Jamie Turnbull | St. Olaf College (original) (raw)
I'm currently working on turning my Ph.D. thesis into a monograph, the working title of which is: - Kierkegaard's Supernaturalism: Making Sense of the Project of Indirect Communication.
I'm also an editor of the Acta Kierkegaardiana project.
www.actakierkegaardiana.com
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Books by Jamie Turnbull
In the wake of the Enlightenment, Europe in the nineteenth century was left in a deep religious c... more In the wake of the Enlightenment, Europe in the nineteenth century was left in a deep religious crisis, which called into question most of the traditional Christian dogmas and beliefs. This volume begins by exploreing some of the debates that characterised this crisis, and the reaction of particular thinkers to it. It goes onto explore Kierkegaard’s conception and response to the religious crisis of his age. How, exactly, does Kierkegaard characterize the religious crisis of his age? How is his work intended to solve that crisis? Moreover, does the religious crisis of the nineteenth century bear any similarity to our own contemporary ethical and religious dilemmas? If so, what solution can Kierkegaard’s work provide to our problems?
The theme of this third volume of the Acta Kierkegaardiana project goes to the very heart of Kier... more The theme of this third volume of the Acta Kierkegaardiana project goes to the very heart of Kierkegaard’s thought. The papers collected in this volume are testimony to a continued interest in Kierkegaard’s thinking about Christianity, and the challenge that that thinking presents. The stand that we as commentators and readers take on Kierkegaard’s views about Christianity, and the issue of how those views stand to the rest of his thought, bears upon: who we think Kierkegaard is; the nature of his work; as well as what we conceive of ourselves to be doing when we engage in Kierkegaard scholarship and commentary. Any Kierkegaard scholar worth his or her metal is going to admit that Kierkegaard’s work has something to do with Christianity, the important question is: what? In exploring this question, the present volume casts new light on the work and thought on one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of philosophy.
Papers by Jamie Turnbull
This paper considers several recent attempts to account for the nature of Kierkegaard’s intellect... more This paper considers several recent attempts to account for the nature of Kierkegaard’s intellectual project: namely those proposed by postmodern, pragmatist, and Wittgensteinian commentators. I argue that each of these approaches fails to account for key claims Kierkegaard makes about his own project.
Talks by Jamie Turnbull
Despite his protestations to the contrary, Kierkegaard continues to be interpreted and labelled a... more Despite his protestations to the contrary, Kierkegaard continues to be interpreted and labelled a philosopher. This paper offers a brief sketch of Kierkegaard in his historical context, in which his thought appears as a defence of a theological supernaturalism against what he perceives to be the secular rationalism of his Hegelian inspired contemporaries. Essential to Kierkegaard’s position, so understood, is a realm of essential privacy: a place of faith and grace, beyond the linguistic, cognitive, and ratiocinatory capacities of human beings, in which the individual Christian believer comes into relationship with a transcendent God. The positing of such a realm of ineffabila is essential to Kierkegaard defence of faith against reason, Christianity and dogmatics from philosophy. Philosophy, as Kierkegaard was concerned to charge, can have no tract with such a notion. In this paper I shall argue that Kierkegaard is right in his claim that such a notion must remain alien to philosophy, with the result that Kierkegaard is not a philosopher - nor his work of significance to philosophy.
Søren Kierkegaard has, and continues to be, portrayed in numerous ways: as, amongst other things,... more Søren Kierkegaard has, and continues to be, portrayed in numerous ways: as, amongst other things, a postmodernist, an existentialist, a phenomenologist, a pragmatist, a Wittgensteinian, a virtue ethicist, and a moral religious psychologist. Despite this the question of Kierkegaard’s method, what he terms ‘indirect communication’, has been relatively little explored. Starting from several key claims Kierkegaard makes about his project, this paper considers three contemporary portraits of Kierkegaard: Roger Poole’s picture of Kierkegaard as a postmodernist; Peter J. Mehl’s sketch of Kierkegaard as a pragmatist; and James Conant’s depiction of Kierkegaard as a Wittgensteinian. Each of these characterisations, I argue, fails to adequately account for the key claims Kierkegaard makes about his method. Finally, I suggest that conceiving of Kierkegaard’s project as one of divine communication can provide us with a way of taking Kierkegaard’s key claims both seriously and consistently.
In the wake of the Enlightenment, Europe in the nineteenth century was left in a deep religious c... more In the wake of the Enlightenment, Europe in the nineteenth century was left in a deep religious crisis, which called into question most of the traditional Christian dogmas and beliefs. This volume begins by exploreing some of the debates that characterised this crisis, and the reaction of particular thinkers to it. It goes onto explore Kierkegaard’s conception and response to the religious crisis of his age. How, exactly, does Kierkegaard characterize the religious crisis of his age? How is his work intended to solve that crisis? Moreover, does the religious crisis of the nineteenth century bear any similarity to our own contemporary ethical and religious dilemmas? If so, what solution can Kierkegaard’s work provide to our problems?
The theme of this third volume of the Acta Kierkegaardiana project goes to the very heart of Kier... more The theme of this third volume of the Acta Kierkegaardiana project goes to the very heart of Kierkegaard’s thought. The papers collected in this volume are testimony to a continued interest in Kierkegaard’s thinking about Christianity, and the challenge that that thinking presents. The stand that we as commentators and readers take on Kierkegaard’s views about Christianity, and the issue of how those views stand to the rest of his thought, bears upon: who we think Kierkegaard is; the nature of his work; as well as what we conceive of ourselves to be doing when we engage in Kierkegaard scholarship and commentary. Any Kierkegaard scholar worth his or her metal is going to admit that Kierkegaard’s work has something to do with Christianity, the important question is: what? In exploring this question, the present volume casts new light on the work and thought on one of the most enigmatic figures in the history of philosophy.
This paper considers several recent attempts to account for the nature of Kierkegaard’s intellect... more This paper considers several recent attempts to account for the nature of Kierkegaard’s intellectual project: namely those proposed by postmodern, pragmatist, and Wittgensteinian commentators. I argue that each of these approaches fails to account for key claims Kierkegaard makes about his own project.
Despite his protestations to the contrary, Kierkegaard continues to be interpreted and labelled a... more Despite his protestations to the contrary, Kierkegaard continues to be interpreted and labelled a philosopher. This paper offers a brief sketch of Kierkegaard in his historical context, in which his thought appears as a defence of a theological supernaturalism against what he perceives to be the secular rationalism of his Hegelian inspired contemporaries. Essential to Kierkegaard’s position, so understood, is a realm of essential privacy: a place of faith and grace, beyond the linguistic, cognitive, and ratiocinatory capacities of human beings, in which the individual Christian believer comes into relationship with a transcendent God. The positing of such a realm of ineffabila is essential to Kierkegaard defence of faith against reason, Christianity and dogmatics from philosophy. Philosophy, as Kierkegaard was concerned to charge, can have no tract with such a notion. In this paper I shall argue that Kierkegaard is right in his claim that such a notion must remain alien to philosophy, with the result that Kierkegaard is not a philosopher - nor his work of significance to philosophy.
Søren Kierkegaard has, and continues to be, portrayed in numerous ways: as, amongst other things,... more Søren Kierkegaard has, and continues to be, portrayed in numerous ways: as, amongst other things, a postmodernist, an existentialist, a phenomenologist, a pragmatist, a Wittgensteinian, a virtue ethicist, and a moral religious psychologist. Despite this the question of Kierkegaard’s method, what he terms ‘indirect communication’, has been relatively little explored. Starting from several key claims Kierkegaard makes about his project, this paper considers three contemporary portraits of Kierkegaard: Roger Poole’s picture of Kierkegaard as a postmodernist; Peter J. Mehl’s sketch of Kierkegaard as a pragmatist; and James Conant’s depiction of Kierkegaard as a Wittgensteinian. Each of these characterisations, I argue, fails to adequately account for the key claims Kierkegaard makes about his method. Finally, I suggest that conceiving of Kierkegaard’s project as one of divine communication can provide us with a way of taking Kierkegaard’s key claims both seriously and consistently.