Fear and Trembling

Soren Kierkegaard

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Study Questions

Fear and Trembling is subtitled "Dialectical Lyric." What is the significance of this subtitle?


What is the significance of the name "Johannes de Silentio"?


Who wants to "go further" than faith? Why is Johannes opposed to this position?


What is the differences between the aesthetic and the religious? What are the similarities?

What reasons does Johannes give to suggest that there is a teleological suspension of the ethical? Are his reasons convincing?

What is the "paradox" that is so central to Johannes' account of faith?

Unpack the concept of repetition. What does that term mean, and what is its relation to mediation and recollection?

What does it mean to say that the ethical is the universal?

What is the significance of the passage about Agnes and the merman? What are we supposed to draw from it?

What purpose does the Exordium hold in the overall direction of the text?

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