This volume contains a new translation, with a historical introduction
by the translators, of two works written under the pseudonym Johannes
Climacus. Through Climacus, Kierkegaard contrasts the paradoxes of
Christianity with Greek and modern philosophical thinking. In
Philosophical Fragments he begins with Greek Platonic philosophy,
exploring the implications of venturing beyond the Socratic
understanding of truth acquired through recollection to the Christian
experience of acquiring truth through grace. Published in 1844 and not
originally planned to appear under the pseudonym Climacus, the book
varies in tone and substance from the other works so attributed, but it
is dialectically related to them, as well as to the other pseudonymous
writings.
The central issue of Johannes Climacus is doubt. Probably written
between November 1842 and April 1843 but unfinished and published only
posthumously, this book was described by Kierkegaard as an attack on
modern speculative philosophy by "means of the melancholy irony, which
did not consist in any single utterance on the part of Johannes Climacus
but in his whole life. . . . Johannes does what we are told to do--he
actually doubts everything--he suffers through all the pain of doing
that, becomes cunning, almost acquires a bad conscience. When he has
gone as far in that direction as he can go and wants to come back, he
cannot do so. . . . Now he despairs, his life is wasted, his youth is
spent in these deliberations. Life does not acquire any meaning for him,
and all this is the fault of philosophy." A note by Kierkegaard suggests
how he might have finished the work: "Doubt is conquered not by the
system but by faith, just as it is faith that has brought doubt into the
world!."