I learned much about Kierkegaard in the course Kierkegaard and Socratic Irony. I read Fear and Trembling and Sickness Unto Death in mid-1977 and hadn't a clue about Socratic irony. I viewed Kierkegaard as a Christian writer somewhat like an isolated individual, maybe something like a westernized Dostoyevsky, though purely philosophically and religiously driven.
It was interesting learning more about the Romantics and Hegel and the way they viewed social reality. Themes in philosophy from the era continued to evolve through various forms, though with the amount of writing people besides professional philosphers, and even many of them, might easily overlook or forget particulars of the content.
The contrast of social viewpoints of Kierkegaard and Nietzche's philosopher of the eternal recurrence; Zarathustra, are interesting. Without understanding what Socratic irony meant to Kierkegaard and the way he regarded society in its unexamined life of somnulence it would be difficult to contrast that with Nietzche's summary dismissal of the masses as metaphysically unaware sheep in order to see the differences.
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