Either/Or: A Fragment of Life

The papers of a mysterious A. contain a defence of the aesthetic life — of irony, pleasure, and the refusal of commitment. The papers of a judge named Wilhelm contain a counterargument: the ethical life, defined by choice, duty, and the willingness to be who you are. Neither author is Kierkegaard. Both are his creations. And he refuses to choose between them.

Published in 1843 under a pseudonym, with a preface claiming to be the record of papers found in a secretary desk, Either/Or is the founding document of existentialism — and one of the most extraordinary formal experiments in the history of philosophy. Kierkegaard’s method — using fictional authors to present opposing positions, then stepping back to let the reader choose — is itself a philosophical argument: that existential truth cannot be communicated directly, only indirectly, through the experience of choosing.

The ‘Diary of a Seducer’, which appears in the aesthetic papers, is one of literature’s most disturbing and brilliant extended pieces of first-person fiction. Alastair Hannay’s translation is the standard English text. Published by Penguin Classics.