Stages on Life's Way (Danish: Stadier På Livets Vej) is a philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard written in 1845. The book was written as a continuation of Kierkegaard's masterpiece Either/Or. While Either/Or is about the aesthetic and ethical realms, Stages continues onward to the consideration of the religious realms.
The book is divided rather sharply into sections, the first of which details in somewhat flowery terms a dinner party, whose at...
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Stages on Life's Way (Danish: Stadier På Livets Vej) is a philosophical work by Søren Kierkegaard written in 1845. The book was written as a continuation of Kierkegaard's masterpiece Either/Or. While Either/Or is about the aesthetic and ethical realms, Stages continues onward to the consideration of the religious realms.
The book is divided rather sharply into sections, the first of which details in somewhat flowery terms a dinner party, whose attendees are shown to be representative of various types of aesthete. Some of the attendees, additionally, are or may be identified with previous pseudonyms under which Kierkegaard has published, leading many to propose more complicated interpretations. In a conscious reference to Plato's Symposium, it is determined that each participant must give a speech, and that their topic shall be love. Tellingly for the reader, however, each account given is ultimately disheartening. The inexperienced young man, for example, considers it to be simply...
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