The work examines the presence and significance of Kierkegaard in Heidegger's work. After setting out the context of Heidegger's reception of the Danish thinker and examining his likely knowledge of his writings, the work first examines key Kierkegaardian concepts that are explicitly present in Being and Time, including existence, 'idle talk' (Gerede), anxiety, the moment of vision, repetition, and the existential significance of death. It is seen that Heidegger regarded Kierkegaard as an ...

A Rhetorics of the Word is the second volume of a three-part philosophy of Christian life. It approaches Christian life as expressive of a divine calling or vocation. The word Church (ekklesia) and the role of naming in baptism indicate the fundamental place of calling in Christian life. However, ideas of vocation are difficult to access in a world shaped by the experience of disenchantment. The difficulties of articulating vocation are explored with reference to Weber, Heidegger,...

This study shows how Kierkegaard's mature theological writings reflect his engagement with the wide range of theological positions which he encountered as a student, including German and Danish Romanticism, Hegelianism and the writings of Fichte and Schleiermacher. George Pattison draws on both major and lesser-known works to show the complexity and nuances of Kierkegaard's theological position, which remained closer to Schleiermacher's affirmation of religion as a 'feeling of absolute dep...

As the third part of a philosophy of Christian life, A Metaphysics of Love builds on a view of Christian life as shaped by the dynamic of call, response, and promise. It argues that love is the ultimate content of this dynamic and considers how far this claim extends. Taking its bearings from Dante's vision of divine love as 'the power that moves the sun and other stars', this study explores the requirement that love is both human and cosmic, uniting being and beings. Cognizant of...

This book examines the question of death in the light of Heidegger's paradigmatic discussion in Being and Time. Although Heidegger's own treatment deliberately refrains from engaging theological perspectives, George Pattison suggests that these not only serve to bring out problematic elements in his own approach but also point to the larger human or anthropological issues in play. Pattison reveals where and how Heidegger and theology part ways but also how Heidegger can helpfully challenge...

Conversations with Dostoevsky presents a series of fictional conversations taking place between November 2018 and Spring 2019 in the narrator's Glasgow apartment and elsewhere in the city. At the beginning of the conversations, the narrator has been reading Dostoevsky's story A Gentle Spirit, which concludes with a dramatic statement of protest atheism. This statement suggests that love is not possible in a purely mechanical universe in which all living beings are condemned to dea...

George Pattison provides a bold and innovative reassessment of Kierkegaard's neglected Eighteen Upbuilding Discourses and reading of his work as a whole. The first full length assessment of the discourses in English, this volume will be essential reading for philosophers and theologians, and anyone interested in Kierkegaard and the history of philosophy.

A Phenomenology of the Devout Life is the first part of a three-part work, A Philosophy of Christian Life. Rather than approaching Christianity through its doctrinal statements, as philosophers of religion have often done, the book starts by offering a phenomenological description of the devout life as that is set out in the teaching of Francois de Sales and related authors. This is because for most Christians practice and life-commitments are more fundamental than formal...

Although the ideas of Soren Kierkegaard played a pivotal role in the shaping of mainstream German philosophy and the history of French existentialism, the question of how philosophers should read Kierkegaard is a difficult one to settle. His intransigent religiosity has led some philosophers to view him as essentially a religious thinker of a singularly anti-philosophical attitude who should be left to the theologians. In this major new survey of Kierkegaard's thought, George Pattison addr...

Martin Heidegger is one of the most controversial thinkers of the twentieth century. His writings are notoriously difficult: they both require and reward careful reading.The Later Heidegger introduces and accesses:* Heidegger's life and the background to his later works* The ideas and texts of some of his influential later works, including The Question concerning Technology, The Origin of the Work of Art, and What is Called Thinking?* ...

Paul Tillich's Philosophical Theology takes up the challenge as to whether his thought remains relevant fifty years after his death. In opposition to those who believe that his writings have little to say to us today, this book argues that his thought is largely exemplary of open theological engagement with the contemporary intellectual situation.

Rediscovered spiritual writings from "the most profound thinker of the 19th century" (Ludwig Wittgenstein)."The 'Kierkegaard' known to history is, in an important sense, not Kierkegaard at all. His true point of view is found in his religious writings." —George Pattison, from the ForewordIn this new collection, Oxford theologian George Pattison translates and selects Søren Kierkegaard's previously neglected writings on spirituality—works th...