VILLANOVA, PA -- Søren Kierkegaard is widely regarded as the founder of Christian psychology, existential psychology and therapy. His Socratic approach—with its focus on the individual—is still relevant today, and the past 25 years have yielded an abundance of new research on the Danish philosopher.
Historical Dictionary of Kierkegaard’s Philosophy, Second Edition (Lanham, MD; Rowman & Littlefield, 2022), a new book by Villanova University’s Christopher Barnett, PhD, professor of Theology and Religious Studies, reflects the renewed interest in Kierkegaard over the past quarter century and serves as a single-volume reference guide to all things Kierkegaard.
Designed to be a resource for students, researchers and anyone wanting to know more about the great Danish thinker, the entirely new dictionary—which follows a 2001 volume by a different author—chronicles Kierkegaard’s life and thoughts and offers an extensive scope, including a glossary of concepts, people and places related to Kierkegaard’s authorship.
“My goal, in short, was to produce a single-volume reference guide that would be a good introduction for those who are new to the field and—at the same time—serve as a handy reference guide to seasoned researchers who don’t want to dig through the mountains of research on Kierkegaard that have come out in the last few decades,” Dr. Barnett says.
The book is the latest volume on Kierkegaard by Dr. Barnett, whose scholarly interests also include Christian spirituality, German philosopher Martin Heidegger, the philosophy of technology, and the intersection of theology and culture.