Choice : interpreting kierkegaard's 'Either/Or'

• Main Author: Oh, Zenas Zhi Xiong
• Other Authors: Preston Huw Richards Greene
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Nanyang Technological University 2021
• Subjects: Humanities::Philosophy
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/153060
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

In Either/Or, Søren Kierkegaard explores the question ‘how should we live?’ through the aesthetic and the ethical spheres of existence. He wrote Either/Or in response to what he perceived as a loss of individuality and the essence of ‘being’ during a time of modernisation in Denmark. He framed his answer to the question as an ‘either/or’, but notably does not give a concrete summary. This paper aims to argue that Kierkegaard’s ‘either/or’ refers to making an inward, individual ‘choice’, and not of a ‘choice between’. The first interpretation refers to an individual living out her essence through the expression of choice, whilst the second refers to the individual living externally of herself and relinquishing her freedom. Kierkegaard’s answer is therefore to live via choice. This would be done by first analysing the context that Kierkegaard was writing in and appealing to the pseudonymous and contextual evidence. Then, his concept of the self and individual choice will be explored primarily through Either/Or, with relevant references to his other works. Lastly, the discourse The Lily of the Field and the Bird of the Air, which was published concurrently with the second edition of Either/Or, will be explored to further supplement the argument.