Our Purpose

The main purpose of Kierkegaard Without Borders, like that of its namesake Doctors Without Borders, is to share essential resources, without cost, to those who need them, especially those who live in countries where such resources are lacking or in short supply.

Here the parallel ends abruptly, however, since, whereas DWB offers medical resources of every kind, KWB’s scope is limited to providing scholarly resources that might aid the understanding of Søren Kierkegaard.

Kierkegaard’s heritage

Although when Kierkegaard died in 1855 at age 42, crippled and penniless, he left thirty-five published writings plus thousands of pages of unpublished papers, his works had only limited circulation during the nineteenth century.

The twentieth century was another matter altogether. Early in that century, major theologians, such as Barth, Bultmann, and Bonhoeffer, drew from Kierkegaard’s writings in their efforts to transform Protestant theology.

In one way or another, something similar is true for philosophy as well. The works of the early Heidegger and the early Sartre bear unmistakable Kierkegaardian markings, too, while the later Wittgenstein never tired of drawing attention to his debt to Kierkegaard.

For this reason, a person without familiarity with Kierkegaard’s ideas might well miss key factors underlying developments in contemporary theology and philosophy.