Paper Topic:

Philosophy of Religion

Philosophy of Religion

Soren Kierkegaard : Types of Despair

Despair can be accounted for as the illness of the individual self According to the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard , to despair is not to acknowledge the determinateness and finitude of oneself ' or what is commonly termed as defiant or masculine despair or to refuse the freedom and agency that is essential to the self ' also known as despair of weakness or feminine despair . If we would try to read the passages in the Christian bible we would see that man had frequently been portrayed

br to be more aggressive and braver . Having a closer look , it can be assessed that this representation of man in Christian thought can be link to the fact that Christ is a male , or having the notion that the son of God is a man and this son of God is infinite and indeterminate Aside from that , the fact that the dominant or key characters in the bible are male characters , and these characters often posses great knowledge or great strength and great courage , it is inevitable for Christian men to think that they themselves can aspire and become greater than they already are

On the other hand , the women are often portrayed as traitors or slaves or someone who is weak , sensitive and ignorant , thus giving or rendering them a subjective character . Kierkegaard 's classification of feminine despair might be rooted in the supposition of women as subordinates or dependent . Women in the Christian way of thinking always need a man to defend her or to support her . Without a man , women are portrayed to be miserable and unfortunate

In my opinion , it is necessary to make a distinction between the two types of despair in able to show clearly how one differ from the other and to give the individual an overview of what kind of despair one is experiencing . Since one type of despair will not be resolve in the same manner that the other type of despair . However , it is not right to call this distinction as feminine and masculine , aside from making stereotypes , it is also not right to box an individual as plainly feminine or masculine since both types of despair can be experience by an individual or an individual may experience one type of despair early in life and another type of despair later on . It is not necessary in the sense that such distinction promotes repression on woman , if it would not be termed as masculine or feminine , then it necessary

References

Kierkegaard , Soren . The Sickness unto Death , New Jersey : Princeton University Press , 1941

Pattison , George , Kierkegaard : The Aesthetic and the Religious , London Macmillan , 1992

Pojman , Louis , The Logic of Subjectivity , University of Alabama Press 1984

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