Warning! Here you will find a person of limited intelligence commenting on the writings of a burning genius. Consider yourself warned.

Kierkegaard is considered the father of existentialism. In a word, if I understand it correctly (and who really does understand existentialism?), this means that he was the first philosopher to incorporate into his philosophy the idea that life is happening right now, and cannot be treated like a static thing. Kierkegaard is a meticulous thinker who is both subtle and bold. He knows how to take a preconception and worry it to death with the tenacity of a pit bull. I admire him and have learned a great deal from reading his book.

However, I have multiple criticisms of his ideas. I won't say that I hate or dislike him or his philosophy. (It would be ironic to say that about someone who writes a tome on love). But if I met him in person, I think I would experience a strong desire to punch him in the nose, lovingly. Here's why:

1. He is a Christian exclusivist to the point of idolatry
2. He embraces a divine-command meta-ethic. I don't have a problem with revelation, but I do have a problem with people who pretend to understand the mind of God. If revelation alone were enough, then why did God give us reason? This type of moral framework has been used, historically and in the present, to justify all kinds of atrocity. The recent waves of violence coming from the Islamic fundamentalists is based in divine-command meta-ethic. Kierkegaard's idea of the "teleological suspension of the ethical" (in Fear and Trembling) is truly horrific.
3. A puritanical rejection of art
4. He proposes to replace human nature with an artificial ideal, just like communism does. He is the communist of love. I think his ideas would work about as well in real life as political communism does.
5. The ideal of love he proposes seems hellish to me: everything not forbidden is compulsory
6. He makes the same mistake as the poets he criticizes: championing one idea of love and denigrating others.
7. By championing an impossible ideal that is contrary to human nature, he forces his followers to be hypocrites
8. He speaks in riddles, like the poets he criticizes. But he is much more prolix than a poet.
9. He is difficult to pin down to a point of view. His declarative statements have so many qualifications that his philosophy "dies the death of a thousand qualifications"
10. He seems to think that Christianity invented love, and makes no comment on love in other societies other than to dismiss them as "paganism" (um, Plato?) ( )

There is a 2009 ed by HarperCollins of this exact title.