining it. He does not "preach" and no one can confuse his writing with a sermon. This is basically applied philosophy, with a emphatic emphasis on how one should live and what that way of living means. Kierkegaard covers topics like remembering the dead, dealing with strangers (neighbors), and most poignantly dealing with one's self.
The most striking claim, in my mind, was Kierkegaard's argument that one has to love oneself first before one can love another ("as yourself"). Properly loving one's self is a major topic for casual and intellectual readers alike in today's carnivals of self-help carnivals and ethical-carousels. The writing and conceptual depth of this book reward the reader with a coherent argument for Christian love. Agreeing with Kierkegaard is not required, but thinking is.
- Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2024Love Kierkegaard's sly, dry sense of humor. This one gets a reread at some point.
Top reviews from other countries
- ArulReviewed in India on May 19, 2023
5.0 out of 5 stars A book to Cherish
Was looking for this book for a long time!
This was my Ph.D research subject and was wanting to own one!!
- RodrigoReviewed in Mexico on December 25, 2020
4.0 out of 5 stars Book is phenomenal, but be careful with the material
The book content i.e. Kierkegaard's work (and the foreword), is phenomenal, but the book quality itself (the paper, cover, etc) is not the best quality and one has to take care of it. Very easy to damage the book, in fact, it came somewhat damaged already when I received it, but I don't blame amazon for that.
- Akinola BensonReviewed in Germany on September 18, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Lovely Book. Nice quality
Nice book. Really like the paper back and quality. Delivered on time
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Michael GordyReviewed in France on July 8, 2019
5.0 out of 5 stars Bonne service
Bonne service. Produit confrm.
- BudReviewed in Canada on July 22, 2017
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
slogging to get through.