Abstract

The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, to provide an overview of the Kierkegaardian approach to history; second, to define in more details some of the main characteristics of his concept of history. Throughout the paper, my overall aim will be to demonstrate that Kierkegaard, although he never provides a complete theory or philosophy of history, nevertheless presents us with a concept of the nature of history. I refer to a ‘concept’ because I consider his thinking about history to constitute a coherent intellectual effort to describe and understand the nature of the historical. A concept is not a full-blown theory, but nor is it a mere rhapsody