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Rating: 
Summary: take the leap
Review: Along with Nietzsche's The Gay Science, this book had the most impact on me of any philosophy books I have ever read. For those who find themselves running around in cirles looking for objective proof of this or that, Climacus (Kierkegaard) insists you are just wading out into the sea of life. Take the leap onto 70,000 fathoms of roaring ocean! Live!After Hegel's reduction of the individual to a cog in the grumbling historical machine, it is refreshing to read of the individual and the individuals concerns. As mentioned, Climacus ridicules objectivity and focuses the reader in on subjective truth, encouraging us to be authentic and take responsiblity for life. Christian or non-Christian alike, this book will challange the reader in many ways. It was a major influence on existentialist and Continental thought for a good reason. Unconditionally recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Be Warned!!
Review: Be warned! The Princeton edition of this book comes in two volumes. Volume 1 is just the body of text to Kierkegaard's book. There is no historical introduction in the first volume, just Kierkegaard's satirical introduction that was intended for the original book. The historical introduction and scholarly apparatus are in the second volume. If the reader does not wish to inquire beyond Kierkegaard's text, he need not worry, the second volume is for the person who did not find Kierkegaard mind numbing enough and sees need to go behind the text. I am one of those kind of people, but you might not be.
Rating:
Summary: Be Warned!!
Review: Be warned! The Princeton edition of this book comes in two volumes. Volume 1 is just the body of text to Kierkegaard's book. There is no historical introduction in the first volume, just Kierkegaard's satirical introduction that was intended for the original book. The historical introduction and scholarly apparatus are in the second volume. If the reader does not wish to inquire beyond Kierkegaard's text, he need not worry, the second volume is for the person who did not find Kierkegaard mind numbing enough and sees need to go behind the text. I am one of those kind of people, but you might not be.
Rating:
Summary: A monumental work
Review: This is Kierkegaard's most important work - the real meat of his writings. It is more difficult then most of his works and should be approached with caution, but it is absolutely essential to achieve a full understanding of Kierkegaard. Keep in mind that _Concluding Unscientific Postscript_ was originally written under the pseudonym of Johannes Climacus, the sceptical and pessimistic alter ego of the real Kierkegaard. Not to spoil the surprise, but in reading this book you should remember that much of what is being said is contradictory to Kierkegaard's real beliefs. In my experience reading this book, I only began to realize this gradually. This is because not EVERYTHING in this book is antithetical or diametrically opposed to Kierkegaard's real views; only portions of it are antithetical. Kierkegaard truly engages and challenges the reader by exposing views that make sense at first, but then after letting Climacus get riled up, his rantings and ravings become increasingly illogical and pessimistic. The challenge consists in discovering where the real Kierkegaard leaves off, and where the pseudonymous Johannes Climacus picks up. The reader must constantly be on alert for antithetical and contradictory statements, and must approach this book with a highly critical mindset. The end result is one of the most fantastically thought-provoking, creative, original, and entertaining books you will ever read. By forcing the reader to take this critical approach, Kierkegaard gives us an opportunity to formulate and fortify our individual beliefs in contradistinction to those of Climacus, forcing us to truly think for ourselves. The reader is bombarded with profound philosophical statements which are oten true and sensible, and can be proven consitsent with Kierkegaard's real beliefs. But sandwiched between these logical statements, Climacus will say something so off the wall that the reader must subject these statements to a critical re-evaluation. This is what makes the _Postscript_ such a profoundly thought-provoking and personally enriching experience. One more thing to consider before you read this book: As I said, this book was written under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. To fully understand the inner workings of this character, you must also read _Philosophical Fragments/Johannes Climacus_, which is the precursor to _Concluding Unscientific Postscript_. This first book helps the reader understand the pseudonymous and sometimes antithetical beliefs held by Kierkegaard's neurotic alter-ego. Taken together, the _Johannes Climacus/Philosophical Fragments/ Conlcuding Unscientific Postscript_ series is the be-all end-all philosophical work of the 19th century. It is a monumental achievement of epic proportions and will go down in history as the most important and profound work of literature to come out of Europe during that time period.
Rating:
Summary: A monumental work
Review: This is Kierkegaard's most important work - the real meat of his writings. It is more difficult then most of his works and should be approached with caution, but it is absolutely essential to achieve a full understanding of Kierkegaard. Keep in mind that _Concluding Unscientific Postscript_ was originally written under the pseudonym of Johannes Climacus, the sceptical and pessimistic alter ego of the real Kierkegaard. Not to spoil the surprise, but in reading this book you should remember that much of what is being said is contradictory to Kierkegaard's real beliefs. In my experience reading this book, I only began to realize this gradually. This is because not EVERYTHING in this book is antithetical or diametrically opposed to Kierkegaard's real views; only portions of it are antithetical. Kierkegaard truly engages and challenges the reader by exposing views that make sense at first, but then after letting Climacus get riled up, his rantings and ravings become increasingly illogical and pessimistic. The challenge consists in discovering where the real Kierkegaard leaves off, and where the pseudonymous Johannes Climacus picks up. The reader must constantly be on alert for antithetical and contradictory statements, and must approach this book with a highly critical mindset. The end result is one of the most fantastically thought-provoking, creative, original, and entertaining books you will ever read. By forcing the reader to take this critical approach, Kierkegaard gives us an opportunity to formulate and fortify our individual beliefs in contradistinction to those of Climacus, forcing us to truly think for ourselves. The reader is bombarded with profound philosophical statements which are oten true and sensible, and can be proven consitsent with Kierkegaard's real beliefs. But sandwiched between these logical statements, Climacus will say something so off the wall that the reader must subject these statements to a critical re-evaluation. This is what makes the _Postscript_ such a profoundly thought-provoking and personally enriching experience. One more thing to consider before you read this book: As I said, this book was written under the pseudonym Johannes Climacus. To fully understand the inner workings of this character, you must also read _Philosophical Fragments/Johannes Climacus_, which is the precursor to _Concluding Unscientific Postscript_. This first book helps the reader understand the pseudonymous and sometimes antithetical beliefs held by Kierkegaard's neurotic alter-ego. Taken together, the _Johannes Climacus/Philosophical Fragments/ Conlcuding Unscientific Postscript_ series is the be-all end-all philosophical work of the 19th century. It is a monumental achievement of epic proportions and will go down in history as the most important and profound work of literature to come out of Europe during that time period.
Rating:
Summary: A comic tour de force
Review: To begin with, the title is a joke. This is the in keeping with the putative author of the piece. Johannes Climacus (who is named for the Seventh Century Hermit and Monk, St. John Climacus) is a humorist. A humorist, as he will point out, is someone on edge of becoming religious, but is not yet religious and, in fact, may never become religious. That being said, back to the title. "Concluding," as is obvious, implies that SK intended this to be his last book (in a separate declaration published with the book he acknowledges all the previous pseudonyms with the proviso that no one should quote him directly unless it is from a book that bears his name as author and claims that he has no privileged access to the pseudonyms than any other reader). However, as the result of a religious conversion after it's publication, it became the middle child of his authorship, recapitulating all that had come before and pointing forward toward new things yet to be imagined. "Unscientific" is a dig at Hegel. If one wishes to over-simplify one may say that SK's position is Either/Or: Either there is a God and the world actually means something, Or there is no God and the world is absurd, meaningless and accidental. Hegel abolished God and attempted to find meaning in historical process. This is the "science" for which SK has such contempt. For this reason, SK refuses to call himself a philosopher, content to call himself a "poet." If a fraud like Hegel is a philosopher, then he wants no part of the designation. "Postscript" is where the joke comes in. This book is a "Postscript to the Philosophical Fragments." The "Philosophical Fragments" is, therefore, a 100 page book with a 600 page postscript attached (that's the joke ha ha) Of all of SK's books this is my favorite. It is his funniest and either you keep your eye carefully peeled or you will miss a joke (the first time you read it you will miss hundreds of them). And in typical SK fashion the more he jokes the more deadly serious he is (by the end he is claiming the book, in its entirety, is a joke). The central distinction is between our ideas about things and the things themselves. If you have any trouble, there is always Merold Westphal's "Becoming a Self," a good commentary. The only problem is that he probably takes SK more seriously than SK would be comfortable with. That's not necessarily a good thing. You lose too many good jokes in the process.
Rating: 
Summary: On the conception of Kierkegaard' EITHER/OR
Review: To the top 1000 reviewer. Yes, Kierkegaard's conception of the world can be simplified (if you try VERY very hard) into an EITER/OR, but even then, you missed some of the irony of the position. The original conception of EITHER/OR was between the aesthetic and the ethical, and only later did he develop the religious. Of course, I am not so dimwitted as to say that the religious is a synthesis of aesthetic and ethical, in fact there is in Kierkegaard no pendulum motion between the ethical back to the religious, but to him only a farther upward motion. The characterization of Kierkegaard's response to Hegel is misinformed because Hegel himself believed that the historical processes, once resolved, the movement of humanity was toward God. There was a directed upward motion in the dialectic that pointed to God. What Hegel was positing, therefore was that the dialectic was scientific (and therefore the scientific logic could no longer be classified as an either/or, but as a both/and, which makes the Kierkegaard's titleling all the more ironic) and objective, and by extension, God too is objective, at least to the extent that 'God' was the deus ex machinia of the system. What Kierkegaard posits instead is that the world is absurd, and real meaning is subjective. Therefore, if the subjective is taken out of god, then the absurdity of life was meaningless, but with the restoration of the absurd to God, there was at least a teleologic to the absurdity of human existence which may or may not redeem it. (See Fear and Trembling). Of course, this coming from the atheist/ironist/pseud-nietzschean-romantic who believes that Kierkegaard made a big mistake turning away from Lucinde in Irony and in turning away from Regine in life. However, Kierkegaard is absolutely necessary, as much to the trembling christian as to the laughing aesthete. However, this should not be your first Kierkegaard book. (The title alone should tell you that, but in fact, you miss a lot of The Philosophical Fragments if you miss The Concept of Irony. Start there.). Also, I hereby disclaim any references to the 'God' word i just made, including this sentence.
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