Kierkegaard - The Leap of Faith

Søren Kierkegaard (1813–1855) hated Hegel. Hegel built a massive "System" where individual people were just tiny cogs in history. Kierkegaard said: "What about me? What about my anxiety?"

Kierkegaard argued that objective facts (like math or history) don't matter for the most important questions (like "Does God exist?" or "How should I live?"). For these, Truth is Subjectivity. It's not about what you believe, but how you believe it (with passion and commitment).

He analyzed the story of Abraham being asked to sacrifice Isaac. It makes no sense ethically. It's crazy. But Abraham did it anyway. He took a Leap of Faith into the Absurd.

Faith isn't "thinking God probably exists." Faith is "knowing it's absurd and choosing to believe anyway." It requires infinite risk.

Kierkegaard was the poet of Anxiety. He saw it as the "dizziness of freedom." We are anxious because we realize we are free to do anything, and we are responsible for it.

He is the grandfather of Existentialism. He shifted the focus back to the individual's subjective experience.

Next, the most difficult philosopher of the 20th century: Heidegger.