"The Logic of Contemporaneity: Kierkegaard's Philosophy of History"

Unlike many of his contemporaries, Søren Kierkegaard firmly rejected the idea of progress. According to Kierkegaard's pseudonym Anti-Climacus, we humans are the same as we have always been. After reviewing Kierkegaard's explicit comments about history, this paper sets Kierkegaard's denial of progress in its historical context, arguing that he develops a counter-philosophy of history which combats the prevailing Hegelianism of his age. The paper also draws connections between Kierkegaard's philosophy of history and the themes of imitation and contemporaneity, showing how a denial of history’s progress enables contemporary humans to interact with the same world Christ faced. Kierkegaard's understanding of contemporaneity--which is crucial to his Christology, his ethics, and his critique of Christendom--is built upon his philosophy of history.